Culture Wars/Current Controversies

Christopher Rufo’s Big Campaign

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October 18, 2024
The conservative movement has always had its message men, storytellers, and propagandists — Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Steve Bannon — who could spin narratives that, at their most potent, became indistinguishable from reality in the minds of voters. But there has never been anyone quite like Christopher Rufo, as New York‘s Simon van Zuylen-Wood shows in this deft profile of the activist-journalist who has been the driving force behind a series of high-profile controversies in the last couple years, including a plagiarism exposé that helped topple Claudine Gay as president of Harvard. Unlike his forebears, Rufo is a reporter at heart, convinced that there is a trove of dirty secrets about Democratic politicians and other high-profile liberals just waiting to be unearthed. And this campaign season, he has set his sights far higher than a mere university president, going after Kamala Harris with a determination that might make Democrats nervous — but they’ll have to start taking him seriously first.
—Ryu Spaeth, features editor, New York
 

Christopher Rufo’s Big Campaign Can the conservative journalist-activist make a new counter-elite?
By Simon van Zuylen-Wood
Photo: Holly Andres for New York Magazine
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