Interview: Ilana Mercer, part 1: Roots, writing, & resistance, By Dissident Mama on Friday, September 25, 2020.

I gave an interview to an up-and-coming young star, Dissident Mama, aka Rebecca Dillingham. She writes:

“It’s been a long time in the making, but here it is: the first installment of my two-part interview with the always provocative and poignant Ilana Mercer. Part 2 should be published on Monday. Keep your eyes wide open for that – it promises to be explosive!”

The tagline at Ilana Mercer’s website is “Verbal swordplay for civilization.” Ain’t that the truth. The self-described paleolibertarian has been wielding words and fighting the good fight since well before I even thought about fleeing the clutches of feminism-atheism-socialism. She’s both provocative and poignant – a difficult thing to pull off anytime, much less in our postmodern dystopia.

I remember first stumbling upon Mercer at World Net Daily back in my neocon “daze” in the early 2000s. I recall being moved by not only her tenacity, but her cerebral style. Being such a prolific essayist, I then found her articles during my libertarian/ancap phase. And again, her writing spoke to me. Now, I’m what you’d call a paleoconservative/Southern traditionalist, and yet, there she is again: writing articles that say things we all want to say but don’t know how, or planting seeds for new thinking.

Now, I don’t always agree with Mercer. I’d say she speaks my language on most matters, but that’s really not what draws me to her work. When you read Mercer, you know that she’s coming to her conclusions through principled inquiry, deep research, a passion for justice, and an impatience with the insanity. In other words, she’s rational but on fire!

And Mercer can see through so many of the charades. Perhaps this is due to her years of experience or because, as Jack Kerwick says, “Ilana is in much greater supply of that ‘manly virtue’ than are most male writers today.”

As Southern stalwart Dr. Clyde Wilson explains of Mercer, “This is one libertarian who knows that the market is wonderful, but it is not everything.” Intellectual honesty like that is hard to come by these days, and that’s why Mercer’s writing is so damn good: it’s fearless and succinct. Bold and challenging. Accessible and engrossing.

Moreover, anyone who’s forever banned from Facebook, pegged as a hater by the SPLC, and given accolades by everyone from Peter Brimelow and Vox Day, to Tom Woods and Paul Gottfried, well, they’re pretty cool in my book. Plus, Mercer has become what I would call a mentor and a friend. So, for those of you who don’t already know her, please meet the never-to-be-duplicated Ilana Mercer. And folks who are already familiar with her and her independent streak, get ready to have your socks knocked off.

MORE… Ilana Mercer, part 1: Roots, writing, & resistance, By Dissident Mama on Friday, September 25, 2020.