Tag: alt-right

Failure Analysis: Alt-Right

Guest Post by The Zman

With the leaked audio of Richard Spencer’s embarrassing tantrum after the Charlottesville riot, the book can finally be closed on the alt-right. If there was anyone still using the term as anything but an epithet, they will no doubt drop it. The first political movement to grow out of internet culture has come and an ignominious end. While it may no longer be a thing, examining what they did right and what they did wrong, especially what they did wrong, can be useful for dissidents.

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Suicidal Stupidity

Guest Post by The Zman

Since the early days of the alt-right, there has been a debate among dissidents about the utility of street protests. Prior to the Charlottesville debacle, most people, including the alt-lite types, were sure it was necessary for right-wing groups to “show the colors” on the street, even if it meant confrontation with the goon squads of the Left. Many, of course, were excited by the opportunity to mix it up with groups like Antifa. The truth is, a lot of guys were attracted to the alt-right because they wanted the action.

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Letter To The CivNats

Guest Post by The Zman

One of the strange aspects of the last century of American politics is that the defining arguments have all happened on the losing side. The winners have always been sure about what they want and what they are willing to do to get it. It is the losers who have always been squabbling with one another about the proper response or the meaning of the latest failure. National Review types always used to argue that all the interesting debates were on their side, rather than on the side of their alleged adversaries.

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The Death of the Alt-Right

Guest Post by The Zman

I’m fond of saying, we learn more from failure than success. Anyone who has been fired from a job or had a career set back learns this lesson. In addition to learning what not to do, you learn something about yourself and your ability to handle adversity. Coming home without a job means re-evaluating everything about your life. Nothing focuses the mind quite like the thought of homelessness. On the other hand, once you get through it, you discover that you are more resilient and resourceful than you previously knew.

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Letter To Alt-Right

Guest Post by The Zman

By all accounts, the alt-right is at a crossroads. The movement that started as an internet phenomenon and blossomed into a full-blown political force in the 2016 election, has stumbled in the past year. Most people peg the start of the trouble at the Charlottesville riots, which were used to paint the alt-right as a bunch of torch wielding Nazis. Others put the blame on the personalities and their endless bickering. Of course, the troubles are exaggerated, but there’s no doubt that the movement is in a difficult patch.

In order for the alt-right to get out of the ditch and become an effective political voice, the leaders of the various groups within the alt-right have to stop screwing up. The number of unforced errors over the last year, by big names in the alt-right, leave people with the impression the movement is not serious. Leaders need to be something more than gags on-line. They have to be a respectable face to a skeptical public. That means being careful and prudent in their public actions. That’s not what has happened over the last year.

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Winners And Losers

Guest Post by The Zman

Mass movements always reach a stage where they can break through and become legitimate social forces or they can fizzle out and die. They either take the next step and begin to attract a larger audience or they reveal themselves to be a boutique fad. The neo-reaction movement of a decade ago is a good example of the latter. It was a big deal on-line for a while, but then it lost steam and faded away. Its two main idea men have moved onto other things. The alt-right is at the point where it either blossoms or it dies.

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An Immoderate Age

Guest Post by The Zman

Last week, this ridiculous article in the New York Times generated some attention on alt-right social media, mostly because it allowed for some petty bickering. Anytime the media does a story on alt-right people, the guys not mentioned take the opportunity to say bad things about the guys that were mentioned in the story. John Derbyshire said everything that needed to be said about the Times piece in this post at VDare. In it, he referenced his old column on the topic and the corresponding version from Jared Taylor.

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A Dubious Patriotism: On Accommodating Reality

Guest Post by Fred Reed

Methinks that, for the good of the country, it is time  that the  “Alt-Right,” those bitterly hostile to our Latin-America population, stop and think. There is a difference between opposing further immigration, a good idea, and constantly attacking American citizens.

Many good reasons existed for preventing  massive immigration from the south. But it happened. Some forty-five million legal Hispanics (whatever exactly the word means) are now in America, mostly citizens. They show no signs of leaving. They cannot be deported. Their children become citizens. It is unlikely that many of the (very vaguely) estimated twelve million illegals will be deported or chased out.

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Christianity, Patriotism and The Alt-Right

Guest Post by The Zman

That’s a question the TRS guys were debating the other day. It comes up a lot, mostly because the leading lights in dissident politics are not religious. Some appear to be outright atheists, even if they don’t make a big deal out of it. Of the old guys, I can’t think of any who are Evangelical. Most were Protestants, but have long ago drifted from their churches. I don’t think any of the next generation are religious. Some grew up going to church, but abandoned it as soon as they left home.

The thing with the Gen X and Millennial leaders of the alt-right is most of them are disinterested in religion and its role in human society. It’s not something that occupies space in their mental framework. Just because the leadership and intellectual elements of the alt-right are non-religious, it does not necessarily follow that the alt-right is hostile to the religious. They spent their youth marinating in Progressive dogma and as a result, they see culture through a secular lens, rather than a spiritual one.

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How To Sell Soap

Guest Post by The Zman

Exactly no one is excited about cleaning their clothes or scrubbing a stain from the carpet. If you own a pet, you never look forward to their accidents on the rug or their decision to put their dirty paws on your best trousers. Cleaning up messes, figuring out how to get that stain off the couch cushion, getting the carpets cleaned, these are chores we all do, but we don’t look forward to them. It’s just a part of life, like cutting the grass or cleaning the gutters. No one goes on lawn care vacations or stain removal holidays.

If you are in the business of selling soap, you have to get over the fact that the mere mention of your product makes people think about a boring task or the dog leaving a pyramid on the rug.  No matter how good your product is at doing its thing, if it brings negative images to the mind of the customer, they will associate you and your product with unpleasant thoughts. It why portable toilet vendors pick cheeky names for their companies. They want you laughing when you think of them.

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The Jay Kay Kay

Guest Post by The Zman

Last week, The Anti-Defamation League put out a proscription list of hate thinkers they have deemed to be a danger to the republic. In years past, they would roll out lists of old geezers from the 1960’s, but now they are going after the alt-right. They describe Richard Spencer’s thing as “the most visible extremist movement” in the country. They also listed the alt-lite as fellow travelers. The point of the list is to intimidate people into disassociating from the people on the list. The ADL is trying isolate and ostracize these people.

Ironically, it is not a lot different from what the Klan used to do in a bygone era. As is true with most things in the current crisis, the history of the Ku Klux Klan has been retconned to fit the current narrative. According the prevailing mythologies, the Klan was just like the 19th century Cossacks. Instead of riding through Jewish villages on horseback, the Klan drove through black neighborhoods in pickup trucks.They are portrayed as sort of an off-the-books secret police, run by southern political leaders.

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The Colony

Guest Post by The Zman

Many on the alt-right make references to Weimar Germany and the rise of the NSDAP under Hitler. The Richard Spencer wing is particularly fond of Nazi aesthetics, the haircuts being the most obvious example. Part of it, of course, is owning the insult. If they are going to be called Nazis, they may as well own it. This is a time honored way of signalling a rejection of the prevailing morality. If you are going to be called a dirty hippy, you may as well grow your beard and stop bathing. The alt-right is doing the same thing.

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Dissident Politics

Guest Post by The Zman

To start the year, I made the rather obvious prediction that the coalition of weirdos that willed Donald Trump into the White House would succumb to infighting and begin to break apart and splinter. This was a no-brainer, as fringe politics tends to attract weirdos and weirdos tend not to get along with other weirdos. Often, people are attracted to these movements over one issue. They find out that their new friends have a whole list of other issues that don’t match up with everyone else. That breeds conflict.

There’s also a “giant among midgets” phenomenon, where someone can be a star in a small group and outgrow their hat. In the mass media age, it’s easy to start thinking you’re a big deal when you see your social media profile grow and the calls from media people start coming.This was obvious with Milo who started thinking he was bulletproof. He had gotten away with so much that he thought he could say anything. It did not take long before he pissed off the wrong people.

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My Advice to the Alt-Right

Guest Post by The Zman

Back in the 1980’s, when I was a young man, being a young conservative was the best of times because it felt like the war had turned. The enemy’s lines had broken and we were on our way to a great final victory over the forces of darkness. Every right-wing hack in America had a laundry list of things that had to be done, once the battle was over and our tropaion was placed on the battlefield. First the military would be rebuilt, then we would win the Cold War and then we would roll back the welfare state. Party time.

Young people can be forgiven for getting ahead of themselves, but there were plenty of old coots talking about the triumph of conservatism in the 80’s. Even though Reagan did nothing to tame the welfare state or even slow its growth, it felt like we were still on the right side of history. Once the Soviets cracked, it just seemed like a matter of when, not if, the great return to normalcy would happen. Of course, that did not happen. The Left regrouped and the Right sold all of us out for cushy jobs in Washington.

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