Musing on New Year’s Eve about the not-at-all delicate subject of racial identity, Canadian music star Grimes tweeted that JRR Tolkien “lamented the damage nazis did to the melting pot that is ‘white culture’”. Possibly unwittingly, her post touched on what is becoming an increasingly pressing question: what is it about the 21st century right in all its unsavoury manifestations, and its fascination with JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth? Grimes is well plugged into the thinking of the Silicon Valley brand of Tolkien-infused right-wing ideas. A recent biography of Elon Musk, with whom Grimes has parented two children, reported that on the...