Comment: “It would help a lot if the Richard Spencers of the world weren’t doing their nazi-Germany historical recreation society gestures at otherwise respectable conferences.”
No, you’re missing the point of Alt Right.
Alt Right does not flow from respectability. It is the enfant terribles of the Right. It has to be edgy. Now, Alt Right has a place for the staid and respectable.
Kevin Macdonald is rather a diligent pedantic scholar of Jewish history and power. He doesn’t have style and flair. He is offering a counter-culture-of-critique.
He is considered dangerous and heretical(even outrageous) by MSM because his views are so politically incorrect. But he is not a trouble-maker, a bomb thrower, a visionary, or leader.
Jared Taylor is also a respectable figure. He is well-mannered and dignified in style. But he too is unwelcome and considered dangerous by the MSM for his views that are inimical to standard PC.
Neither men are looking to be risque, edgy, or dangerous. They are just considered as such because their views deviate so much from the boilerplate of what is Acceptable in the Current Year.
Same goes for Paul Gottfried. Like MacDonald, he too is an academic type. His book ENCOUNTERS is interesting, but it’s more about ideas than action.
Peter Brimelow used to be a respectable figure, but his views on immigration become increasingly heretical and even ‘evil’ according to PC as the US became more diverse, PC took over media and academia, and GOP caved to Neocons and ‘cucks’.
Now, the Alt Right has room for such individuals and owes a debt of gratitude(because they kept the fire alive against all odds when their ideas were written off as dustbin of End of History.) Alt Right owes something to those people.
But they aren’t exactly core Alt Right. Elements of dissident right were given no place at the table, not even in Conservatism Inc that eventually purged Buchanan, Derbyshire, and even Steyn.
So older figures like Macdonald, Brimelow, and Taylor formed an alliance with younger figures like Spencer.
Also, the MSM in 2015 decided to tie Alt Right with Trump, and it was the media that cast a wide net. Alt Right became everything from Daily Stormer & Andrew Anglin to Milo of Breitbart & Steve Bannon. Some in the media went so far as to say Trump himself is an Alt Right candidate. Ridiculous.
The core Alt Right has been a movement of the edge, but according to the media, you’d think at least 1/4 of the people who supported Trump were Alt Right. Media played up and exaggerated Alt Right as much as they underplayed Wright & Ayers in 2008.
Core Alt Right is really a youthful dissident, heretical, theoretic, and revolutionary(even radical) movement made up of a new generation of thinkers and activists who feel they have no place in Conservatism Inc.
Though the media’s definition of Alt Right was too inclusive, it is true enough that there is a great variance among Alt Right figures that range from traditional Christians like Mark Hackard to neo-pagans to aristocratic libertarians, and etc.
American Conservative Magazine and Taki Mag sort of pointed the way, but TAC is part of Dilbertine Beltway culture, and Taki Mag is more like Alternative Conservatism or Alternative Libertarianism than truly Alt Right, which is far more brazen about race, identity, resistance, and youthful passion.
Unlike Macdonald, Taylor, and Brimelow who never asked for notoriety or trouble but got them due to PC domination, the Alt Right relishes notoriety, danger, risque politics, mischief, bad boy antics, and a bit of scandal. It goes for white mischief.
And it is not afraid to be bold, visionary, creative, and daring. It doesn’t shirk away from intellectual molotov cocktail-tossing, trolling(sometimes with sadistic glee), fight fire-with-fire-ism, and the sardonic smirk. It’s sort of like the French New Wave with trouble-makers like Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, and others.
Or like the British Invasion with its Rockers vs Mods thing. Or like punk rock(though I can’t stand it). Alt Right is closer to the spirit of the Stones than the Beatles. It is a baiter of the Establishment like young Bob Dylan who speech at Tom Paine award was a riot and who drove the folkies nuts with electric guitar at Newport. It is a pisser on Political Correctness and Globalist Power.
The fun thing about Mick Jagger was he could play it straight with the press but also the bad boy, the nasty, and the jester. He could to the gentleman, he could do the black, he could do the white doing black, he could do the white doing black doing white. He reminds me of Anthony Michael in WEIRD SCIENCE.
So, the Alt Right aspect of NPI conference needed to be edgy. It needed to make a bold gesture that would outrage the MSM. It couldn’t be just matter-of-fact. The Alt Right is nothing without a bit of theatrical, hyperbolic, apocalyptic, parodic, ironic, and even a bit sick.
It’s like Kevin Grace describes Mishima’s antics. The cult of Mishima owed to notoriety and ambiguity. Mishima wasn’t just a writer but a cult figure.
Alt Right is into real ideas. It is about honest and courageous discussion of race, identity, history, and social reality, far more so than the media and academia, though I suppose a world controlled totally by Alt Right could lead to its PC repressions.
At the moment, it is the most daring, courageous, and honest intellectual movement in America. It may not have the most erudite thinkers or the most intelligent people(on the level of Pinker and Ivy League types), but they make up for it with boldness and courage seen almost nowhere else where PC dominates from far left to Conservatism Inc.
Also, Alt Right isn’t only alt to Conservatism Inc & GOP but alt to 14/88 and Neo-Nazism, the Hollywood fantasy of the KKK. To be sure, Alt Right has connections with both Conservatism Inc and 14/88. Alt Right is close to Brimelow whose site features Ann Coulter who supports politicians of GOP. And there are some murky connections between Alt Right and 14/88 via borderline figures like Greg Johnson and Alex Kurtagic.
But then, even some non 14/88 elements of Alt Right love to play with neo-Nazi memes just to piss off the media and academia — and teachers pets — that throws fits and tantrums all the time. If MSM sees fantasy KKK at Oberlin and Nazi-rapists at UVA, why not play along and provoke them with a Pepe the ‘nazi’ frog? Sometimes, hilarity ensued when college professors began to give lectures about Pepe as a ‘hate symbol’. They have no idea how much they got trolled. In this our Age of the Trigger, it is irresistible not to TRIGGER the media and respectable establishment with some outrage. It’s like bad boy French Right of the 1950s that did outrageous things, like in the scene in LES COUSINS where a French youth romanticized a Nazi soldier lost in France.
http://www.newwavefilm.com/about/french-new-wave-politics.shtml
60s Counterculture had its serious thinkers and activists, but it also had its shock troops, jesters, clowns, provocateurs. It got a lot of attention but some of that theatricality.
If Alt Right had thus far been ONLY a respectable movement about think pieces and staid conferences, it would not have made any splash on a culture that looks for the Outrage of the Week.
And we have to give Spencer a lot of credit. Not only did he coin the term but he brought together and orchestrated different personalities in both continents.
And let’s not forget he was arrested in Hungary(of all places) because the Globalist masters fingered him and forced even conservative Orban to arrest him. Despite having done no wrong — Spencer’s sin was bringing together European patriots — , he was banned from EU for several years. How many people were willing to go through all that? Also, unlike many Alt Rightists, he put himself out there, and he was even hounded in his place of residence in Montana.
Given his presentation and style, I think Spencer could have gone far in politics. Had he played it safe and respectable like Mitt Romney, he could have been chosen for political office or public face of some Neocon outlet. He is smart and presentable, which a lot of political thinkers and activists are not.
But he didn’t take the 30 pieces of silver. He didn’t do the Jack Hunter thing, the guy who went from being the Southern Avenger to the Southern Fried Chicken.
Also, Spencer was smart enough to find the chink in the establishment armor. American Renaissance conferences were canceled in private venues due to terrorist and financial threats, and of course, the MSM ignored this repression of freedom and assembly. And even Conservatives were mum and offered no moral support since they’d caved to Neocons and PC. Spencer however realized that the safest place for alternative voices was in the belly of the beast. The Reagan building. He’s been very savvy about those things.
Also, I don’t hold it against Spencer that he’s a Germanophile(but he also seems to be a Russophile) and that he admires certain positive attributes of National Socialism. I think any honest person would admit National Socialism couldn’t have gained power and popularity had it been all bad. Of course, its evil side was very evil and led Germany to destruction. But it is possible to separate the wheat from the chaff. It’s like Joachim Fest said in his very critical and damning biography of Hitler. Had Hitler died after he took Sudetenland, he would have gone down as one of Germany’s greatest leaders.
Spencer’s blindspot is that he isn’t nearly as concerned as he should be about the dark evil side of National Socialism. I don’t believe for a moment that he is a Hitler-lover; still, his outlook is visionary and prophetic, and this makes him somewhat Wagnerian and ‘Nietzschean’ in his view of history, and he sometimes gets carried away with the Future Is Ours rhetoric that may seem a bit supremacist-ish. I tend to prefer the humanist model because hubris always leads to nemesis and demise.
Spencer’s association with Kurtagic(who is really like a Himmler-figure) is troubling. I can always spot pathological Himmler-ish type. (Anglin is like a clown version of Streicher, and no one takes him seriously.) Anyway, I think Spencer’s camaraderie with Kurtagic has less to do with ideology than Kurtagic’s sense of reach, a futurism peering deeper into the realm of the possible.
Whatever Spencer’s feelings about National Socialism may be, he is not a mindless fanboy of Naziesquery that Matthew Heimbach is. Indeed, Spencer’s banning of Heimbach and Parrott a year ago at the NPI conference signals real ideological divide.
Besides, the media have no credibility after its indulgence of Ferguson riots, BLM lunacy, black & PC thuggery on colleges(esp at Mizzou but also at Duke), cop killings, silence about Hillary & Obama’s mass murders in Middle East, and etc.
And how dare Jewish power bitch about racial supremacism when AIPAC strongarms all politicians to continue the support of Israel’s Occupation of West Bank. And isn’t Jewish Globalist animus toward Russia predicated on the perception that Russians are a bunch of inferior drunken Slavs undeserving of all the great resources of Russia that should really fall into the hands of globalist oligarchs?
Also, the HAMILTON’s casts behavior toward Mike Pence was downright disgusting. It violated all decency and protocol. Being black or proggy means never having to say you’re sorry.
And Spencer’s supposed ‘hail’ salute is NOTHING compared to MSM’s non-stop hounding about Trump as ‘literally hitler’ and ‘fascist’ for a whole year. If indeed MSM is correct, it means someone should assassinate Trump since we’ve all been led to believe that Hitler should have been killed(even in the cradle) and it was fun, fun, fun to see Gaddafi sodomized and lynched to death. If Trump is indeed Hitler, the logic would indicate he deserves the same fate. The fact that the media can go on after such behavior is the real scandal. Besides, if any racial hatred is permissible in the US, it is anti-white hatred, and there were so many examples of this in the anti-white violence at Trump rallies where men and women were bloodied in the face. Trump supporters didn’t shut down a single Hillary or Sanders rally. Sanders’ worst opposition came from BLM. But Hillary thugs shut down Trump’s rally in Chicago. And after the election, Proglodytye thugs went about smashing several cities for several nights. But according to MSM, the great horror is Spencer’s Hail remark. MSM needs to be trolled. What a joke.
I don’t defend everything Spencer did, but I think we should stand by him because he’s been out there, paid his dues(especially in Hungary and EU as a whole), gave up what could have been a lucrative career in politics & punditry for his true convictions, and devoted his life to the cause of his people.
To focus so much on this ‘hail’ thing is to miss the bigger picture. Spencer isn’t just some loser-dork neo-nazi basement dweller who never would have amounted anything.
He has the image and smarts to have been someone in Conservative Inc. Had he played his cards right, the GOP establishment would have appointed him for some institute or groomed him for political office. He has charm and likability. Even progs who loathe him say there’s something appealing about him.
But, he gave all of that up because, unlike the Romneys, Grahams, Cottons, and Gowdies of the world, he chose not to sell his core ideas and dreams for 30 pieces of silver.
It’s like Mr. Blonde, crazy as he is, has been utterly moral in his loyalty to the crew.
I don’t care how the media spin the HAIL thing. Spencer has done more than most to further the Alt Right. He not only wrote think-pieces — any blogger can do that — but organized meetings, brought people together, and met with various media outlets to explain things. It took a lot of will, nerves, and resolve, especially as the entire power structure from academia, media, and politics are no-go zone for people like him.
Worse, even when Spencer played by the rules, the powers-that-be were out to destroy him. Though he didn’t violate any terms, he was taken off Twitter. And National Review cheered the decision like the worthless cuck-zine that it is. Of course, NR didn’t come to his defense when he was arrested in Hungary. Incidentally, the very Hungary that banned the White Identity meeting hosted a Jewish Interest Meeting.
Also, Spencer doesn’t take things too personally. He is able to see the bigger picture. He had every reason to feel bitter and betrayed by Viktor Orban, but he supported Orban who defended his nation from Muslim and African invaders. He let bygones be bygones for the greater good.
And Spencer surely understands why Trump has to now distance himself from the Alt Right. Trump now has to be respectable. Trump played the ‘reckless’ maverick to rouse up energy and interest to win the election. He took a huge gamble and won. But now he has to turn his back on the Alt Right to be leader of the country.
It’s like the ending of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT and BROADWAY DANNY ROSE. It’s the nature of the game. When the players finally win or make it, they turn their backs on their supporters to shmooze with the men of power and privilege.
But then, for the Alt Right to remain a vanguard movement, it has to remain ‘dangerous’ and go where no one wants to go. Though THE FOUNTAINHEAD has a Hollywood ending, it is right that SOMEONE has to be willing to be like Howard Roark and never compromise core principles.
Alt Right must carry the cross. It comes with the territory of playing the vanguard role.
