Luke Ford

David Weigel writes:

Taylor and Spencer, like many on the alt-right, believe in the relative superiority of different races; social conservatives believe that adherence to traditional Judeo-Christian values would bring about harmony. As the Daily Beast’s Betsy Woodruff prodded Spencer into admitting, the “utopian” alt-right state would include European whites but no Jews.

“Does anyone in this room really think that differences between pygmies, Danes and Australian aborigines are just social constructs?” Taylor asked at one point. “Really? This idea is so stupid that only very intelligent people could believe it.”

…Yet when they got inside the downtown Washington hotel where Spencer, Brimelow and Taylor would speak, reporters could ask whatever they wanted. That was on brand; alt-right figures write and talk constantly and make themselves available to the media. They also seem totally uninterested in dissembling — the more shocking and blunt the answer, the better…

The alt-right doesn’t have a political strategy yet. The Friday news conference was loose, with no real agenda apart from clearing up who represented the alt-right (no one person, said Spencer) and what the alt-right believes. Highly aware of their toxicity, the alt-right’s leaders support Donald Trump but admit that his attitude and elevation of the issues of race and immigration are more important — in the short term — than what he says from week to week. The closest thing to a political ground game on the alt-right has come in the form of clumsy robo-calls from California’s William Johnson…

The alt-right isn’t into American exceptionalism. At the Values Voter Summit, this year and every year, politicos and activists hark back to the founding faith of America’s revolutionaries. Hardly an hour can go by without a nod to John Winthrop’s “city upon on a hill” quote, as handed down (and slightly altered) by Ronald Reagan.

For the alt-right, America is more at risk because it is less providential. “We question America’s founding myth,” Spencer explained. “If you look at the Declaration of Independence, it’s not just the notion of ‘all men are created equal’ that I would object to. It’s also this notion that states come into being as entities for people to defend their inalienable rights. I find that to be total hokum, nonsense. That’s not how any state, including the United States, came into being.”

Brimelow used his briefer remarks to speculate about a balkanized American future, where some states — led by the Pacific Northwest — would declare the experiment over. “I think it will break up,” he said. “In some ways, that’s the best we can hope for.”

…Downtown, the alt-right troika praised Trump not because he was adopting new beliefs, but because he had found and defeated the right enemies.

“I don’t think our support of Trump is about policy, at the end of the day — it’s about style,” Spencer said. “We live in a fragmented, decaying society. We live in a society of moral degeneracy. We’re going to fight our way out it, and sometimes that means using the tools at hand. It’s going to mean unleashing a little chaos.”

Rosie Gray writes: “We’ve got to have professional organizations, professional people doing it, we’ve got to amp up what we’re already doing,” said Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader.

…The press conference was billed as an explainer of the alt-right, but it was also focused on where the three men see things developing in the future, both politically and on a grander philosophical level. Brimelow sees the country breaking up geographically into different sections, while Spencer envisions a white ethno-state. But the matter of more immediate concern is still Trump’s campaign, which while not a perfect vessel for the alt-right is as close as anything has come, culminating in Trump’s hiring former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon, who has described Breitbart as “platform for the alt-right.” Alt-right members sneer not just at the left but also at movement conservatives, viewing them as relics who sold out on the issue that matters most: race. Brimelow dismissed National Review, for example, as a “cuckservative operation.”

“Certainly we have been you could say riding his coattails,” Spencer said of Trump. He acknowledged the alt-right’s differences of opinion with Trump on policy but downplayed the importance of policies at all; “it’s about him,” Spencer said. “And it’s about in a way projecting onto him our hopes and dreams.”

Non-Jews can’t move to Israel and become citizens with the same ease that Jews can. Does that mean Jews hate non-Jews? So why if gentiles want to create their own states without Jews, that means they hate Jews?

Daily Beast:

The Alt-Right needs to aspire to something, even if that dream won’t come true in his lifetime—and that means they should aim to build an ethno-state for just whites. And Spencer made it clear that white-only means Jews aren’t invited. They have their own identity, and it isn’t white-slash-European, and that’s that…

So the Alt-Right—helmed by the trio who gathered at The Willard on Friday—is the most extreme example of a shift on the American right: away from a nostalgic conservative focus on restoring the values of the Founders, and towards a forward-focused nationalism that prioritizes drastic limits on immigration and open hostility to globalism. Trump isn’t a white nationalist. But he speaks their language. And they dig it.

Wow, there’s nothing snide in this article!

Tucker Carlson seems the most woke of all conservative journalists.

Daily Caller: This of course brings up accusations of white supremacy. However, all three men object to this description. When asked about this label, Brimelow pointed to race and IQ studies which show “whites are not the superior race” and it is instead East Asians. He then joked that he must then be a “yellow supremacist.”

The alt right leaders also received many questions related to whether they are anti-semites. Taylor and Spencer disagreed here, but both said that Jews could be part of the Alt Right. Taylor said he considers European Jews to be European and Spencer said that Jews are a distinct people.

The movement has been described frequently as relating to conservatism but those present at the meetings objected to this characterization. Spencer said the “origin of the alt right is really a revolt against conservatism as we know it.” He spoke about “cuckservatives,” and defined them as “defending institutions for other people.”

Clinton spoke about the alt right in connection with Donald Trump. However, Spencer doesn’t think Trump is alt right — just that he is “high energy” and what they want in a leader. He agrees mostly with Trump’s immigration policy, but would want tighter legal immigration that prefers Europeans.

The movement has no strict leadership or orthodoxy and Spencer said that he is opposed to specific policy proposals. He instead prefers “meta-politics.” He has a vision for a white ethno-state, but this is a utopia he sees occurring far into the future. Spencer said having a utopia-like vision is positive and better than the “negativity” of mainstream conservatives that just seeks to oppose liberal policies.

Taylor’s goal for the alt right is possibly more realistic. He envisioned a PTA meeting where people are discussing the lack of black students in AP classes, and a mother stands up and mentions race’s influence on intellect.

Before either of these goals are achieved, Spencer wants the alt right to professionalize like other political movements. When asked about where they will get money for this, Spencer joked and said, “Vlad,” in reference to Vladimir Putin.