Vox Day has written a response to my previous article on The Alt-Lite and Conservatism:
“This is why the Alt-West is the future of the Alt-Right and not the Alt-White. The latter not only insists upon a one-size-fits-all tactical approach, but it refuses to be honest with itself about the observable realities of its potential adherents. It’s a bit ironic for Hunter Wallace to denigrate the thinking ability of the Alt-Lite opinion leaders considering how many obvious errors he commits here.”
Am I really the one doing this?
To be fair, some of the Alt-Lite brands (MILO, PJW, Cernovich, Bill Mitchell) have explicitly disavowed and/or condemned the Alt-Right in the hope of carving out a gig within mainstream conservatism. Bill Mitchell was on Watters World last night. He said in a video the other day that he didn’t understand what the Alt-Right was and thought it meant being “against the establishment.” Most of the key players are not really in the picture anymore. They don’t identify with the Alt-Right and won’t determine its future.
As for the Alt-West, I don’t think I have ever written anything about it except to note that Vox Day has embroiled himself in a conflict with Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists. Years ago, I learned it was a waste of time to fight with these people. They’re going to do their own thing. They have their own sites and aren’t going anywhere. Again, I am not the one fighting with Andrew Anglin and The Daily Stormer, and I am not fighting with Richard Spencer either. Their approach is different from mine … and that’s cool.
I happen to like RAMZPAUL, Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer. You don’t see me demanding that they wave a Confederate Battle Flag to prove themselves. Again, I try not to have a problem with anyone as long as I think they are authentic, but if you are just a *brand* with no real beliefs and you are trying to market your way into my community in order to sell penis pills or a supplement line, we’re going to have a problem. This is a relatively new problem which we haven’t had to confront in the past.
“The Alt-Lite are not mere clickbait chasers. That’s a category error; the Alt-Lite isn’t just the PJWs, Mike Cernovichs, and MILOs, it’s the entire pool of their conservative and libertarian supporters who are inclined to sympathize to some extent with the Alt-Right.”
I agree.
Maybe I wasn’t as clear about this as I have been in previous posts about the subject. The Alt-Lite is a two-tier phenomenon. At the top, you have the Alt-Lite clickbait marketers who I have come to refer to as “the brands.” The brands are basically entrepreneuers who are pushing racial content on social media – discourse poisoning, without fully realizing what they are doing – in order to generate engagement and impressions which generate revenue and income for them. At the bottom, you have this vast pool of ordinary conservatives and libertarians who are responding to it and developing a budding sense of racial consciousness. This is why, for example, you can see moderates like Baked Alaska, Microchip and Jared Wyand who have moved beyond the Alt-Lite.
“The Alt-Lite consists of those who agree with some of the 16 Points, but not enough to be genuinely characterized as Alt Right. There is no hard line, the distinction is a gradient. And it’s foolish to dismiss smart, popular, effective individuals such as PJW, Mike, and Milo as clickbait chasers anyhow, even if one disagrees with them.”
We agree that the bulk of the Alt-Lite consists of ordinary conservatives and libertarians with an incoherent worldview. I’m not castigating the moderates who I distinguish from the brands. Those people are valuable as potential recruits and most of them are likely just at the beginning of their journey. Most of us were moderates in the earliest phases of our development and that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing.
“Some Alt-Lite leaders are civic nationalists. Others are genuine nationalists. The same is true of those who follow them, but the contradiction Wallace sees is the result of everyone in the Alt-Lite being in transition from civic nationalism to nationalism as a result of current events.”
I object to defining the Alt-Lite brands as “civic nationalists” because they aren’t really serious about their professed civic nationalism. Every single day they are out there treading into forbidden territory – racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious divisions – our neighborhood of the internet. Mainstream conservatives are civic nationalists, but they are more serious about it than the Alt-Lite brands who want to be edgy.
“The Alt-West is absolutely NOT civic nationalist; I don’t know if anyone has done more to tear down the precepts of civic nationalism in the last 18 months than the brilliant and unquestionably handsome authors of Cuckservative. This ongoing transition is why the growth of the Alt-Right is inevitable, and the fact that the Alt-West welcomes newcomers while the Alt-White openly scorns them is another reason why the latter is likely to fade into irrelevance over time.”
Here’s why I disagree:
1.) First, the Alt-White has no objection to welcoming newcomers. See, for example, Baked Alaska, Jared Wyand and Microchip who have recently moved beyond the Alt-Lite.
2.) Second, MILO is scorned because he has nothing to do with our community. Why would a Jewish homosexual who boasts about having sex with black men be welcomed in our community? Why would we want to be associated with a crossdresser who bathes in blood, a narcissist who cultivates a twink entourage, someone who brags on video about hanging out with Hollywood pedophiles at sex parties with young boys?
There’s a difference between welcoming newcomers and not pushing away moderates, which we all agree we should do, and not having any standards at all. As David Duke said, if a Jewish homosexual with black boyfriends is a White Nationalist, then White Nationalism ain’t what it used to be!
3.) Third, I’ve always liked the fact that the Alt-West is Christian, but Vox recently said, “And to make it clear, I’d much rather stand with Milo than with ANY of you self-professed Christians attacking him. I trust Milo not to stab me in the back. He has proven himself to me. You, I don’t trust at all.” It sounds to me like the Alt-West is compromising its values on the MILO Question, not the Alt-White.
“(It’s also rather funny to see the Alt-White ready to go to war with all and sundry to protect “their” brand while also denouncing an Alt-Liter who is considerably better at marketing for talking about himself as a brand. Of course, if marketing acument, or consistency, or even coherency, was in their wheelhouse, they wouldn’t call themselves white nationalist neo-Nazis in the first place.)”
The Alt-White is a cause, not a “brand.” If Cernovich is a brand, what is the product he is selling? I’m not selling anyone a product.
We’ve never thought of ourselves as a “brand.” It’s not about us. It is about the world we are leaving behind for our descendants. It is about whether the White, Western world will survive the 21st century. I’m not in the habit of comparing myself to a brand like McDonald’s because I am not financially motivated. I don’t think of my readers as customers. I do what I think is right and say what I believe is true.
“Nobody of whom I am aware conflates Western civilization with liberalism or even Western democracy. That’s not possible, as Western civilization obviously predates both. And populism is synonymous with the Trump campaign; Trump is himself a civic nationalist. And in answer to his questions”
Specifically, I was referring to the Gavin McInnes video in the previous article. Also, what’s the difference between civic nationalist and conservative? Mainstream conservatives like Ben Shapiro are civic nationalists. They don’t think the United States has any racial, cultural, ethnic or religious foundation. Instead, they believe anyone who holds US citizenship is just as much an “American” as anyone else.
“Mike is both popular and a populist. He has offered $10k to debate others on several occasions to demonstrate his seriousness, and the fact that the Alt-White can’t, or won’t, come up with such a relatively small sum to debate him about whatever it is they want to debate him about simply shows either a) how small their numbers are, or, b) that the challenge is not a serious one.”
I wouldn’t use the word “populist” to describe Mike Cernovich.
He has nothing in common with Tom Watson, George Wallace, Huey Long or any populist who comes to mind. This is a guy who makes videos about drinking breast milk and how shampoo is a scam. He talks about how his readers are “too poor for his time” and how “the truth is my brand.” He writes about using steroids and his hair and how men should use sunscreen to protect their skin. He is a Southern California lifestyle blogger.
Mike Cernovich doesn’t write or speak like any populist I have ever seen. The contempt he shows for his own audience – who he boasted on Periscope about throwing under the bus in order to better reposition himself – belies the notion that he is a populist. He’s a mountebank, not a populist.
I’m not Alt-Lite. And I’m not a populist. I am, and have always been, an elitist. That’s natural, of course, since I am, statistically speaking, more intelligent than something like 7.49 billion of the people on the planet. What sort of populist lives by the mantra MPAI? As for purging gammas, I was only referring to my blog; I don’t question the right of gammas to live as self-deluded secret kings in the privacy of their own homes, I just don’t want to listen to them.
Granted, Vox Day is one of the smartest people on the planet. Is it fair to say that the Alt-West isn’t welcoming of the newcomers it classifies as gammas? That’s the impression I am getting here. He’s quite dismissive of them!
“I didn’t care about prom and I still don’t care about balls, so I can’t even begin to address this statement.”
I was never going to the Fag Prom either.
Let’s be clear: #Deploraball is a Fag Prom hosted by “Gays for Trump,” a follow up to MILO’s twink themed RNC party, and it is for people who think mainstream conservatism should be more accepting of homosexuals.
“One should never describe things as one wishes them to be, but rather, as they are. To do otherwise is magical thinking, which tends to achieve results akin to those achieved by the famous cargo cults of yore.”
I agree.
That’s what I am trying to do here. I’m trying to explain the behavior of the Alt-Lite brands. My theory is that they are economically motivated. They’re in the viral clickbait business. Everything I saw from them during the Chicago and Fort Lauderdale incidents justifies my suspicions because the theory predicts their behavior.
See also PJW identifying with the Alt-Right only to spin on a dime and use Rick Wilson’s line of attack against Richard Spencer about the Alt-Right being Neo-Nazi losers who masturbate in their parent’s basement. Does that sound like something someone with strong beliefs would say? He’s attacking Rick Wilson one minute, echoing him the next.
The Alt-Lite is not going away, as it, too, is growing, as whites in the mainstream continue to be driven rightward by the identity politics of the non-whites to their Left. This is all a good thing, and if the Alt-White were smart, it would be attempting to appeal to the Alt-West and the Alt-Lite alike, not alternating between denying their existence and attacking them.
1.) First, I haven’t attacked the Alt-West. I’m only puzzled by the Alt-West’s embrace of MILO over other Christians which seems counterintuitive. It seems strange to me that the Alt-West would condemn the Podestas, but celebrate an individual who bathes in blood and boasts about having interracial sex with black men and who hosts twink photoshoots and who defends pedophilia and even participated in it as an adolescent.
2.) Second, there is just something that rubs me the wrong way about arrogant “brands” who are profiting off the misery of my people. If they want to join mainstream conservatism, that’s their choice, but we need to be clear about it.
“And if Hunter wants to debate any of this, I’ll be happy to debate him on Brainstorm for free, as long as he understands that my willingness to do so does not make me a populist.
I’m not sure I would fare well in a debate with one of the smartest people in the world, but perhaps Vox could provide us with an update on how Edgar Maddison Welch is still acting in jail? I haven’t heard anything new on that front.
Note: BTW, I agree with Vox Day on the question of segregation, but I think that kind of rhetoric might make Cernovich or MILO uncomfortable. I also have Vox Day’s book Cuckservative.