We started a retrospective on Tolkien’s rise to superstardom, which began with a left-wing movement in the 1970s appropriating his work and has slowly migrated over time to people realizing how right-wing and Christian Lord of the Rings is. Now, we continue.
“I’m a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.”
JD Vance said this on a podcast in 2021, three years before Donald Trump chose him as his running mate. Nobody outside conservative media noticed. Three years later, the sentence detonated.
