The New Right Finds a Home at the Intersection of Populism and Elitism

Georgetown cocktail parties have long been a quick and easy target on the right, a stand-in for the establishment culture of Washington, D.C. These parties and the people they represent were an amorphous bogeyman that haunted Richard Nixon, have been criticized by everyone from Newt Gingrich to John McCain to prove their middle America stripes, and are supposedly so irresistible that they motivated every Trump-skeptical conservative to break away from the GOP rather than risk missing out on them. They are, in other words, the ultimate symbol of the out-of-touch elite class that the new right spends so much time railing against.

The Dumbarton House is one of those old, old homes that just reeks of old, old money. Built by the first register of the Treasury Department in 1800, it’s of the staid federal aesthetic so popular back then; a two-story, red brick home with a lovely little portico with tuscan columns at the front door, and spacious gardens. And, of course, it’s in Georgetown. It makes sense that Dumbarton House is now a popular event venue and that back in June, it played host to the Cicero Society Spring Garden Party. What doesn’t make much sense, at least on the surface, is why that Georgetown cocktail party was populated by so many rising stars of the new right.