Posted on 12/04/2016 10:22:12 AM PST by Kaslin
During the last election campaign all of a sudden I kept hearing about the Alt-Right. Since I thought I was pretty well read and had never heard of them, I considered them to have the same social relevance as a Miley Cyrus song. I decided to investigate this supposed social phenomenon as soon as the election was over and I was done writing about real issues important to the campaign.
I started by sending emails to mainstream Republicans asking them if they knew anyone who considered themselves members of the Alt-Right. The answer was a universal no. Then I sent emails to my friends who consider themselves conservative Republicans. These are people I respect, but I consider a little more hardcore. The answer was again we don’t know any of these people.
I did get one positive response suggesting I contact Jon Fleischman, someone I have known for 20 years, who in the past five years or so has been the California editor for Breitbart. I have also written for Jon’s publication Flashreport.org.
Jon is Jewish and works for Breitbart which has been accused of being anti-Semitic. Jon is a pretty knowledgeable guy -- doing his own publication and working for Breitbart -- but was totally ignorant about the Alt-Right. I asked him what he knew about Richard Spencer (someone who has gotten recent publicity as supposedly a leader of the Alt-Right) and he said “Who is he?” He then told me that Breitbart has an intercompany communication system called a Slack Network where they exchange ideas about columns and items to be published at Breitbart. He stated “I have never seen once anything indicating any racist or anti-Semitic attitudes, not once.”
I did have an extended email conversation with a gentleman, who said he was a member of the Alt-Right. His name is John Preston though he told me that was a pseudonym. He is with the Council of Conservative Citizens. He stated he used a pseudonym (as most of the people he knows do) because a lot of people who are members of the Alt-Right are afraid of employment discrimination and other factors. John was very forthcoming and seemingly intelligent. He wrote in a very lucid manner and stated he has been part of this movement for 15 years. He also made clear he has no idea how many people are in the Alt-Right because so much of it is underground.
When I asked Preston why he believes his viewpoints are controversial and not just anti-PC, he answered with this statement: “We stick up for white people. We believe white people have interests, too. It's a big taboo to hold that position in our society. Jewish people can advocate for Jewish interests like a pro-Israel foreign policy. Black people can advocate for black interests. There is an LGBT community now with its interests and public policy agenda. White people though ... that's where the line is drawn. It's *racist* to identify as white, to have a positive sense of white identity, and to advocate on behalf of white interests like reduced immigration or, say, law and order. There are groups like the SPLC which exist to get people fired from their jobs for holding our views. That's why our cause is controversial and our movement has been driven underground. I'm not sure how much longer that can continue though.”
When I asked him about immigration he replied, “It's not because we *hate* foreigners - if they stay in their own countries and act like good neighbors, we are fine with them. I don't have a problem with Mexicans in Mexico. I don't mind foreigners coming here and studying at our universities. Personally, I admire Japan more than any other country in the world.”
“It is because we want to maintain the white majority. We don't want to be overwhelmed in our own countries. The cultural, economic and political consequences of mass immigration are disastrous for us. The Left has told us for 20 years now that White Christian America is being overthrown and washed away by their ‘ascendant majority.’ We take them at their word, believe that it is not in our interests to allow this to happen, and we are determined to stop it.”
I will leave that for you the reader to characterize. This is not necessarily representative of all thought from the people who call themselves the Alt-Right. I will say that he is correct that is not acceptable thought in most mainstream circles today. And I will say that I don’t agree with his positions.
Yes, it is racially biased toward people of European heritage, and some people believe that they cannot be prejudiced against them because of the historical fact that whites have been the majority in the United States. Some analyses have shown that it will not be long before white people are no longer a majority in America.
I am not going to dismiss the fact that there are bigots and anti-Semites on both sides of the political spectrum in this country. This is a country of about 325 million people and there are a lot of people who believe weird things. There are people who think graffiti is art. There are people who think Rap music has some social redemption. I live with that every day. This is a free country and people are free to think really stupid thoughts as long as they don’t act out on those stupid thoughts in a violent manner -- you know, like the “protesters” in Portland.
One political party does everything it can to segregate voters by identity group: Black, Hispanic, Gay, Asian, One-eyed monsters etc. Then those people who dislike those groups will identify naturally with the other political party simply because it doesn’t identify potential voters by groups, but simply suggests policy ideas that will hopefully benefit all.
If fringe people identify with the Republicans, then their candidates must spend their day disavowing ever-stupid thing that come out of these people’s mouths. And if Republicans don’t disavow them quickly enough and with the “right words,” the disavowing is discounted. Nice game the Dems and their friends in the press have going here.
I have no idea really who these people in the Alt-Right are and neither do the people I know who have been involved in Republican politics for many years. That includes people who I consider -- and even they themselves would consider -- pretty hardcore conservatives. To me identifying the people who are actually with the Alt-Right with the Republicans is akin to identifying Hillary Clinton with the Communist Party of America who did endorse her.
This is the United States of America; we are either a center-right nation (which I believe we are) or a center-left nation to which we veer occasionally. But extremism has no relevance on the left or the right of this country. So stop trying to pin extremist on either party. It is unbecoming.
Thank you for the link. At the same time I want to run something by you. I don’t think there is such a thing as Alt-Right. Yes, it has been brought to my attention that there is an entity out there who claims to be, or is described to be. That doesn’t make them right.
IMO < You’re either Conservative or you aren’t.
Check these comments to Jack Black out. See what you think.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3501346/posts?page=99#99
You’re welcome.
I read your comments. They just seemed like generalizations. They don’t address the issues of the growing movement that calls itself the Alt-right. What is it about them specifically that you don’t consider right—or put another way, that you consider Left?
You’re welcome to your opinion.
I addressed what I see as a problem.
Conservative
the Right
There is no need for any other title.
It’s like trying to state Alt-Founders.
How do you know the Alt-right isn’t right, if you don’t know their beliefs? Or, if you do know their beliefs, why can you not identify which one or ones of them lean left?
You’re missing the whole point.
Where is the need for a new group name?
You are either Conservative or you’re not.
You are either on the Right or not.
Alt-Right? What utter nonsense.
If they are Conservative and on the Right, then they are Conservative or on the Right.
The new name is pointless.
It’s silly.
Why not call them the LadyBug Kings? What’s that mean? Why they’re Conservative. Good grief.
If you knew anything about them, you’d be able to answer your own questions. As it is, you’re just excluding an entire conservative movement because they didn’t consult you before selecting a name.
I hear you.
It must be some movement if nobody but nobody has heard about them.
Please tell me who excluded them? THEY DID!
The rest of us are Conservatives. We are considered to be on the Right.
They excluded themselves by coming up with a title they thought was better. Alt-Wrong!
“:^)
You remind me of an ex-freeper who came after me during the primaries. He said that by preferring Trump to Cruz, I was in so many words admitting I am a closet liberal/leftist.
I said, if you could accurately explain why I’m supporting Trump, you’d know it’s not because I’m a liberal.
But he couldn’t be shaken. In his world there was A or B. A, you were a conservative and supported Cruz. B, you were a closet Lefty and supported Trump.
That’s you. You have no earthly idea why they’re called the Alt-right. You just know they’re lefties, or close to it.
I don’t know what’s so difficult about grasping that we are either Conservatives or we aren’t.
Any person that goes by “Alt-Right” instead of Conservative, has just differentiated themselves from a Conservative.
Here at Free Republic we have this strange tactic of calling ourselves Conservatives. We haven’t seen the light of naming ourselves anything other than Conservative, or loosely “on the Right”.
As a marketing ploy, they just caused me to lose interest.
However, there is a valid point buried in all this - that different groups that call themselves right wing and conservative are concered about different things.
Movement conservatives and establishment Republicans may care about social and fiscal issues, but many of them have absolutely no commitment to the national question. What I mean by this is that many conservatives believe that nations and peoples are completely equivalent, equal and interchangeable (an instinct that they share with the Marxist Left), and that if only we talked more about "family values" and cut back taxes and business regulation, it wouldn't matter if America had a Third World demographic.
Conservatives who are committed to the National Question recognize that you can't have a First World society, polity, and economy with a Third World demographic. The fact that the alt-right trolls have co-opted this important issue doesn't change its validity or importance.
They don’t call themselves Alt-conservatives.
And btw, some of the least conservative members of the GOPe call themselves conservstives. Is that a magical talisman? Are these RINOs the good guys, because they associate themselves with the right word?
Which brings me back to Cruz. I was told he was the most conservative candidate in the field. Certainly he made that claim for himself. Shouldn’t FR have stuck with him to the bitter end, since he grasped the value of going by the right designation?
I understand your point. I do think that it falls apart though. Lets see if you agree, after I explain.
It seems like the entity you are addressing is the GOPe. For decades I have not considered them to be Conservative.
The media plays it up that they are, so it can claim anyone else is a radical.
Here on this forum, we are considered radicals. It’s why Trump was termed one. It’s why anyone who supported Trump was dismissed as being some sort of fringe person, with a fringe ideology.
What you were addressing is a sense of our own culture, our own identity, our own ‘level’ of person. I don’t say that to frame others as inferior, so much as to explain that flooding our nation with people who are not top tier individuals, is very problematic. Again, that can sound bad too. It really isn’t.
If you have people who are educated, trained, and can work in an upscale society, they are not a strain on the system. There’s nothing wrong with nations recognizing that and devising policies that will take it into consideration.
It has long been my take, that we help others where they are. We do not trash our society by bringing folks here who can’t possibly contribute in a middle-class way.
I’ll use Mexico as an example. We turned vast regions of our nation into barrios / slums. Sure we improved their lives, but we destroyed our society in these areas.
There’s nothing glorified about committing societal suicide.
What we should have done to help those folks, is ride the Mexican government hard, and demand they do things to make their citizens lives better.
We could have also encouraged U.S. businesses to branch out into Mexico, and help their society become more upscale. Done right this could have increased U.S. corporate profits, the lives of families in Mexico, and the communities in which they lived.
I have suggested service sector jobs to start. This would infuse money into the local economies without taking jobs from the U.S. Once those entry level jobs took off, more upscale jobs would follow as goods and services would be in more demand.
Domestic manufacturing could then produce and become profitable. Pretty soon you have an upscale society compared to what you started with.
I branched off there, but I think you’ll know what I mean.
We have to claim our Conservatism, and not allow it to be bastardized. That has been the GOPe’s version for decades. It was not Conservative or even close to it.
Okay, then ‘alt-Conservative’ is a wasted title. It isn’t what they claim to be. If that’s the case, then I have no problem with it. The title was used to address a group. If that group doesn’t claim that title, then fine.
If it’s just an internet site like FR, then no problem at all.
Of course the GOPe called themselves Conservatives. The MSM went along so it could label anyone else as a kook.
Trump was a kook. Anyone who supported him was a kook. Ahhh, nope!
Trump and his followers had it right.
No, that talisman doesn’t cut it. You are eighter a Conservative or you’re not, and the GOPe weren’t.
Well sure he made that claim. I just never quite bought it. He troubled me shortly after I started paying attention to him. I stopped all support around October 2015.
I don’t think FR should have stuck with him. (reason rather clear)
People have to do more than claim they are Conservative. They have to conduct themselves as one. Some of the things Cruz had been involved in, left me unable to see him as a Conservative. I was not buying that he was being truthful either.
Good old open borders Bush thought he was a Conservative. I never bought that. He was a globalist.
We have to be discerning regarding politicians claims.
I haven’t seen the majority of people on FR buy the idea that the GOPe or the RNC were ‘Conservative First’ entities.
We didn’t have to come up with another name for Conservatives. We just outed the folks who were claiming to be, but weren’t.
All that sounds about right. You will never, ever, hear the Alt-right repudiate the term conservative. Their anti-Leftist passion is so strong, it has to be seen to be believed. They are also fervently, enthusiastically, and passionately patriotic and nationalistic. You rarely, if ever, saw a group love the USA more. They hate globalism with the fire of a thousand suns.
There’s more to it than that. Being mostly young, they are at their core against any kind of discrimination. They don’t consider opposing illegals to be discriminatory, but they don’t want to see anything against any person or group here legally. They’re radically opposed to BLM and other devisive, violent and/or racist groups, but anyone else is okay by them
Along the same lines, anyone who wants to Make America Great Again is their best friend. For instance, if a person posts on their site, ‘I’m a US citizen, black, and Muslim; I voted for Trump and I want to MAGA,’ the Alt-righters fall all over themselves supporting, welcoming and encouraging that person. Bigotry is anathema to them.
They’re certainly not entirely unknown. Trump did an Ask Me Anything session on their site during the campaign, and Steve Bannon is an Alt-righter. I note that Bannon is pro-gay, as is Breitbart generally. I wish he/they weren’t, but they they don’t consult me so I have no input.
First off, which I hate the living breathing Constitution stuff, and think mostly it is intelligible there were still a lot of differences in what the Founders believed. The Federalist Papers (and Anti-Federalist Papers) highlight these differences.
I think that the Alt-Right are not "Conservatives" even if you stretch to include both Jefferson and Hamilton's vision, though. They are outside of that, but they are certainly not (therefore) Leftists. That's just too reductionist a way to split things.
Anyway, I do get your point.
It's preferable that the Alt-Right created their own brand and didn't call themselves Conservatives. But that still doesn't make them leftists. The Left truly hates them and vice-versa.
I just want a color blind society. Or a society that treats color of skin, race, nationality of origin as important as color of clothing or type of shoe. Race should not matter much at all. Stop asking about it and polling on it. Let it cease to be. More and more, people are having children who are of multiple groups anyway. Let’s just stop hearing about race or which gender you wish to sleep with.
Neah.
They are mostly a bunch of nationalists.
The “white” part is simply a reaction against the very successful application of victim politics.
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