[cosmiccartel]

> These guys largely call themselves the "alt-right".

No they don't. Most of "these guys", meaning the new right, distance themselves from that term because of its association with white nationalism.

> They're basically as bad as you've heard, but hiding it sometimes.

No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other. This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right. It's a smear campaign.

Your statement is a perfect example. In your eyes, anyone on the right not engaging in Nazi fantasies is really just "hiding it". You're "unthinging" the views of the vast majority of them to pretend that they are uniform in ideology.

[thinkcontext]

What do you make of the leaks of Breitbart emails Buzzfeed published? That pretty explicitly shows Bannon encouraging Milo to engage with white supremacists but dress them up a bit and hide it.

Also interesting was the NYT Magazine piece that reported on the Harvard analysis of the network of links of the media. They talk about your issue head-on. Its conclusion was that Breitbart was not itself an extremist site a la Daily Stormer but that extremist sites link to Breitbart for legitimization. Breitbart had a section called "Black Crime" and it contained story after story after story of true(ish) content that Daily Stormer folks would link to say "Look what the n-words are up to now".

Its worth reading the quote:

The last thing Yochai Benkler noted before I left his office at Harvard was that his team had performed a textual analysis of all the stories in their database, and they found a surprising result. ‘‘One thing that came out very clearly from our study is that Breitbart is not talking about these issues in the same way you would find on the extreme right,’’ he said. ‘‘They don’t use the same language you find on sites like VDARE and The Daily Stormer’’ — two sites connected to the white-nationalist alt-right movement. He paused for a moment, then added: ‘‘Breitbart is not the alt-right.’’ Yet precisely because articles on the site were often less extreme than their own worst headlines, Breitbart functioned as a legitimizing tether for the most abhorrent currents of the right wing. Benkler referred to this as a ‘‘bridge’’ phenomenon, in which extremist websites linked to Breitbart for validation and those same fanatics could then gather in Breitbart’s comment section to hurl invectives.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/magazine/breitbart-alt-ri...

[eli_gottlieb]

>No, they're just lumped together in popular media. Breitbart and the Daily Stormer are portrayed as part of the same package, so that distasteful ideas from one can be used to discredit the other.

No, Steve Bannon said in an interview that he led Breitbart in giving a spearhead to the alt-right in large media.

>This erasure of the middle ground between center-left and extreme right is referred to in conservative circles as the "unthinging" of the right.

There are really three problems here.

* The "center" and "center-left" are already, by historic standards, quite right-wing on economic policy. This really skews the claim that we're talking about a spectrum between a "center-left" and a "right", insofar as we're really just talking about different degrees of permissiveness or authoritarianism on social issues, plus the "center-left" maintaining the barest rudiments of a vestigial welfare-state.

* Within the Right, the factions that we could have called "center-right" got tossed out as RINOs long ago. Ronald Reagan advocated employee ownership of firms as the way of the future; today Republicans would treat that as socialist heresy. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is now unheard-of, as are Republican appeals to conservative people of color or immigrants. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell really are far-right, in the sense that Ayn Rand is far to the libertarian right.

* The alt-right has deliberately worked to blur the boundaries between the libertarian right and the authoritarian-nationalist right, usually by invoking anti-democratic, nationalistic libertarian thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe. You know, the guy who wrote that, "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … [violators] will have to be physically removed from society."[1]

When your party has come to have a political spectrum stretching from Ayn Rand on its left to Augusto Pinochet on its right, yes, you are "these guys". Stop now, turn around, purge the alt-right, purge the Tea Party, and reestablish some common-sense and humanity, or else history will remember you as the bumbling enablers of American fascism.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or "physical removal" by death squads: which side are you on?

[1] -- https://mises.org/library/my-battle-thought-police

[PoliteTwig]

The first time I came across the term alt-right was in this article on Breitbart: https://www.google.is/amp/www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/....

As a ex Ron Paul supporter with a distaste for the GOP and Neo-Cons, I proudly called myself alt-right.

I joined a few alt-right forums and found similar-minded people. Libertarians, conservatives, nationalists (in the positive sense). Generally smart people. Not Nazis. Not white supremacists.

The term alt-right never seemed to me anything other than right-wing but not Republican.

Then I saw a few New York Times and CNN articles using it differently. Mixed freely with Nazis.

And I heard that white surpremecists were using it to make their views look more mainstream.

Then people started calling me a Nazi.

It’s a beautiful strategy to see a word redefined right in front of your eyes for political gain, but sad too.

If Bannon said Breitbart supported the alt-right, I’ll assume he’s referring to the definition I first understood from the article on his site, and not the one co-opted by the left-sided media and far-right groups.

[mercer]

Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're in favor of Trump's presidency (which seems likely if you support(?) Bannon), how would you counter the dominant view that he's terrible in all sorts of ways, including racism and misogyny.

Is it that he's nowhere near as racist/misogynist as he's made out to be by left-side media? Is it that he's, in hindsight, a bad bet (which I sometimes feel is what Bannon might conclude)?

If you're not in favor of Trump's presidency, but supportive of Bannon, could you elaborate on how Trump failed?

And, finally, if you're not "pro-Bannon" but nonetheless alt-right by your definition, could you elaborate on the nuance between how the alt-right is presented in (quite possibly left-wing) media, and the alt-right that you are proud of?

If you're not comfortable doing this here, I'd love to discuss it over email or something like that. I truly am asking out of interest.

[PoliteTwig]

I do support Trump, despite disagreeing with some policies.

I’ll never forget when Ron Paul was called a racist by the media in 2012, and how he was screwed by the Republicans. It still makes me angry today. I don't trust our government, media, or major parties, and all are bad stewards of our Republic. From that perspective, Trump is doing great. This chaos is good in the same way that a controlled fire from time to time is healthy for a forest ecosystem.

I don’t believe he’s a racist or a mysogynist though and I feel pretty confident I could argue against every example people give. However, the only thing it would convince them of is that I am making excuses for a terrible person. It’s not worth it. I’ll just say I think he’s a generally good person operating in a tough environment, and came to that conclusion by going directly to source material.

As for Bannon, I generally like him but I'm happy he's back running Breitbart instead of in the White House. Too controversal. He gave a good interview on 60 minutes last week that I mostly agreed with. And Breitbart - it can be inflammatory, but I find it a good counterbalance to everything else.

[thinkcontext]

Um, that article was written by none other than Milo Y, does that make alarm bells go off? Richard Spencer, noted white supremacist, originated the term years before that article was written. Its inconceivable Bannon was unaware of this when he made that statement.

But bickering over what the word mean or what Bannon meant is not really the point. Give the Buzzfeed Breitbart leak story a read. In it you'll see Bannon encourage Milo to engage with white supremacists but try to dress them up publicly. They are in fact trying to hide it.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart...

[PoliteTwig]

> Um, that article was written by none other than Milo Y, does that make alarm bells go off?

I’ve always liked Milo. But even if you don't, the article is still important if you want to understand the history of "alt-right" as it was understood by many people.

> Richard Spencer, noted white supremacist, originated the term years before that article was written

Maybe, but Breitbart brought it into the mainstream for me and many others. I also doubt 99% of Americans knew Richard Spencer’s name until last year.

> Its inconceivable Bannon was unaware of this when he made that statement.

Bannon made that statement a few months after Milo’s article. "Alt-right" didn't have those connotations at the time. I read now that Bannon rejects the "alt-right", presumably because its meaning has changed.

> Give the Buzzfeed Breitbart leak story a read. In it you'll see Bannon encourage Milo to engage with white supremacists but try to dress them up publicly.

It just sounds like journalism. Milo reached out to Devin Saucier (the white supremacist) while researching the article I linked that summarized all the parts of the alt-right movement. Vice did the same thing. Or did you mean something else?

[eli_gottlieb]

>As a ex Ron Paul supporter with a distaste for the GOP and Neo-Cons, I proudly called myself alt-right.

Rather than quibble over terminology, it's better if you just state your positive political program, and then we can see what you're into.

[PoliteTwig]

Sure. Limited government, non-interventionism, merit-based immigration, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, protecting the environment, private healthcare, net neutrality, free trade, strong civil society, education left to states, anti-PC, anti-bailouts.

[cosmiccartel]

> No, Steve Bannon said in an interview that he led Breitbart in giving a spearhead to the alt-right in large media.

This both true and irrelevant to my point. Quick history lesson of the term:

It was originally coined by white nationalists. Later, when the new right came about, they billed themselves as an alternative to the neocons. Some of them began referring to themselves as alt-right in that sense, as did some outsiders. When made clear that the term originally referred to white nationalism, most of the new "alt-right" distanced themselves from the term, because they were not white nationalists. Some do still use the term in the sense of "alternative to the mainstream right". But, as said before, the vast majority have distanced themselves from it.

Bannon himself denounced the ethno-nationalists using the term "alt-right" multiple times. Furthermore, Bannon and Breitbart are not the new right. Many of us don't read or particularly like Breitbard. What one media outlet decides to call itself has nothing to do with a movement as a whole. Nobody that I know personally, as an active member of the new right, refers to themself as alt-right.

> There are really three problems here.

I'll address those one by one:

> The "center" and "center-left" are already, by historic standards, quite right-wing on economic policy. This really skews the claim that we're talking about a spectrum between a "center-left" and a "right", insofar as we're really just talking about different degrees of permissiveness or authoritarianism on social issues, plus the "center-left" maintaining the barest rudiments of a vestigial welfare-state.

You're muddying the waters here. Given that ardent National Socialists, while economically liberal, are considered far-right, we're obviously not talking about economics. Given that authoritarian communist regimes are considered far-left, we're obviously not talking about authoritarianism and libertarianism.

The new right is, for the most part, ardently anti-authoritarian.

And, in the sense of social conservatism, the current center is extreme left historically.

> * Within the Right, the factions that we could have called "center-right" got tossed out as RINOs long ago. Ronald Reagan advocated employee ownership of firms as the way of the future; today Republicans would treat that as socialist heresy.

Many, sure. And yet there are many of us who are being lumped into the "alt-right" for our social views, myself included, who would not react that way.

> Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is now unheard-of, as are Republican appeals to conservative people of color or immigrants.

Simply false. We have no issue with people of color or immigrants. We simply disagree with poisonous Cultural Marxist policies on such issues becoming law.

> * The alt-right has deliberately worked to blur the boundaries between the libertarian right and the authoritarian-nationalist right, usually by invoking anti-democratic, nationalistic libertarian thinkers such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe. You know, the guy who wrote that, "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … [violators] will have to be physically removed from society."[1]

This is not a view shared by most of the new right, only certain more authoritariam elements. It certainly isn't any more extreme than the leftist craze for punching "Nazis".

> When your party has come to have a political spectrum stretching from Ayn Rand on its left to Augusto Pinochet on its right, yes, you are "these guys". Stop now, turn around, purge the alt-right, purge the Tea Party, and reestablish some common-sense and humanity, or else history will remember you as the bumbling enablers of American fascism.

> Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or "physical removal" by death squads: which side are you on?

This actually made me laugh.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Simply false. We have no issue with people of color or immigrants. We simply disagree with poisonous Cultural Marxist policies on such issues becoming law.

"Cultural Marxist" means "Jewish" -- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism

>This is not a view shared by most of the new right, only certain more authoritariam elements. It certainly isn't any more extreme than the leftist craze for punching "Nazis".

As a matter of fact, mass purges are more extreme than individual crimes.

Goodbye.

[cosmiccartel]

> "Cultural Marxist" means "Jewish" -- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism

Association fallacy -- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

As your page admits, it has another, original meaning. One which is conveniently downplayed. This is another example of "unthinging". Don't complain about the rampant Cultural Marxism, or you're just a dirty antisemite!

> As a matter of fact, mass purges are more extreme than individual crimes.

One large segment of the population singling out another for physical harm based on political ideology is a mass purge.

[cosmiccartel]

For anyone interested, "Cultural Marxism" refers to the application of Marxist critical theory to the social sciences, particularly issues of race, gender, culture, and identity.

Current mainstream leftist memes, with a focus on issues like "white privilege", and the systematic inversion of this supposed privilege, cannot be described as anything but Cultural Marxism.

Somewhat related, and highly recommended, is the article Gramscian Damage by ESR (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260).

And if anyone like eli_gottlieb wants to smear you as an antisemite for speaking out against Marxism, this is why: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=125