Golden Ages
Viridian Club aims to make Austin the capitol of a new Clubland
As the DC adage goes: Cosmos is for the liberal intelligentsia, Metropolitan is for the banker Republicans and the Army and Navy is for those who just want a drink after having gone through hell and back.
Funny enough, I heard this at the Cosmos Club while smoking cigars with a self-deprecating trade association executive. He confided in me, almost to state secret level, that he was a Democrat who was becoming weary of the progressive wing of his own party.
How much does politics and your worldview matter when choosing a club?
To Alexander Pacheco, founder of the Viridian Club, it’s one of the most important factors that one can consider. After all, he argues, a compatible worldview is the number one factor of longevity in many relationships, ranging from friendships to romantic partnerships.
This week, Clubland USA brings you a Q&A with Pacheco about what he’s aiming to build with the downtown Austin-based club set to open its clubhouse in summer 2026.
Clubland USA: When you speak of the Golden Age of Fraternalism and Viridian being a part of a sort of new age of this, what do you mean?
Pacheco: Across the country, we have a major trust and national identity problem that’s not unseen before in American history. We had a similar effect after the Civil War and it was still worse than what we had today which inspired me to look to historical precedent.
From about 1870 to 1920, in a period known as the Golden Age of Fraternalism, our country rebuilt trust and a national identity despite having extremely high levels of foreign-born percentage of the population. At its peak during this period, 40% of adult males in the United States were members of at least one private fraternal societies.
It was during this period when most of the nation’s oldest clubs, such as the Union Club in New York and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, were founded. This is where we got collegiate fraternities and sororities as well.
We’ve all seemed to have forgotten the reason that we have these institutions. People don’t make clubs just to say, “Here’s a circle, there’s exclusivity, we’re in, you’re out.” It’s not about that.
Viridian Club wants to bring that about the same spirit that led to the founding of many of these older clubs to our current generation. The result is a complete pivot from the current club landscape.
To read the entirety of this Q&A interview, please click here.
Thank you for your continued readership. Our next issue will be Tuesday, February 17.
Hopefully the women continue to avoid these 'future elite men' who need trad gender roles/subjugation of women to feel like men.
Sounds like a bunch of sociopaths and would-be wife-beaters.