What is the "alt-right"?

[Rand /pol/]

Identity politics

identity politics

identity politics

I see this word used a lot but it never made much sense to me, and seems like a cop out, all politics revolve around some form of "identity".

 

[Kyria the Great]

I see this word used a lot but it never made much sense to me, and seems like a cop out, all politics revolve around some form of "identity".

Perhaps ethnic identity politics is a better one.

 

[Save the Loli]

The truth of the matter is that more true Alt-Right is simply anyone that doesn't currently agree with the current mainstream Right leaning politics as there are alot of traditional conservatives, libertarians, and others who don't agree with the dying Neo-Cons who made the Republican Party garbage.

I'm pretty sure that any conservative under 40 is called "alt-right" nowadays, and so is any conservative over 40 who isn't blatantly part of the neocon establishment or Religious Right. This is why that according to some people, Ron Paul, David Duke, Ben Shapiro, and Sean Hannity are all part of the same movement, which a quick search shows is taking marching orders from Richard Spencer, Andrew Anglin, and weev.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

I see this word used a lot but it never made much sense to me, and seems like a cop out, all politics revolve around some form of "identity".

Generally it refers to political idealogies centered around a racial, sexual, or religious identity. White nationalism is an identity politic, for example. It's considered a separate thing because Western republicanism is theoretically beyond that and focuses on civic duty. Ideally you should be concerned with the body politic as a whole and not whatever most benefits your chosen tribe.

 

[Medicated]

The Alt-right as it is understood by the media is a bunch of Neo-Nazi tryhards that want to ethnically cleanse the country of all the niggers, jews, and spics and there are millions of them, when in reality they are just as sad as Social Justice Warriors who pull the identity politics card.

The truth of the matter is that more true Alt-Right is simply anyone that doesn't currently agree with the current mainstream Right leaning politics as there are alot of traditional conservatives, libertarians, and others who don't agree with the dying Neo-Cons who made the Republican Party garbage.

I'd probably agree with this. The issue is, the people that identify as alt-right themselves are what the media would label as neo-nazis/nazis (ie Richard Spencer). Everyone else that don't like the Democrats or the Republicans, that would describe themselves from center left to right, is labelled by them as alt-right. I know because I've been called alt-right numerous times for disagreeing on things, saying Trump won't destroy the earth. Or even calling for concessions to be made on issues.

So basically now everyone right of Mao is virtually alt-right.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

They are then simplified further by placing them on a line of left of right, where "center" is a punchline.

I for one would like it if we stopped basing political ideology on a the spectrum of early 19th century French navel-gazers who all preached the virtues of democracy after assassinating their royalty yet ended up handing the reigns to an emperor who led what should probably be called the first world war yet isn't in less than two decades.

Really, what do the edwardian French have to do with modern shitposting?

 

[Y2K Baby]

I for one would like it if we stopped basing political ideology on a the spectrum of early 19th century French navel-gazers who all preached the virtues of democracy after assassinating their royalty yet ended up handing the reigns to an emperor who led what should probably be called the first world war yet isn't in less than two decades.

Really, what do the edwardian French have to do with modern shitposting?

Give me the Alec Better Label System.

 

[Cool kitties club]

I for one would like it if we stopped basing political ideology on a the spectrum of early 19th century French navel-gazers who all preached the virtues of democracy after assassinating their royalty yet ended up handing the reigns to an emperor who led what should probably be called the first world war yet isn't in less than two decades.

Really, what do the edwardian French have to do with modern shitposting?

The sepecrtum of left wing and right have changed so much terms are basically meaning. Who’s on the left and right seems very arbitrary and more based on subjective feeling then any actual sense of morals; I mean both a right-libertarian and a nazi are considered right wing. The terms are either used as shut down words “this person is just a crazy left winger” or “this person is a dumb right winger”, or they are used to loosely tie together alliances of non-related ideologies “I am a left winger so I believe in progress, equality, and tolerance” or “I am a right winger so I believe in order, tradition, culture, and careful consideration”.

 

[queerape]

The alt-right is what happens if you listen when autism speaks.

 

[Yaoi Zowie]

Give me the Alec Better Label System.

We already have a better label system, it's considering each party/ideology as discrete entities with their own belief sets. Each ideology should be considered on a Venn diagram with occasionally overlapping beliefs, rather than a linear scale from "a little Nazi" to "a lot Nazi", or "a little communist" to "a lot communist". The latter is useful for nothing but strawman fights, where the arguments go, "You like this, and a shithead likes this. So you and the shithead are basically the same thing."

As for alt-right in particular, when I first encountered it, it seemed to be shorthand for the fiscally conservative, socially somewhat liberal generation that is savvy with internet culture and repulsed by the progressives. Then leftist media started calling them white nationalists and also started calling everything on the internet alt-right. Some dumb white nationalists saw this and thought, "My people!", confusing shitposts on 4chan for a massive grassroots swell of people that think like them. Now the term is pretty much meaningless, since it means something different to everyone. I don't know anyone who self-identifies as "alt-right" anymore who's worth spending time with or on.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

I for one would like it if we stopped basing political ideology on a the spectrum of early 19th century French navel-gazers who all preached the virtues of democracy after assassinating their royalty yet ended up handing the reigns to an emperor who led what should probably be called the first world war yet isn't in less than two decades.

Really, what do the edwardian French have to do with modern shitposting?

The French were running hot right out the gate when they justly murdered their nobles but damn did they fuck that up fast.

America is literally the only country to ever figure out the whole Revolution thing. I guess Haiti and Mexico as well but they dropped the ball pretty quick in their own ways.

 

[Autism Man]

It's when you hit alt and press the right arrow key on your keyboard

 

[AnOminous]

The French were running hot right out the gate when they justly murdered their nobles but damn did they fuck that up fast.

America is literally the only country to ever figure out the whole Revolution thing. I guess Haiti and Mexico as well but they dropped the ball pretty quick in their own ways.

That's because it wasn't, strictly speaking, a pure revolution. Before the Revolution, the states did most of the actual governing, and after the Revolution, the states did most of the actual governing. Some of them even continued using their original colonial charters well afterwards, just dropping the parts that related to England.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

That's because it wasn't, strictly speaking, a pure revolution.

(USER WAS DROWNED IN BOSTON HARBOR FOR THIS POST)

 

[Terrorist]

Well, that's the issue, nobody fucking knows do they? Everybody has their own gay little label for it (always defined relative to their gay little ideological clique) and can never agree on what exactly the alt-right is, what its goals are, etc or if it even exists anymore.

I broadly define it as "dissident right-wing thought", which has issues too bc its all relative to what the mainstream right believes and completely changes by country.

 

[Snuckening]

When someone talks about "alt-right", they're using one of two possible definitions;

(1) The self-described "alt-right"; a specific, pretty small group of edgy, smug, contrarian "white identitarian" ethno-nationalists with an autistic fixation on whiteness and Yay!! The west!!- Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, Millenial Woes, Chris Cantwell, most of /pol/( who mostly hate all the above, but thats contrarians for you) and people with similar ideas (ie ethnonationalism, bitching about actual conservatives, white victimhood, complaining about (((you know who))), joking about nazism, praising nazism, explaining how nazism really wasnt as bad as you think, and being shocked that people keep thinking they're nazis for some reason. Also traditional Western values like anime lolis, traps, shitty 80s pop, wishing the enlightenment never happened and explainkng how democracy is a failure)

Or (2) the media's (and the left's) definition of "alt-right", who are a much bigger, more vague, fuzzy group of pretty much anyone who holds any views critical of progressivism, or anyone "anti-sjw" at all, (apart from traditional mainstream conservatives)- everyone from Jordan Peterson to Sargon, incels, gamergate, Joe Rogan, Pewpiedie, Kiwi Farms, anyone who's ever used 4chan, Trump, Gavin McGuiness and his Proud Boys, Ben Shapiro, Milo Yianopolis, Sam Harris, even TERFs, Laci Green, and Kanye West, depending who you ask. (Except the media/the left will try to associate this "alt-right" with the beliefs of the other , ethnonationalist, racially-fixated alt-right, for added scariness)

People should just have two different terms for the two definitions, but whatever- the way people talk about that stuff it's usually not hard to tell which of the two definitions of "alt-right" they're using.

 

[Cool kitties club]

wishing the enlightenment never happened and explainkng how democracy is a failure

Thats more of a neoreactionary thing though there is some overlap

 

[Webby's Boyfriend]

Some bunch of basement-dwelling aspies who think they are the masterrace.

 

[RichardMongler]

As cynical as @Snuckening 's take may be, he's close to the mark. I gotta ask what you mean by "actual conservatives". You certainly don't mean Neocons, do you? I would hardly call them Conservatives:

Richard Mongler's definition is an attempt by various small groups of clown shoe morons to act like their dumb nazi larp is legitimate and big enough to matter. They're useful idiots because they go right along with the media's line about the alt-right being a a bunch of nazis. No, a group of idiots on the internet don't get to define what the alt-right is, who cares what some random people vomited into the internet on the subject.

It would be helpful if you elaborated more, but I'm going to presume you mean the IronMarch network's collective assessment of the alt-right is irrelevant. I'm afraid time has proven them right as the alt-right's major chance to win hearts and minds ended disastrously. It doesn't help when you're being shit on by absolutely everybody with an ounce of power and influence over you while having no supporters of your own, but what can you expect to accomplish when you're only supported by those with nothing to lose? Even as far back as 2011, Alex Kurtagić realized this was a problem from within, and Trump's election has only made those too-smug-for-their-own-good right-wingers even more complacent. Now they're completely helpless seeing that they're getting deplatformed left and right.

On another note, the alt-right has always existed in varying segments for decades (for reference, American Renaissance goes back to the '90s), but 2010 was the year all these disparate elements coalesced into an identifiable movement. You had Youth for Western Civilization who actively tried recruiting college students into the cause across the country as well as White Students Union at Towson University. Of course, these elements all stayed on the fringes but were quite active during the days of Obama. I know plenty of alt-righters identify as Libertarians in mixed company to present as something less threatening, although deep down, they felt free markets and brown people don't mix.

The ultimate goal of the alt-right was to become the new Republican Party. Sadly, they failed spectacularly at the goal.

 

[Snuckening]

As cynical as @Snuckening 's take may be, he's close to the mark. I gotta ask what you mean by "actual conservatives". You certainly don't mean Neocons, do you? I would hardly call them Conservatives

I just meant the traditional, mainstream conservative movement on the whole- neo-cons (who are prominent in Republican leadership, but IMO are much less so on the ground), Tea Party types, constitutional absolutists, Christians, esp Evangelicals, your average work-a-day guy who votes Republican because he just wants low taxes and small government, but doesn't care about the 'white identitarian', cultural crusader stuff which is the main focus for the alt-right. Just mainstream Republican voters overall, who are generally more turned off by the alt-right's fixation on race, tendency to authoritarianism, etc, than they are by the mainstream left.