38 Facts About Rod Dreher

Rod Dreher was a columnist with The American Conservative for 12 years, ending in March 2023, and remains an editor-at-large there.

Rod Dreher is author of several books, including How Dante Can Save Your Life, The Benedict Option, and Live Not by Lies.

Rod Dreher has written about religion, politics, film, and culture in National Review and National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

Rod Dreher was a film reviewer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and chief film critic for the New York Post.

Rod Dreher's commentaries have been broadcast on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and he has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Court TV, and other television networks.

Rod Dreher was named after his father, Ray Oliver Dreher, a local landowner and parish sanitation official.

Rod Dreher was raised in the small town of St Francisville, and was part of the first graduating class at Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts in Natchitoches.

Rod Dreher graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Louisiana State University in 1989.

Rod Dreher began his career as a television critic for The Washington Times, and later worked as chief film critic for the New York Post and editor for the National Review.

In 2002, Rod Dreher wrote an essay that explored a subcategory of American conservatism he defined as "granola conservatism", whose adherents he described as "crunchy cons".

Rod Dreher defined these people as traditionalist conservatives who believed in environmental conservation, frugal living, and the preservation of traditional family values, while expressing skepticism towards aspects of free-market capitalism.

Rod Dreher portrayed "crunchy cons" as being generally religious.

Four years later, Rod Dreher published a book expanding on the themes of this manifesto, Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America.

In 2013, Rod Dreher published a book titled The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, about his childhood in Louisiana and his sister's battle with cancer.

In 2015, Rod Dreher published How Dante Can Save Your Life, a memoir about how reading Dante's Divine Comedy helped him after his sister's death.

Rod Dreher began writing a blog for the American Conservative in 2008; in 2017, the blog received on average more than a million page views per month.

Rod Dreher says that Christians should try to form intentional communities, such as the Bruderhof Communities, or the School for Conversion.

Rod Dreher is a critic of large-scale immigration to the United States and Europe; he has defended the concept of Western civilization and condemned identity politics associated with race.

In 2001, Rod Dreher published an article mocking the funeral celebrations of the African-American singer Aaliyah, and subsequently reported having received threatening phone calls from people with "black accents".

Subsequent to the Christchurch mosque shootings of March 2019, Rod Dreher strongly condemned the shooter's actions and aspects of his ideology, but commented that the shooter had "legitimate, realistic concerns" about "declining numbers of ethnic Europeans" in Western countries; as a result of these comments, multiple scholars criticized the University of Wollongong's Ramsay Center for Western Civilization for inviting Rod Dreher as a speaker.

Rod Dreher has said that his concerns about immigration stem from sympathy for the less well-off, whom he argues are most negatively affected it, and by a desire to preserve Western cultural traditions.

Rod Dreher has strongly criticized the novel's use of derogatory language to describe non-Westerners and called the book bad, both aesthetically and morally.

Rod Dreher has been a consistent critic of the role of Islam in international affairs, but has shifted in his view of the efficacy of foreign military interventions.

Rod Dreher was critical of US President Donald Trump's decision to order missile strikes in Syria in April 2017.

Rod Dreher has expressed support for various conservative and neo-nationalist governments and parties in Europe.

Rod Dreher has praised the French Front National politician Marion Marechal-Le Pen.

Rod Dreher has written that although Francisco Franco and his regime were not "without sin", he is "glad that Franco won" the Spanish Civil War, due to the Red Terror carried out by the Second Spanish Republic.

In 2020, Rod Dreher attended a conference of nationalist politicians and thinkers in Rome that included Orban, Marechal-Le-Pen, and Giorgia Meloni.

Rod Dreher has written supportively of the government of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom Rod Dreher first met at a religious-liberty conference in Budapest in 2019.

In 2021, Rod Dreher was given a paid fellowship by the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank based in Budapest and funded by Orban's government.

Rod Dreher has played a key role in encouraging other members of the American conservative movement to engage with Hungary and to look toward Orban's political strategy and governance as a model.

In 2021, Rod Dreher invited Tucker Carlson, whom Rod Dreher calls "the most important conservative figure in America," to visit Hungary.

Rod Dreher has stated that the US Republican Party needs "a leader with Orban's vision" and has written favorably about American candidates and elected officials whose words and actions echo Orban's.

In 2008,2012 and 2016, Rod Dreher declined to endorse a candidate for president.

Rod Dreher started an anonymous website called OCA Truth, which published alleged private information about an opponent in the controversy.

Rod Dreher later described his involvement in the affair as "foolish".

Rod Dreher said that he did not seek comment from Curry prior to publishing his blog post, and Curry received the support of his faculty colleagues and university president.

Rod Dreher announced publicly through his blog the couple had begun the divorce process in April 2022.