Good (if old) article on the alt-right and Trump

[momeNt]

Came across the article today and figured that he has a pretty good perspective being a part of Breitbart as a constitutional conservative, and seeing Breitbart take on a new friend (alt-right) before leaving in March of 2016.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...alt_right_and_why_the_left_needs_to_turn.html


Some important quotes.

Basically, the alt-right is a group of thinkers who believe that Western civilization is inseparable from European ethnicity—which is racist, obviously. It’s people who believe that if Western civilization were to take in too many people of different colors and different ethnicities and different religions, then that would necessarily involve the interior collapse of Western civilization. As you may notice, this has nothing to do with the Constitution. It has nothing to do with the Declaration of Independence. It has nothing to do actually with Western civilization. The whole principle of Western civilization is that anybody can involve himself or herself in civilized values. That’s not what the alt-right believes—at least its leading thinkers, people like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor and Vox Day. Those kind of folks will openly acknowledge that this is their thought process.

So they’ve tried to broaden the definition so they can suck people into believing they’re alt-right, and then make themselves seem indispensable by saying, “Look at all these alt-right people. They’re all out here, and if the Republican Party pushes them to the side, then they’re going to pay an electoral price for that.” And then you have people winking and nodding at them because they think they’re an important constituency. So it’s a couple-step process, and glomming onto Trump has been part of that because Trump, I don’t think, is alt-right. I don’t think that Trump is particularly racist. I think he’s an ignoramus. I think that more than anything, Trump is willing to pay heed to and wink at anybody who provides him even a shred of good coverage. So if the alt-right, which worships at the altar of Trump—if they provide him good coverage, he’s willing to wink and nod at them and not wreck them.

So you think that Bannon is using the alt-right to get his agenda passed? But do you think that the alt-right thinks it’s using Bannon to get its agenda through?

Yes, and they’ll say it openly—they’ll say, “Bannon isn’t one of us. Breitbart isn’t us. Trump isn’t one of us. But they’re the most useful tool we’ve ever found.”

You think Bannon is wrong morally to play footsie with this group. Do you think it’s wrong politically?

I think it’s wrong politically because I think that everyone’s taking the wrong lessons, right and left, away from this election cycle.

I think on the right, people are taking it like Trump won this big, broad victory; Trump lost the popular vote by over 1 million votes, and he won by very, very narrow margins in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida. And the fact is that when all is said and done, the groups that are growing demographically in the United States are minorities, women, young people—millennials will be 40 percent of the voting population in 2020. And so if you’re banking on this ever-shrinking group, the alt-right, in order to put you over the top, that seems like bad politics. It’s alienating politics; it’s not something that’s going to help.

By the same token, I think that the left is making a huge mistake by labeling everybody on the right “alt-right.” Because what they’re doing is they’re pushing people into the arms of the alt-right. You call people racist enough, and they begin to think OK, well, who’s not calling me a racist—I’ll side with that guy. So the worst thing the left can do is continue to suggest that everyone who backed Trump was a racist, sexist, bigot homophobe; everyone’s evil, everyone’s terrible. What they really should be doing is they should be saying, “Look, we understand one of the reasons that we lost is because Hillary Clinton was a uniquely terrible candidate”—she really was—“and because of that, we’re not trying to throw you guys out of the tent. We think it was a bad choice to choose Trump, but we would sort of appeal to the better angels of your nature—that if we think he’s divisive as time goes on, that you recognize that he’s being divisive.” I think it’s a big mistake to have the left pushing the notion that they’re just going to double-down on the Obama coalition and tell everybody else to go screw.

I think a main takeaway is to not paint people as alt-right when they are not, that is basically feeding the troll. Trump isn't racist, he's an opportunist. Bannon isn't racist, or anti-semitic, he's an opportunist, that used the alt-right internet trolls to parade around the Trump message as a sort of free campaigning. The alt-right is a small, but very noisy group, let's do our part and not making it larger than it needs to be. Don't feed the troll.

 

[agent00f]

Came across the article today and figured that he has a pretty good perspective being a part of Breitbart as a constitutional conservative, and seeing Breitbart take on a new friend (alt-right) before leaving in March of 2016.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...alt_right_and_why_the_left_needs_to_turn.html


Some important quotes.

I think a main takeaway is to not paint people as alt-right when they are not, that is basically feeding the troll. Trump isn't racist, he's an opportunist. Bannon isn't racist, or anti-semitic, he's an opportunist, that used the alt-right internet trolls to parade around the Trump message as a sort of free campaigning. The alt-right is a small, but very noisy group, let's do our part and not making it larger than it needs to be. Don't feed the troll.

It's of course in Shapiro's interest to claim Steve "civic society" Bannon doesn't really mean it. People inclined to think so should listen to the interview within to see if he's just acting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...c66362-ab69-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html

 

[momeNt]

It's of course in Shapiro's interest to claim Steve "civic society" Bannon doesn't really mean it. People inclined to think so should listen to the interview within to see if he's just acting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...c66362-ab69-11e6-a31b-4b6397e625d0_story.html

Explain to me how this is in Shapiro's interest? He left Breitbart, is a NeverTrumper, is vilified by the alt-right movement within Breitbart and Milo.

I do not browse Breitbart, but it is my understanding that their comments is a breeding ground for the alt-right. Bannon saw that the energy of that area and created Breitbart News Daily to be actually driven by the comments section. So naturally the entire organizations message has shifted to alt-right, with a troll army of retweeters and facebook likers to promote the website and the ideas. I think that is what Shapiro means by Bannon and the alt-right taking up common cause. Bannon wants power, and Alt-right wants their voice heard and wants to recruit.

The left thinks that the best course of action is to paint anybody who disagrees with them as alt-right, call them racist, call Trump racist, and kick them out of the tent. Alt-right is looking for numbers, so that plays right into their hands. That is what I mean by feeding the troll.

So the worst thing the left can do is continue to suggest that everyone who backed Trump was a racist, sexist, bigot homophobe; everyone’s evil, everyone’s terrible.

This is often exactly what you do, you are pushing people into the arms of the alt-right. That was the main point I was trying to get across.

I'll let you double down now, and convert a few more people to their cause. Stage is yours.

 

[HomerJS]

Bannon can support the alt-right all he wants, his type shouldn't anywhere near the Oval Office. As for him not really supporting those people, court documents suggest otherwise.

 

[Sunburn74]

Trump is racist. Calling him an opportunist is well... maybe true, but you can be both a racist and an opportunist. However to say he is only an opportunist and not a racist is factually incorrect.

 

[momeNt]

Trump is racist. Calling him an opportunist is well... maybe true, but you can be both a racist and an opportunist. However to say he is only an opportunist and not a racist is factually incorrect.

So they’ve tried to broaden the definition so they can suck people into believing they’re alt-right, and then make themselves seem indispensable by saying, “Look at all these alt-right people. They’re all out here, and if the Republican Party pushes them to the side, then they’re going to pay an electoral price for that.” And then you have people winking and nodding at them because they think they’re an important constituency. So it’s a couple-step process, and glomming onto Trump has been part of that because Trump, I don’t think, is alt-right. I don’t think that Trump is particularly racist. I think he’s an ignoramus. I think that more than anything, Trump is willing to pay heed to and wink at anybody who provides him even a shred of good coverage. So if the alt-right, which worships at the altar of Trump—if they provide him good coverage, he’s willing to wink and nod at them and not wreck them.

So I mean the choice is yours. You can choose to up-play, or downplay, and give power, or take power from the alt-right. I suspect that the momentum is too strong to change direction. This is really playing well into the hands of the alt-right.

 

[Jaskalas]

Basically, the alt-right is a group of thinkers who believe that Western civilization is inseparable from European ethnicity

Western Civilization is inseparable from those who cherish and value it. Get this, the people who live in Western Civilization. We host the most open and diverse civilization in history. Ergo, Western Civilization is inseparable from diversity. Anyone claiming otherwise, or that injects ethnicity or race into the equation, is a troublemaker looking to stir the pot and incite divisions.

Where we would clash with others is over ideals and values. Not ethnicity or race. Unfortunately, most societies and civilization are not diverse as we are, and so when we clash with their ideals and values each opponent is going to be rather homogeneous, and so those conflicts will have the cover of ethnicity to hide behind, for detractors and opponents to exploit. Those lies only scratch the surface, any honest person can look past them and see the substantive root of conflicts.

Though Tribalism plagues human nature, we should be united in doing our best to overcome it. If this "Alt-Right" group does not stand for those values, then they stand opposed to Western Civilization and are as much our opponent as the Russians, Chinese, or Iranians.

 

[agent00f]

Explain to me how this is in Shapiro's interest? He left Breitbart, is a NeverTrumper, is vilified by the alt-right movement within Breitbart and Milo.

I do not browse Breitbart, but it is my understanding that their comments is a breeding ground for the alt-right. Bannon saw that the energy of that area and created Breitbart News Daily to be actually driven by the comments section. So naturally the entire organizations message has shifted to alt-right, with a troll army of retweeters and facebook likers to promote the website and the ideas. I think that is what Shapiro means by Bannon and the alt-right taking up common cause. Bannon wants power, and Alt-right wants their voice heard and wants to recruit.

The left thinks that the best course of action is to paint anybody who disagrees with them as alt-right, call them racist, call Trump racist, and kick them out of the tent. Alt-right is looking for numbers, so that plays right into their hands. That is what I mean by feeding the troll.

Just because he left Breibart over an internal dispute doesn't mean he stopped being conservative, of their general bent. It's in his interest to paint his own as not really racist, and generally lay whatever responsibility possible on them liberals. It's also no great surprise you and other moderate conservatives are receptive to those ideas.

This is often exactly what you do, you are pushing people into the arms of the alt-right. That was the main point I was trying to get across.

I'll let you double down now, and convert a few more people to their cause. Stage is yours.

Strange that these sorts who've never changed their mind much, ever, no matter the evidence are so easily persuaded when anyone is the least bit unkind to them. As if it's all the libtards fault american conservatives have scored so objectively high on race resentment.

 

[agent00f]

Western Civilization is inseparable from those who cherish and value it. Get this, the people who live in Western Civilization. We host the most open and diverse civilization in history. Ergo, Western Civilization is inseparable from diversity. Anyone claiming otherwise, or that injects ethnicity or race into the equation, is a troublemaker looking to stir the pot and incite divisions.

Where we would clash with others is over ideals and values. Not ethnicity or race. Unfortunately, most societies and civilization are not diverse as we are, and so when we clash with their ideals and values each opponent is going to be rather homogeneous, and so those conflicts will have the cover of ethnicity to hide behind, for detractors and opponents to exploit. Those lies only scratch the surface, any honest person can look past them and see the substantive root of conflicts.

Though Tribalism plagues human nature, we should be united in doing our best to overcome it. If this "Alt-Right" group does not stand for those values, then they stand opposed to Western Civilization and are as much our opponent as the Russians, Chinese, or Iranians.

Western enlightenment liberal values are only relatively recently popularized and obviously only by a limited portion of the population. It's so adorable whenever the white-ISIS / nationalist crowd try to pretend they're somehow among that group. No great surprise they're always whitewashing their own history after living on the wrong side of it so much.

 

[desura]

Dude, Ben Shapiro is a retard. Like, there's a good podcast out there where these guys hate-read Ben Shapiro's novel. It is the dumbest thing ever written.

And slate.com is...very biased, I'll put it that way.

The alt-right goes too far oftentimes, but at least they are putting words into what I believe is a fairly widespread sentiment among the white population in America. So we can talk about it and understand it.

 

[momeNt]

Just because he left Breibart over an internal dispute doesn't mean he stopped being conservative, of their general bent. It's in his interest to paint his own as not really racist, and generally lay whatever responsibility possible on them liberals. It's also no great surprise you and other moderate conservatives are receptive to those ideas.



Strange that these sorts who've never changed their mind much, ever, no matter the evidence are so easily persuaded when anyone is the least bit unkind to them. As if it's all the libtards fault american conservatives have scored so objectively high on race resentment.

You performed as I expected. You might as well be an alt-right recruiter with how much zeal you have in belittling the average American conservative.

 

[agent00f]

You performed as I expected. You might as well be an alt-right recruiter with how much zeal you have in belittling the average American conservative.

Of course, the alt-right only exists cus them stupid leftards, the Real racist (creators). Slavery/segregation/etc and that sky high race resentment among american conservatives wouldn't even exist without them.

 

[momeNt]

Dude, Ben Shapiro is a retard. Like, there's a good podcast out there where these guys hate-read Ben Shapiro's novel. It is the dumbest thing ever written.

And slate.com is...very biased, I'll put it that way.

The alt-right goes too far oftentimes, but at least they are putting words into what I believe is a fairly widespread sentiment among the white population in America. So we can talk about it and understand it.

Please elaborate. Do you believe that the sentiment of European ethnicity being the backbone of Western society is popular?

Would you mind linking me the podcast?

I see nothing wrong with slate.com interviewing Ben Shapiro about Breitbart and Bannon. What about his interview was particularly biased? Coming out with "Is Bannon an anti-semite?" and his response being "No?" I just don't see it.

Of course, the alt-right only exists cus them stupid leftards, the Real racist (creators). Slavery/segregation/etc and that sky high race resentment among american conservatives wouldn't even exist without them.

No the alt-right doesn't exist because of the leftards. Are you actually retarded? But alienating regular conservatives might very well push them further to the fringe. You have done nothing but alienate and belittle conservatives on this forum, you rarely engage in level-headed discussion, and if I didn't know better, it would be a really good recruitment tactic to push people more into the fringe.

I think you think you have me pegged as something that I'm not, and it's amusing. I'll at least give you that.

 

[agent00f]

Please elaborate. Do you believe that the sentiment of European ethnicity being the backbone of Western society is popular?

Would you mind linking me the podcast?

I see nothing wrong with slate.com interviewing Ben Shapiro about Breitbart and Bannon. What about his interview was particularly biased? Coming out with "Is Bannon an anti-semite?" and his response being "No?" I just don't see it.

Funny there are so many of them here and ~0 of the sjw's or whatever your sort love to BothSides about.

No the alt-right doesn't exist because of the leftards. Are you actually retarded? But alienating regular conservatives might very well push them further to the fringe. You have done nothing but alienate and belittle conservatives on this forum, you rarely engage in level-headed discussion, and if I didn't know better, it would be a really good recruitment tactic to push people more into the fringe.

I think you think you have me pegged as something that I'm not, and it's amusing. I'll at least give you that.

Very comical given you've addressed 0 of my counter/arguments, which rather demonstrates they're unimpeachable correct, all the while pretending you're somehow any good at reasoning or whatever.

 

[desura]

Please elaborate. Do you believe that the sentiment of European ethnicity being the backbone of Western society is popular?

Would you mind linking me the podcast?

I see nothing wrong with slate.com interviewing Ben Shapiro about Breitbart and Bannon. What about his interview was particularly biased? Coming out with "Is Bannon an anti-semite?" and his response being "No?" I just don't see it.
.

El Chapo Trap House. These guys are Berniebros. It is pretty fun and the jokes are really good.

I believe it is largely true in fact, that Democracy is an expression of Western European Christian culture. All of our institutions were built by Englishmen, and they were acting in accord with their beliefs and their cultural heritage. Culture is formed in part by practices passed down between generations but also because certain genes result in certain personalities and tendencies writ large among populations which over time has a cumulative effect on culture.

But as to this belief, it is simply natural human instinct to favor your own and what you know over the outsider. It is the realm of holy madmen to go against human nature.

 

[momeNt]

Funny there are so many of them here and ~0 of the sjw's or whatever your sort love to BothSides about.



Very comical given you've addressed 0 of my counter/arguments, which rather demonstrates they're unimpeachable correct, all the while pretending you're somehow any good at reasoning or whatever.

It doesn't demonstrate that their correctness, just that the effort in replying is not worth it. You're a troll, and the amount of meaningful debate that you will be able to engage in, will diminish until you become basically ignored, because all you do is troll. Terms like leftards does not spur thoughtful debate. Good luck.

 

[agent00f]

It doesn't demonstrate that their correctness, just that the effort in replying is not worth it. You're a troll, and the amount of meaningful debate that you will be able to engage in, will diminish until you become basically ignored, because all you do is troll. Terms like leftards does not spur thoughtful debate. Good luck.

"If only leftards weren't so mean I would absolutely demolish all their arguments, and not be so racist" --every conservative