Long before the Right (or the Left) noticed Jordan Peterson’s right-of-center political bend, he was a sound academic, an intellectually honest lecturer, and YouTube “star.” Which is why so many people can’t stand him, save for the few of course who love him. The few who love him do so precisely because of the reason everyone hates him.

Women on the Right especially love Peterson because he tells men to man up — see the “Tragic Story of the Man-Child” — and that’s why a lot of men abhor his take-it-or-leave-it call to manhood. More mature members of the millennial or Generation X generations appreciate reading or listening to his no-nonsense advice rooted in common sense and psychological underpinnings — which is exactly what most of the younger generations can’t stand. All this is why America needs this Canadian, and why he has become an “overnight” sensation that has been brewing for decades.

Though Peterson is now known for his somewhat conservative, political commentary — writer Matt Lewis says in this Daily Beast piece he boasts “firepower” akin to Buckley’s intellectual prowess — he is a psychologist by training, and an academic by profession. Though much of Peterson’s book, interviews, and lectures seem to be rooted in psychology, his YouTube channel is a mix of class and more formal lectures from “How to Stop Procrastinating” and observations about the antisocial personality , to “The Unconscious Mind of the SJW” which are as fascinating as they are pertinent. What he lacks in presentation he makes up for in substance; in fact, I rather enjoy his straightforward but devastatingly difficult life-challenges rooted in psychological facts and observations.

With tales of Peter Pan and life experience to back his advice, Peterson tells men in a straightforward way to stop dilly-dallying and man up, to eschew laziness, and to “grow the hell up.” Likewise, Peterson speaks thoughtfully and controversially about women, the gender wage gap, and why society still should hold motherhood (that most archaic and delicate of “positions”) in high regard.

As Lewis wrote , “Peterson has emerged as a bit of a unicorn: a bona fide academic who still sounds like a professor, has cultivated a huge following on YouTube and social media, and generally drives the left crazy by attacking identity politics and political correctness in eloquent fashion.”

Part political commentator, part psychologist, all alpha male — Peterson recently called the author of a New York Books piece on him a “sanctimonious prick” for mislabeling him a “fascist” — he is a veritable trifecta of intellect, political thought, and commentary on the Right. Although Peterson’s politics didn’t really come into view until he spoke out against Canadian politicians for compelling others to refer to transgender individuals as their preferred, gender-neutral pronouns. Ever the voice of reason, nuance, and sanity, Peterson backed not only the importance of biological reality, but language and free speech. He told the BBC, “I've studied authoritarianism for a very long time — for 40 years — and they're started by people's attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory. There's no way I'm going to use words made up by people who are doing that — not a chance."

With the way Peterson wields the political and the psychological, the Right should have seen him a long time ago. Either way, it's helpful to have him involved now — even if he’s Canadian.

Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator's Young Journalist Award.