Something went horribly wrong when so-called “conservatives” embraced Andrew Tate, an unprincipled sybarite who once half-joked he has a “P.h.D.,” that is a “Pimping H**s Degree,” as a role model for young men. The real Andrew Tate—not post-prison Andrew Tate on his best behavior—is the antithesis of a conservative man; the antithesis of virtuous masculinity. If the general, right-wing interpretation of conservatism has somehow become compatible with Tate’s liberal lifestyle, then the general interpretation has strayed from its roots. We have lost the true meaning in exchange for a cheapened, prostituted conservatism.Over the past year, Andrew Tate’s notoriety has skyrocketed. Conservatives who look to him as an “exemplary” model of masculinity ignore that he has been arrested for human trafficking and accused of rape. They disregard that he made his money producing pornography and that he frequently employs genuinely misogynistic language. Andrew Tate is a bad person, plain and simple, and ours is the first generation of conservatives in American history that would even pretend not to see that. Before you rush to defend him (for whatever reason), meditate on that perturbing fact. At no other moment in the history of conservatism would a pimp like Andrew Tate have been let anywhere near ostensibly “conservative” circles. The very idea is ludicrous. So, how did an influencer so antithetical to traditional family values slink his way into the hearts of right-wingers? Well, like all good abusers, Tate knows how to put up a good front. He’s an expert, even serial gaslighter. He can say one thing one day and deny it the very next. He proudly boasts about his horrendous treatment of women on certain podcasts and then characterizes himself as a noble gentleman, the victim of an unfounded smear campaign, on another. It’s textbook gaslighting. SEE ALSO: Grant – A hero for diffident Gen Z men Those whose first introduction to Andrew Tate came in his viral, two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson last week—in which Tucker, like a poor journalist, let the accused criminal off the hook about many of the more problematic parts of his life—have only seen the white-washed version of Tate. They have not seen the abuser. They have seen the beloved “saint” who publicly brandishes his “virtues” even as his victims are spurned.To start, Tate claimed that he has only been charged with “recruiting girls to make TikTok videos.” In reality, the 36-year-old man has been charged with human trafficking, rape, and criminal distribution of pornographic material. He also denied that he has been accused of exerting physical violence, another lie. Although, at this point, we are only talking about criminal accusations, for anyone interested in the truth, Tate is already off to a bad start.But for the remainder of the interview, Tate never let up on the gaslighting, painting himself relentlessly as a more reasonable man than the “Matrix” made him out to be. But we need not rely on what the media says about him to see an ugly, anti-conservative man. His own words betray the real Andrew Tate. SEE ALSO: Fitness trends turning young men into Nazis, says MSNBC As much as he wants Tucker’s audience to believe that he is some sort of “TikTok” pimp, the real Andrew Tate once boasted, “OnlyFans [an adult porn site] is the best hustle in the world.”“I don’t mention webcam until after I’ve had sex with the girl,” he said in another interview. He specifically noted that most of his “girlfriends” initially object to being porn stars. Sometimes, he said, he has to get them drunk before they’re willing to “consent.” On another occasion, he said his “Pimping H**s Degree” program teaches “how I met girls, how I got girls to like me, how I got girls to fall in love with me, [and] work on webcam for me…. That’s how I got rich.” He bragged that customers “fell in love with my models” and would give almost anything to meet them in person. “I had these guys selling their houses, life savings, loans, all of it to me.”“I used sex as a tool to make women love me so they’d obey me and live in my house and make me money,” he shamelessly confessed, adding, “I was a pimp in that sense.”“My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she’s quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together.” In other words, he deftly utilized the “loverboy method” to tow young women into a system where he financially profited from merchandising their bodies online. From a conservative perspective, whether these women consented or not, such behavior is repugnant. This alone—unless he repents and mends his way—should forever disqualify Andrew Tate from the ranks of conservative stardom. SEE ALSO: Andrew Tate deserves no defense But you didn’t hear any of that in his interview with Tucker, now did you? Interesting.To be clear, I do not enjoy talking about this sick, abhorrent man. But thanks to Tucker’s shameful interview, many conservatives are buying into the “Andrew Tate is a victim” narrative. It’s an outright lie, and we must confront it. Yes, the left has a conspiracy against masculinity, but that does not mean we are obliged to defend those who abuse their masculinity to harm women. If anything, doing so discredits us. And at some point, we will become complicit. I would challenge all serious conservatives to reckon with who Andrew Tate really is. Either he is a liar who habitually jokes about abusing women, or he actually abuses women. Based solely on the evidence that Tate himself has given us, there can be no other options. Remember, I am not constructing my report on mere hearsay but on what Tate has openly said about himself. To those who say boys need masculine heroes like Andrew Tate, well… I agree that boys need heroes. But why does it have to be Tate? There are countless examples of virtuous men throughout history, and many alive today. If conservatives are reduced to filling that void with an execrable pimp simply because he’s “slightly more masculine” than the sort of man the left produces, we are in a tragic place, indeed.Jakob Fay is a staff writer for the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.
