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Say It Loud and Clear: The Alt-Right Has No Home in the Conservative Movement
With the ongoing controversy about alt-right figures appearing at speaking events for TPUSA and Daily Wire staff, it’s been encouraging seeing how these young leaders of the conservative movement are handling their presence. While I am disappointed in Michelle Malkin’s (which I wrote about previously), the next generation are handling the alt-right exactly as they should be. I am by no means a fan of Charlie Kirk, or his organization TPUSA, but I’m nonetheless uplifted to see how he handled this situation:
People who openly identify as white supremacists came to my event tonight
They have no place in the conservative movement
We must unequivocally denounce this vile ideology whenever it shows it’s ugly head
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 14, 2019
Published in General
Sure. Now you can see these guys are trying to rebrand “Alt-Right” to “America First”. Sounds so much nicer. Btw, I don’t consider “Alt-Right” a real smear. Its essentially Trumpism. Left leaning fiscally, with nationalism. Only maybe 50% of them are bad. I’m sorry to the other 50%. You’ll live.
What is Trumpism?
The bipartisan political concensus for the past 30 years?
I’ll bite: explain what you mean, plz.
It is a made-up term intended to paint every Conservative as some kind of skinhead, and I for one don’t understand why I have to see it on the main feed of this site twice in a 24-hour period. Can we please give it a rest and stop feeding into it. Good grief. It’s starting to look like an agenda of some kind.
There isn’t a single thing that trump campaigned on which was not advocated by leaders of both political parties over the past 30 years. And broadly supported by polling of large portions of both parties.
Trumpism seperated from Trump is the american political concensus.
Shapiro does have a tendency to call people names when he finds out facts don’t care about his feelings either.
Gotcha. I agree.
Witch-hunts and guilt by association have no place in the conservative movement.
I literally had never heard of Fuentes before I think a couple days ago. I don’t know who he is and I don’t care to. And there’s no way I’m ever going to concede that the phrase “America First” is anything but patriotic and good.
I gotta admit, I can only take Shapiro in small doses, and even then I feel like a little goes a LONG way.
He does seem very pleased with himself, though.
I know very little about Charlie Kirk.
But there’s a feeling out there that while they both do well at knocking back the lazy smears from the left, they’re not too good at addressing legitimate concerns from the right.
And the Alt-Right (whatever they are) knows this about them and have been enjoying exposing them as relative lightweights in the “though leader” department. Perhaps they weren’t exactly ready for prime time.
Along comes Michelle Malkin who says “Instead of just insulting these guys who are trolling you, how about using the Befriend a Nazi strategy and trying to open discussion with them. Gently lead them out of the ideological morass they’re destined for.” If you just denigrate them, they become hardened in their positions, and you don’t create allies, you create enemies. And potentially martyrs for a really bad cause.
Too many on the right would rather not put in that effort. As mentioned above, it’s hard work, and it’s not necessarily going to turn out well. Also, other conservatives will see you treating them like human beings and will eagerly write you out of the movement for the sin of wrongful association.
I’m reminded that Jesus went to the sick, not the healthy. (The “thought leaders” of his time condemned him for that, too)
We have to think of ourselves as missionaries.
You can call her Bethany, Jerry. We’re all friends here. 🙂
So…basket of deplorables?
I am not interested in racism or antisemitism. I despise them, and if you actually hold such beliefs, you can go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
However, the Left says disagreeing with Obama is racism. They say disliking any given Jewish leftist is antisemitic. Donald Trump, who has Jewish members of his family and is a reliable supporter of Israel, is Hitler to the left. The term alt-right is basically useless to us. Alt-right is so flexible to be useless as a smear. I’m quite fond of Pepe memes, am I now obligated to become tiki torch Nazi?
When guys like Nick Fuentes start acting up (and I am not entirely certain it was more than Internet Tough Guy syndrome) state your disagreement forcefully on the issues, then state that just because he says something does not make it wrong. (If they push back on this, go for the obvious point – if a serial killer says 2 + 2 = 4, does it stop being true?) Then move on. It is just a trap.
Exactly. Start the denouncement game and it’s never over; the left will just grab up a new target, call it “alt-right” and demand you denounce said target because the organization/person once said _____, or themselves failed to denounce someone for saying _____.
I’ve no doubt that some racists vote Republican (and vote for every other party in the US). It turns out that racists are allowed to vote. Because they are American.
All manner of terrible people vote in the US. Parties are not, however, defined by those terrible people.
Agreed, which is why I don’t want to cede it to the ethno-nationalists. They mean “White America First,” and want to piggyback on a reasonable sentiment to redefine it. If this poisons the phrase for ordinary discourse, they don’t care, because it brings the discussion around to their pet issue.
“Alt-right” is a loose term, but it can be safely applied to people on the margins who believe an intellectually uncoordinated constellation of stupid stuff, or indulge stupid stuff because lol spicy memes to own the libs, or just want to stick up for the people on the margins because they feel marginalized themselves. Or, they’re bad people with (CoC non-compliant word redacted) ideas who are not sanctified because they fought Antifa in a street brawl.
The fact that the left will paint the right with the color preferred by its most regrettable elements shouldn’t be an argument against self-policing our own house to keep the worst elements from setting the agenda.
If you allow the progressive communists to dictate what words you can and can’t use, as we’ve been doing for most of my life, then you will never prevail in a debate over ideology.
If the only words we can use are those approved of by communist progressives, then we will never win.
Screw those “alt-right” people, whoever they are and whatever they say. The words I use have meanings. They mean precisely what I intend for them to mean.
I intend to be master, and not a slave to the progressives.
“Fear is the mind killer.” Frank Herbert
Why do we need a new term if it just means “white supremacist?” And who decides?
Democrats have tons of despicables who vote to exploit the sufferings of others (mostly minorities) for political gain. They’re just so darn right, it doesn’t matter if downtown L.A. looks like a third world country. It is normative for the Left to put their almighty utopian ideals before reality and to do incalculable damage to people they ostensibly are there to “help.”
Racism has never been normative on the American right — just the opposite. We take each person as he comes with little regard for race or ethnicity. We’re just interested in ideas that realistically work to make people free and prosperous.
We should never concede racism on the Right when the Left is so noxious. And what puts real white supremacists on the Right? Lower taxes? Strong national defense? Puhleaze.
So true.
Hopefully we will soon expunge Trump’s birtherism from the Republican party.
Exactly. We can’t nominate people like Roy Moore and then complain when the Left uses Moore as exhibit A for Republican insanity.
Nominating Donald Trump, a birther who spoke about reading about Ted Cruz’s father being involved in the JFK assasination in the National Enquierer, is also not exactly a good way of demonstrating that Republicans are sane.
Some say that Republicans can’t win unless they nominate people who are crazy. But for every Trump victory you have a Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell or a Roy Moore.
The Left will always try to pain the Republican party as racist and insane. We shouldn’t be making the Left’s argument so easy to accept.
Thing is, the gatekeepers on the right tend to paint with a broad brush as well, so who gets to decide who stays in the tent and who gets kicked out? Did you vote for Trump? Obviously you’re a racist. Are you in favor of secure borders? Quite clearly a xenophobe. Out out you go! Evangelicals who voted for Trump? Gasp! You must repent or be cast out into utter darkness! These are “thought leaders” on the right trying to clean house and purge it from elements they find deplorable.
Nope. Don’t trust those people either.
And as if to prove my point, right above this post we have a member declaring who gets to stay and who must go. I certainly don’t trust his instincts. We know our most Notorious Never would purge us all if he had the power. Thank God he doesn’t.
Also, looks like we’re back to “But he’s a birther!” The impeachment proceedings must not be going well.
Good point. Where exactly did the term come from?
Regardless, we on the real right don’t have to and should not use it.
I hadn’t heard of this Fuentes guy either @MaxLedoux. I did watch clip of him after this story broke out, he’s a creep, but I can’t shake feeling that this whole thing has been orchestrated.
I’m a Daily Wire subscriber as well and find that I rarely listen to Ben Shapiro vs. the others there. These guys went after Matt Walsh at one of his speeches too – don’t understand why this is being orchestrated now. I do agree with Klavan though that more these people are marginalized and not engaged, that it actually empowers these groups and gives these types a banner to rally around.
The ‘Right’ successfully marginalized David Duke for decades – the MSM resurrected that guy when they continually asked Trump to denounce him! They made that movement a ‘thing’ again.
Yes, but the left, or by the GOPe?
I have to admit, I really wonder. I know Ace of Spades has made charge that Ben, NRO aNd The Bulwark want to be the Right’s analog of the Southern Poverty Law Center, with the authority granted by Big Tech to deplatform, shadow ban, suspend etc. Other players on the Right.
I disagree with this.
Regarding the term “America First,” this comment strikes me as the “dog whistle” argument, if we are going to assert that saying “America First” means “White America First.” This is precisely the tactic of the Left, which I think is used in an effort to delegitimize the idea that our public policies should generally serve the interests of America and Americans.
It may be true that Nick Fuentes’ organization is attempting to claim the “America First” label, and that Fuentes actually means “White America First,” though I am not completely persuaded of this. I went to his website, and while I don’t have the time to listen to his podcasts, I did skim the “news” articles at the site (written under the names Adam Naphta and Todd F. Brook, though I could find nothing more about them, so perhaps they are pseudonymns).
They were more opinion or commentary pieces than news articles, and weren’t very well written, but I didn’t find anything overtly racist or white supremacist about them. Some of them seemed to be attempting to make legitimate points, on issues such as the corruption of academia, the nature of radical feminism, and the narratives of post-modernism. If these guys are really neo-Nazis or white supremacists, I would expect them to say so.
The current news flurry on these issues appears to be a marketing effort by Nick Fuentes, who seems to have established a relatively small but devoted following, and seems to be directing his followers to ask provocative and even obnoxious questions at events hosted by Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk. It is pretty sad to watch, as these kids line up and read questions on their phones, like drones.
[Cont’d]
Regarding the term “alt-right,” I agree that it is a loose term, but not everything in it is an “uncoordinated constellation of stupid stuff.” My impression is that, at least for some people, the “alt” part of “alt-right” indicates a departure from what we might call the Establishment GOP or Neocon position on several important issues:
These were positions that were not well served by Republicans in the post-Reagan era.
There are also unsavory opinions that are “alt,” and are genuinely racist or anti-Semitic, but I am also concerned that unfair accusations of racism and anti-Semitism are often used against legitimate positions.
Another problem that I’m seeing appears related to the new technology of social media and the internet, which allows people to bypass the traditional media gatekeepers who controlled the broad dissemination of ideas. Some of the effects are good, allowing interesting thinkers like Jordan Peterson and the Weinstein brothers (Eric and Bret, not Harvey and Bob) to present their views more broadly. Some of the effects are bad, as it can provide a platform for people purveying bad ideas ranging from Al Qaeda to Richard Spencer.
The relatively new college lecture format, which seems to have been pioneered by Ben Shapiro and now Charlie Kirk, can contribute to this problem. Questioners are typically young, college-age folks, who are often confused and quite inarticulate, whether they are on the Left or the alt-right. There are a bunch of YouTube videos, for example, of Shapiro “destroying” some bumbling Leftist student, and while I think that Shapiro’s positions are generally correct in such encounters, it is also true that he is punching down.