Inside the New Right Party of the Year

If it weren’t for the woman wearing a gown designed to look like the Don’t Tread On Me flag, we could have been at a nice wedding. But on the eve of the inauguration, in Washington DC, at the Watergate, there was only one reason for hundreds to gather in their black tie best on a frigid, snowy Sunday in January 2025: to celebrate their vindication with the re-election of Donald J. Trump.

Faces blurred throughout at the request of Passage Press.

The Coronation Ball, hosted by the book and magazine publisher Passage Press (founded in 2022 “as an alternative to the increasingly close-minded worldview of modern mainstream publishing,” according to its website), was the online neoreactionary right’s victory lap. The 2025 Coronation Ball convened 2016-era MAGA figures like the alt-right conspiracy theorists and media personalities Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec; monarchist Curtis Yarvin (pen name Mencius Moldbug), hot off his New York Times Magazine interview; and a constellation of tastemakers, provocateurs, and fans, many connected to the downtown New York scene once known as Dimes Square, including several anonymous X posters and Red Scare podcast hosts Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova.

This gathering was different from a Dimes Square party, including the one on election night at Sovereign House that I also attended for GQ. Here, at least theoretically, the committed and influential wheat had been separated from the irony-poisoned chaff by the lofty Passage, which was charging $1,000 in the initial round of ticket sales all the way up to $20,000 in the final days for a seat at the VIP dinner portion of the evening. (I was the only on-the-job journalist invited, presumably because of my aforementioned coverage of the Sovereign House party.) This was supposed to be a summit for the old new right and the new new right; the guys who have been wearing the red hats for years joining forces with those just now donning the sleeker Dark MAGA hats.

I’m sure Menswear Guy would come up with something to say about the fit and finish of the tuxedos (if not the floor-length gowns), but the generally well-dressed crowd that enjoyed trays of raw tuna atop sliced cucumbers and glasses of Moet & Chandon during the opening cocktail hour all strictly adhered to black-tie dress code. Though “demure” was not the watch word, especially for the women, many of whom displayed lifted cleavage and bare backs (myself included). And some of the men opted for more costume-ish choices, including one in a circa-1776, George Washington-esque look and another in a crisp, white floor-length cape that made him look like some sort of space priest. Even so, the crowd seemed to be taking itself seriously, settling in for a four-year reign and indulging in the decadence of a new era marked by the release of not one but two Trump meme coins in what CNBC called a “crypto-frenzied inauguration weekend.”

While inspired by the 2017 DeploraBall, an unofficial inaugural party celebrating Trump’s first presidency that was organized by Cernovich, Posobiec, and others, Sunday’s party was nothing like the public spectacle of 2017, which was preceded by protests and plots against the event that resulted in three men being arrested. Cernovich tweeted on Monday that the “Passage Press ball was more refined and organized than our pathmaking Deploraball. Room is different. Younger. I was one of the oldest guys in the place! Real right wing. High energy and high IQ.” There were no apparent protests or plots before, during, or after the party, either—just as there appeared to be very few in DC on inauguration day—though I did hear that a few journalists either attempted to sneak in or were booted at the door.

If the hashtag-resistance now seems like a relic of an earlier time, it’s fair to also ask if the far-right is as fiery as it was in 2016. They are, at least, equally confident. Jonathan Keeperman, the founder of Passage Press, gave the evening’s first speech. A former University of California, Irvine professor, he launched Passage—which republishes out-of-print books by reactionary thinkers like German nationalist Ernst Jünger as well as new works by writers like Yarvin—anonymously under the name Lomez, before his role was revealed by The Guardian last spring. In his speech, he emphasized that Trump and his promises represent a “healthy and normal” inclination toward the future and an unwavering optimism in its fulfillment. “We are in the good timeline now,” he said.

Unsurprisingly, it was Steve Bannon—briefly Trump’s chief strategist in his first term—who delivered the most forceful and pointed speech of the night. Bannon—who, calling back to a beloved alt-right symbol, referred to the ball as “Pepe Prom”—celebrated some pet wins to come, like Trump’s promise to deport every illegal immigrant beginning at noon on the next day. (States are still bracing for immigration raids.) But he had a bigger message: You’re either in or you’re out. Over the last four years, the right has succeeded in drawing in the conservative-curious to their ranks, transforming disillusioned liberals and horseshoe leftists into Trump voters. Those people, Bannon implied, need to pledge their complete commitment. Mark Zuckerberg, notably, is a person Bannon has decided is definitively not in. “He deserves to be in prison,” Bannon said. (He did not say precisely why. Bannon also declared Yarvin an enemy in The New York Times on Saturday.)

Of course, it was Zuckerberg—and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and the new Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk—who were seated in front of Trump’s own cabinet picks, with their plus-ones, at Trump’s inauguration the next day. Bannon was not, and naturally, none of the tech tycoons were at the Passage Press party. (Though rumor has it that Grimes made an appearance at the afterparty.)

After dinner (filet mignon and scallops), the reception started and the lower-tier guests entered for a buffet of lobster tails, oysters, and several open bars. A live band played a surprisingly large number of polka songs. Posobiec offered a toast in which he suggested that the new right would culturally rehabilitate Richard Nixon and Derek Chauvin.

One guest brought a massive Saint Bernard named, if I heard it right, Augustin. Augustin sat politely beneath his owners’ table throughout the dinner, as waiters serving bowls of butternut squash soup carefully stepped over his tail and guests thoughtlessly stomped on it. In both cases, Augustin remained still. But he must have been offered some of the humans’ culinary delights, because a few hours later he delivered a round of explosive diarrhea directly onto the carpeted portion of the ballroom floor. Some partygoers speculated that a person had done it. I did not witness the event itself, so perhaps Augustin was falsely blamed. In any case, the partygoers partied on, maneuvering around the Watergate employees scrubbing away on their hands and knees, everyone trying to ignore the long-lingering smell.