Milo writes: Former Rand Paul staffer Jack Hunter ran a lengthy piece in the Daily Beast this week, criticizing me for co-authoring an explainer on the alt-right that wasn’t, as every other journalist’s attempt to chronicle the movement has been, a pointless collection of faux-outraged virtue-signalling.
I don’t normally respond when a Left-wing outlet cries “racist,” of course. That’s what they exist to do. But Hunter’s odd mixture of hero-worship and playing to the progressive gallery caught my eye. I’m intrigued by the bizarre tone of the hit job — at once slavishly admiring and superficially damning.
In the piece, he writes that he is “disturbed” by an auditorium full of energetic, mischievous students at one of my events chanting, “Cuck!” His headline and subhead also accuse me — somewhat laughably — of being the “face” of a racist hate movement.
It’s probably the first time that a face that’s enjoyed such close relations with America’s black population has been labelled a racist anything. Trust me, alt-right hardliners don’t like me any more than they like the Republican establishment or Hillary: I’m a degenerate, race-mixing gay Jew, and they don’t let me forget it!
That is to say, I’m a chronicler of, and occasional fellow traveller with, the alt-right. But I’m certainly no ringleader.
Although Hunter’s piece is gracious in tone, it’s still an attempted takedown. And even though Hunter sucks my metaphorical member enthusiastically throughout, and was full of effusive praise on Twitter — he’s understandably jumpy about me coming for him — I believe that a cursory examination of the editorial, and its author, will prove instructive.
I wasn’t familiar with Jack Hunter before reading the piece, of course, but after doing a little research into his past, Hunter’s motivations have become painfully obvious.
The career of Jack Hunter presents observers with the ultimate cautionary tale for robust young right-wingers who get caught saying stuff their friends in the media don’t like, and then dedicate the rest of their lives to bending and scraping to political correctness in a panicky and desperate attempt to retain social acceptability.
Hunter, you see, has a past. He attracted scandal, and was expelled from his position as an aide to Senator Rand Paul, after his background as pseudonymous radio host “The Southern Avenger” came to light in 2013.
As The Southern Avenger, Hunter wore a wrestling mask in the colours of the Confederate Flag and cracked jokes about tying the President of the NAACP to a tree and whipping him. It also emerged that he was a chairman in the League of the South, a neo-secessionist group.
Since the scandal, Hunter has been scrambling to distance himself from his old life. His initial response to the drama was to write a lengthy confessional for Politico, in which he recanted and apologised for his previous opinions. He now insists that he’s a changed man.
Our Jack is repenting for past sins, in other words, and using me as the vessel.
