I have seen some of their stuff around, it is recommended a lot for me when watching anything related to Ukraine. I first saw them in relation to the stuff that was happening with Gonzalo Lira, and because of that I’ve always assumed they weren’t worth taking that seriously. They were promoting Lira this dude known for red pill sexist bs and when I looked them up I saw they had a news app with a description talking about “traditional values” which was a huge red flag for me and I’ve ignored them since.
But today I go to watch The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong, and he had them on. I’m about 20 minutes in so far and honestly this has me interested in them. They’re covering that recent video of a EU official talking about how Europe is a “garden” and the global south, Russia, etc are “the jungle” and shit. Surprisingly to me the first response was one of the Duran guys talking against European supremacy and colonialism and the like and how they exploit the global South. I looked up Alexander Mercouris and the first article I see is about how Asia is the future and US empire is dying. Maybe it’s just me living in the US, but I’ve never heard a right winger talk like this. What do you guys think?
They are paleo conservatives.
They dislike the traditional right and liberals, and oppose interventionism. Simultaneously, they hold reactionary social views. On economics I haven’t heard them say much. Often times, they will mostly avoid social issues in their programs, and focus on mostly factual news—diplomatic, military, and economic.
I think the appeal for leftists is that they are ostensibly anti-imperialist, however they are still reactionary. In this regard though, they are still perhaps closer to criticizing capitalism accurately than some of the American “left”, since one of the most important elements of capitalism is imperialism.
In effect, it’s a bit like how a liberal might claim progressiveness on social issues, but be blind to imperialism. At the same time their social critique will be lacking and to various degrees superficial. Their critique of what we call imperialism is what might be called a critique of interventionism.
Accordingly, the Duran presents a view indirectly and sometimes directly critical of imperialism, which stems at least in part from the international relations theory that great powers weaken themselves when too interventionist. While they may not have a critique of capitalism in their analysis, they do cover both some of the internal rot in the imperial core, and present most of the critical developments of multi-polarization.
Since these developments are crucial, the Duran can be a decent source of news for some topics, on the condition that your familiar with their position. Perhaps since they have become increasingly resigned in support for the imperial core, and more supportive of anti-imperialist states for reasons other than ours, their content is more approachable for leftists.
Nonetheless, they are reactionary.
A good summary. A few points i would add:
First off the positives, they have been one of the most regular and thorough sources of news, commentary and analysis on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. They are pro-Russian but still quite objective. So far they seem to have been more or less correct. Also, for conservatives they have a surprisingly balanced view of China. Maybe this is due to their interaction with more knowledgeable people like Brian Berletic and Pepe Escobar, or maybe it’s just because they have an extreme skepticism toward any and all western mainstream media. They are advocates of the idea of a multipolar world but they come at it from a different direction than we communists do. They take more of a Dugin line on it and speak of “civilizational states”. As a result they also tend to have fairly decent views on Iran. They are also very anti-NATO and anti-EU.
As for the negatives, there are a lot of them. They are as you mentioned very socially reactionary, again in the vein of Dugin type traditionalism. Their economic views seem to be closest to something like Austrian school economics, very supply side oriented, against intervention in the markets, and tending to the fiscally conservative side that blames inflation on bad monetary policies like money printing and excessive spending. However they are not libertarians, they sometimes approve of state intervention and spending when necessary such as what Russia has done in response to the sanctions. Perhaps most disturbing are their views on energy, they are borderline climate change deniers and very against green/renewable energy and very pro fossil fuel. Finally they are antivaxers and they are like most conservatives nowadays obsessed with “globalism”, Klaus Schwab, the WEF, etc.
My recommendation: consume with extreme caution. Keep in mind they align politically very much with the right wing so-called “populist” camp of politicians in the US and Europe and that will be reflected in a lot of their commentary.