Way back in 2001, good ol’ John “The Derb” Derbyshire wrote a column for National Review called “Hillary’s Style Crash.”  That was back in the days before NR kicked Derb to the curb for writing his controversial piece for Taki’s Mag “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” in which Derb dropped some unpleasant nuggets of wisdom.  That piece went up during the first round of the past decade’s worth of race riots, back before most of us realized it was mostly ginned up controversy.

Regardless, while I don’t agree with Derb’s race realism overall, he does offer up some remarkably insightful commentary.  His weekly podcast is often the highlight of my Saturday mornings, and he comes across as an intellectually curious, gentle man who sincerely cares about his adopted country.  His best commentary involves cultural matters, and that 2001 piece offers up a great insight:  conservative girls are prettier, but progressive girls are easier.

That’s not particularly groundbreaking.  If your entire political philosophy emphasizes the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain as the highest ideals, of course you’re going to exercise some lax morals.  And if you’re raised believing you’re accountable to a higher power and a transcendent moral order, you’re not likely to knock boots with the first dewy-eyed, leather-backed Romeo on a motorbike.

What is interesting in Derb’s commentary on the relative easiness of progressive hipster chicks is the political implications, especially for young men.  As Derb points out, young dudes picking their political tribe tended to go for the path of least resistance:

The main thing that caught my febrile adolescent attention was the very striking difference in the female population of these two political tribes. The conservative women were much prettier, but the socialist girls were much looser. The star of the latter set was actually a girl named … well, never mind her name. Her nickname was “Nookie,” and for very excellent reasons. Though far from being a beauty queen, and even further from being obsessive-compulsive about personal hygiene (regarded in this set as a contemptible bourgeois affectation), this young lady, not to obscure the matter behind any veil of false delicacy, banged like an outhouse door in a force nine gale. Well, youth has its own priorities. I became a socialist, and remained one well into my twenties.

Never underestimate the power of a somewhat pretty face.  While I never embraced socialism, I definitely had a thing for the hipster chicks back in the day (thankfully, I’ve grown out of that phase):  in high school, I wanted to be a guest on Late Night with Conan O’Brien alongside musical guest Avril Lavigne, on the theory we’d hit it off in the green room.  I don’t think that appeal was out of any physical expectations (at least not in my case), but a pretty face can make men do all sorts of stupid stuff (see also:  Helen of Troy, Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah, etc., etc.).

It’s been frequently noted, too, that young men who are “white knights”—online defenders of whorish women and radical feminists—are way likelier to commit sexual assault.  For all their rhetoric about “equality” and their angry online apologia for the thot-iest of behaviors, it’s pretty transparent that these would-be Lancelots are motivated by one thing, and it ain’t high-minded idealism.

Of course, I’ve always been curious about the other side of the equation:  the pretty conservative girls.  Are they conservative because they’re pretty, or are they pretty because they’re conservative?  The latter doesn’t seem as likely, although I could certainly see a conservative girl taking better care of herself and presenting herself in a prettier manner (she’s not going to look homeless, for example, like a lot of crazy progressive chicks).

It’s pretty clear that being attractive lends all sorts of advantages in life:  it’s easier to get hired, people will do stuff for you just because you’re pretty, etc.  I’ve often joked, upon seeing an Oreo Cakester land whale progressive, that she’s not nearly attractive enough to hold such repulsive views (the implication being that if a progressive girl were attractive enough, we could overlook her silly and destructive beliefs because she’s hot).  But does getting things easier in life necessarily make one a conservative?  I’d argue the opposite—living in a fantasy world where everything is handed to you on a gilded platter sounds like the mess that made my generation such ungrateful brats.

Nevertheless, we certainly have the advantage on babes:  Ann Coulter (in her prime), Michelle Malkin, Laura Loomer (other than that schnoz), Laura Bush, Melania Trump, Nikki Haley, and on and on.  Here’s Derb’s list from nineteen years ago, contrasting Left and Right:

Still, I think I could make an objective case for the general proposition. Just line them up, for goodness’ sake. On the Left: Janet Reno, Donna Shalala, Hillary Clinton (you can take her before or after the style crash, far as I’m concerned), Madeleine Albright, Barbra Streisand, Rosie O’Donnell, Katie Couric, Anna Quindlen, Andrea Dworkin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nina Khrushchev, Mao Tse-tung’s last wife … On the Right: Margaret Thatcher, Condoleeza Rice (pity about that forename — what were her parents thinking of?), Linda Chavez, Katherine Harris, Laura Bush (a cutie, in my book, though I wish she’d get the squint fixed), Suzanna Gratia Hupp, Heather Nauert (oh God), Paula Zahn, Ann Coulter, Peggy Noonan, Grace Coolidge, Elizabeth the First, the last Tsarina, Eva Peron … I rest my case.

Yeesh!  Imagine putting Eleanor Roosevelt against Heather Nauert.  Both politically and physically, Nauert wins.  That might be a bit unfair, but even against some of the prettier progressives, that’s a slam dunk for our side.

As to the question why conservative girls are prettier, I just don’t know.  I think it’s easier to make the case for why less attractive girls are more likely to be progressive, though.  Radical feminism has about it the quality of the ugly girls versus the pretty girls.  One goal of progressivism, broadly speaking, is to pull everyone down.  Radical feminism strikes me as the ugly girls trying to pull down the hot girls so the ugly ones feel better about themselves.

That’s why Milo used to say that feminism is worse than cancer.  Destroying beauty is a preoccupation of the Left.  Maybe conservative girls are prettier because, being conservative, they’re more likely to appreciate beauty, and seek to conserve it in a world that is, increasingly, uglier and more hateful.