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Is Anyone Worried about the Alt-Right?
Several recent Ricochet comments have referred to the “Alt-Right,” mostly in passing. Since I wasn’t familiar with the term, I decided to find out what it actually was. My investigation has been an unnerving experience and I, for one, am worried for this country. Most people will acknowledge that the beliefs and goals of the Alt-Right are despicable. Their proponents are mostly young, self-described radicals who have found the positions of Donald Trump admirable (which, I know, does not make all Donald Trump supporters Alt-Right).
During the most recent Need to Know podcast, Mona Charen, Jay Nordlinger, and guest David French condemned the Alt-Right without reservation. They cited websites where the comment sections had to be shut down due to the volume of venomous comments made against people who didn’t support Donald Trump. Several sources I reviewed regarding the Alt-Right movement highlighted an article from Breitbart written by Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos (pictured), who believe that the movement is mischaracterized. They say:
Previously an obscure subculture, the Alt-Right burst onto the national political scene in 2015. Although initially small in number, the Alt-Right has a youthful energy and jarring, taboo-defying rhetoric that have boosted its membership and made it impossible to ignore.
It has already triggered a string of fearful op-eds and hit pieces from both Left and Right: Lefties dismiss it as racist, while the conservative press, always desperate to avoid charges of bigotry from the Left, has thrown these young readers and voters to the wolves as well.
One journalist who criticized the Breitbart article assessment was Cathy Young at The Federalist who writes:
The Alt-Right movement counters the toxic culture of the left with a toxic brew of its own: a mix of old bigotries and new identity and victimhood politics adapted for the straight white male.
She then describes part of a tweet:
Retweeting an image of a man in a Nazi uniform standing in front of a baker’s oven captioned “Pop ’em in the oven!” may be a tasteless “trolly” joke. When the same person retweets comments about Jews “killing millions in the #Holodomor”—the Soviet terror-famine engineered by the Stalin regime—this looks like something more than “lulz.” The trolls of the Alt-Tight are well-versed in anti-Semitic tropes such as Jewish control of the media (which Yiannopoulos, in his Dave Rubin interview , bafflingly waved aside as a mere statement of statistical fact).
White supremacist Richard Spencer, who runs the National Policy Institute — a tiny white supremacist think tank — coined the term “Alternative Right” as the name for an online publication that debuted in 2010. The online publication changed hands in 2013 when Spencer shut it down. Today Spencer runs the Radix journal and quoted from an article in Time, written by Alex Altman, which characterizes the Alt-Right movement and its relationship to Trump as follows:
Trump’s ascendancy comes at a moment of reinvention for the Far Right. A new generation of leaders like NPI’s Spencer are trying to recast white nationalism as a 21st century movement steeped in social media. The NPI meeting was dominated by young men under 30, many of whom said they were part of an online network known as the Alt (for Alternative) Right. Originally rooted in antipathy to mainstream conservatism, the Alt Right has morphed over the past year into a virtual pro-Trump army. It’s a loose collection of furies who range from provocative Twitter trolls to white-rights activists, garden-variety anti-Semites, proto-fascists and overt neo-Nazis.
revealed that the quote is actually from a Time article that Spencer posted on Radix, which was written by a guy named Alex Altman.
So I have a few questions:
Do you think Donald Trump should condemn the people who profess these beliefs and vocally support him?
Why aren’t Senators and Representatives who are backing Trump condemning them, and encouraging Trump to condemn them too?
Are Trump supporters concerned that they will be identified with these people, especially if the Alt-Right movement strengthens?
As a country that celebrates free speech, any suggestions for how to create roadblocks for this movement?
Published in General
I actually agree with you–it’s more precise. It reminds me of when my Zen teacher felt I should use less violent words than genocide to describe the Rwanda nightmare–right. She thought it was too inflammatory! ;>)
After several spoke up about this video in a positive way, I decided to go back and watch it. I don’t think I’d use the word “hilarious” to describe him, but once I got past his language, I found him quite credible on this topic.
Watching the Left use propaganda and inconvenient ‘lies’ for decades, leads one to develop a healthy skepticism regarding such ‘studies’ and conclusions that seem designed to somehow support a Leftist idea which on its surface just seems contrary to what we see around us.
This study seems to be the same one that CNN reported on in August, 2012 … Right-wing extremist terrorism as deadly a threat as al Qaeda? And when one looks behind the curtain, we see not the FBI but rather the … New America Foundation … with the Soros, Gates, Schmidt, Hewlett, Ford, etc. Foundations behind an otherwise camouflaged innocuous nonprofit entity.
And, voila!, once again you find the Left pissing on your leg and telling you it’s raining.
What he said. Its all pretty much propaganda.
Do you believe that Jewish people have the right to exist as a people with the inherent self-determinitive right derived thereof? And that the state of Israel is the just and proper expression of both of those rights?
Yes? Good! We agree.
Now apply that to everybody.
Welcome to the alt-right.
One cannot be a Zionist without acknowledging the inherent legitimacy of ethno-nationalism. Nor is there a good faith justification to deny these rights to others.
So who is welcome in the alt-right paradise of white people, and who is to be excluded?
Careful, all that straw in that strawman can get itchy.
Which straw man? Israel is the Jewish state. By extension I assume you are arguing that if there can be a Jewish state there can be a state for white people? Or did I misunderstand you?
Correct. Any group of people of common identity have an inherent right, by fact of existence, to be and act as a people with all the rights and privileges derived thereof.
So, I see no reason to freak out about some people asserting rights we freely grant others. There is no good faith justification to do otherwise.
Horror of horrors, I support the right of Texans to secede from the union, if they so chose, on the same grounds as well.
Every Texan I have ever met considers themselves a Texan. I see no reason to consider them otherwise.
Is it worth having a solid freak out over the Amish or the Oneida community (which apparently to some extent still exists, who knew).
I would argue that Israel has a long history of living in that part of the world, even during the diaspora. Others, including Arabs, live there. They are not interested in vanquishing non-Jews from the state. Their aggression arises in response to those who want to vanquish them. They don’t teach hating Arabs to their children. Their reluctance to allow the Palestinians back is that the country that is now Israel would no long be a Jewish state, arguably the only state that genuinely wants them there; the Palestinians would probably outnumber the Jews and then who knows what would happen. I’m not optimistic on that point.
So yes, the alt-Right has the right to exist. I have already conceded that, as despicable a group they can be.
Raison d’etat is totally a thing.
Do you support the right of a majority of Texans, say the white ones, to break Texas from the Union, disenfranchise nonwhite Texans and maybe kick them out of Texas? That’s what the people you’re defending actually would like to do.
I have defended no one.
Okay, if that’s the line you want to take.
The problem with putting your theory into practice is that the United States already has a population less than half of which are white Christians. So, if there is not going to be a bloodbath and race war to establish the white Christian state, I’m at a loss to see how it could happen. Maybe go to the UN and seek partition?
When I meet an alt-righter who advocates the establishment of Aztlan I might start believing it’s an intellectually coherent (though still wrong) movement.
I think the key to finding it funny is to not take it too seriously. It’s hilarious in how ridiculous it is.
I’ll confess to mild amusement.
The thing with Milo is that he’d be great if he could be aimed like a rifle; unfortunately, he’s more of a shotgun.