Con men are irritating for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest is how little respect they have for their marks. The very human response to most confidence pitches is some version of, “You must think I’m pretty stupid, don’t you?” And when it comes to conservative grifters, the answer has historically been “yes.”

Even great conservative philosophers like the late Roger Scruton called for a society composed largely of “unthinking” people. There is a strain in right-wing thinking that happily conceives of regular people as dumb sheeple in need of a firm hand. If left-wing critical theory tends to valorize “subcultural” defiance of social norms, the Right has traditionally prized “great men” and the case for hierarchy. Donald Trump put it well in The Art of the Deal when he defended using “truthful hyperbole” because ordinary people don’t “think big” themselves but will be inspired and impressed by someone who presents himself as the biggest, smartest, and strongest. Trump’s ascent has brought many of these latent tendencies on the Right to the fore, helping fuel the spread of the right-wing griftosphere.

Landon Frim and Harrion Fluss’s vivid new book, Confidence Men: Peterson, Musk, Tate and the Duping of the American Mind is a laser-focused look at three of the most prominent right-wing influencers pitching today’s all-steak-and-four-daily-cigars reactionary vogue. Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, and Andrew Tate are very different types on the surface. Peterson is a former academic who regularly cites the Bible and warns about spreading postmodern neo-Marxism. Musk is the world’s richest man, dedicating his considerable resources to convincing the world he is a comic book character — Tony Stark made flesh. Tate is a former kickboxer who proudly never reads books and so predictably thinks facts and data are for “bitches” and “gays.” But Frim and Fluss argue all three are products of a decaying capitalist order. So long as “capitalism remains and keeps generating vast inequalities and crises, these scam artists will keep being generated — in ever changing and diverse forms.”