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  1. I have long liked most National Review writers.

    I think this article is frighteningly stupid. There is an enormous amount of generalization about who the alt-right is, with no numbers, no supporting data. The diatribe about “race realists” is worrisome. Not everyone who is called a white supremacist or racist actually is one. The evidence that races are real, largely identifiable, and reflect some differences because of long separation is not some cockamamie Dark Enlightenment fabrication. It is an unpopular but well-evidenced opinion. Charles Murray, anyone? Nicholas Wade, who was science editor of the NY Times? Steven Pinker?

    I dislike Trump, but only some of the racism charges against him hold up. He doesn’t seem to dislike blacks, Hispanic, Asians, Middle-easterners or anyone per se. He dislikes those who break the law and/or ally themselves against America. He is perhaps too suspicious of groups, but this is in a context of a government that is not suspicious enough of groups that have demonstrably higher percentages of dangerous people. Perhaps he really does dislike people of different color – but that is speculation.

  2. AVI:

    Just to clarify, I don’t think most people criticizing the alt-right, or alleging that some of it is racist, are saying that Trump himself is a racist. I’ve touched on that topic before, here.

  3. My reaction to the article is much like AVI’s. It takes some truth’s about one segment of the alt-right and applies a broad brush of condemnation to the entire movement. I don’t read most on the alt-right as opposed to conservatism, per se.

    Rather, they are opposed to a RINO GOPe who gives lip service to being opposed to the Left but always has an excuse as to why they can’t do more. That antipathy is so deep to a GOP they have concluded is irredeemably corrupt, that even when a Ted Cruz emerges, they see even the slightest suspicion of deceit, as persuasive of guilt.

    They see nuance as evasion. Thus their attraction to a bull-in-the-china-shop Donald Trump. More than anything else, they want someone who tells it like it is… and even the slightest hesitancy in doing so is seen as direct evidence of deceit.

    As for the white racism, I perceive much of it to be tribal. There is no doubt that many black and Hispanic ‘activists’ have racist motivations. They do NOT want equality, they want their ‘tribe’ to dominate. That prompts an equal but opposite reaction.

  4. I have to agree with “Assistant Village Idiot” (May 23rd, 2016 at 4:39 pm).

    Ian Tuttle’s article is an incoherent mess. Responding completely to all the errors he’s made would probably take me ten times the words he’s written. Not worth the trouble.

    It’s really too bad, because I’ve looked hard for a good analysis of the alt-right, and I think people have a right to expect more from “National Review.”

    If I could suggest an alternative? Maybe the alt-right curious could read John Walker’s review, at “Ricochet,” of an ebook entitled “Cuckservative.” (https://ricochet.com/book-review-cuckservative/)

    The comments following Walker’s review include sentiments both sympathetic and critical, as well as an argument over the title itself.

    I probably won’t be buying “Cuckservative” because I have too many other things I want to read, but I’m pretty sure it’d tell me a lot more about the alt-right than the awful piece in “National Review.”

  5. In my intro I tried to make it clear it was just a certain segment of the alt-right, not the alt-right as a whole.

    That segment does exist, and it is an influential one. I thought the article was interesting, which doesn’t mean I thought it was great.

  6. The one unifying theme over at the alt-right:

    The Left is staffed through and through with RACISTS.

    That virtually every hot topic — at this time — for the Progressives devolves down to race bigotry — with that bigotry aimed at White American males — the new out-group.

    Barry Soetoro is as racist as Adolf Hitler. For both, race is the starting point for every utterance. BOTH need boogie men. The only restraint on Barry turns on demographics — not self-restraint.

    ( One might remember that the Holocaust never really got rolling until Adolf thought he could hide the atrocities as casualties on the Eastern Front. Barry has never had such license. )

    The alt-right’s anger with Conservatives turns on the wilful blindness of NR and other pundit collectives to square up to today’s political and agitprop realities.

    Indeed, the cited article only abets their allegations.

    Instead of teeing off on the bizarro Soetoro maladministration… and the era of micro-aggressions — he carries the quiver for the Left.

    The fellow that was supposed to take American politics beyond race — has proven to be a clone of Louis Farakhan — mellowed out for popular broadcast.

    Farakhan, for those unaware, is a dyed-in-the-wool racist — who blames Whitey for every ill since creation… as does Reverend Wright.

    Both want a totally segregated society — with Blacks on top — hopefully living in a Paradise next door — if not back in Africa.

  7. blert:

    We seem to have existed in alternate realities. For the duration of the Obama administration, I’ve certainly read many criticisms from the regular right of how Obama uses race and racism, exploits it, and has damaged race relations in this country.

    It’s hardly a new or unusual topic for the right. I, for example, pointed it out quite a few times during his 2008 campaign.

  8. I get it, I understand the frustration and anger. White heterosexual males, under the left’s zeitgeist, makes us the demons of history and the source of all that ails Western Civilization, and the oppressors of the entire world. It is a matter of how one reacts to this continual attack from the left. Alt-right ain’t the way.

  9. A large part of the alt-right’s racism and tribalism can be attributed to both the color-blindness promoted by Conservatism Inc., and the identity politics promoted by the Left.

    The result of this combination is that everyone gets to assert their own group interests, except for white people. White people are not allowed to act like a minority.

    Whites will probably start acting like a minority as they become a minority. Our leaders (of both parties) and media have promoted and even exulted over the reduction in the white population. Regular white people are supposed to just suck it up. What happens if they don’t? The alt-right could be the first indication of a new White Middle American Nationalism.

  10. I actually think the article is spot-on about the worst of the alt-right and is raising the alarm. Most people didn’t even know the alt-right existed till Trump. I actually don’t think he * is * an alt-right person or even a racist, he’s just the candidate that they have taken a shine too. Like all groups the alt-right is large and many different writers fall under its rubric, some of these writers I find to be funny and edgy and interesting. However, even some of the ones I find to be “interesting” I also find to be worrisome because they have ideas that are anti-liberal, anti-Semitic, openly racist and reactionary. Some of these only walk on the edge of ideas that have racist overtones but are not always necessarily racist (talking about IQ which is not in and of itself racist if you are talking actual facts about test scores) and others actually are openly vile and racist. The comments sometimes are a cesspool even if the blogs are more measured.

    A lot of this is in reaction to the identity politics of the left and white people feeling resentment. I don’t blame them actually, I don’t think white nationalism is the answer however! This is thinking in terms of collectives that negate the individual and turning against the beauty of the best of western civilization: classic liberalism.

  11. Geoffrey Britain:
    “I don’t read most on the alt-right as opposed to conservatism, per se.”

    Cornflour:
    “Maybe the alt-right curious could read John Walker’s review, at “Ricochet,” of an ebook entitled “Cuckservative.””

  12. liberty wolf:
    “A lot of this is in reaction to the identity politics of the left and white people feeling resentment. I don’t blame them actually, I don’t think white nationalism is the answer however!”

    Conservatism represents a better answer, but as its proponents stand now, conservatism is an impractical answer.

    To become a practical answer, conservatives must collectively undertake a competitive social activist movement that competes throughout the arena for social dominance against all the alternative movements to reify their preferred social condition.

    liberty wolf:
    “This is thinking in terms of collectives that negate the individual and turning against the beauty of the best of western civilization: classic liberalism.”

    They’re sides of the same coin.

    They’re also modeling on the Left as a competitive social activist movement for their Gramscian long march to evolutionary social political paradigm shift.

    alt-Right is to conservatives as Left is to liberals, and if conservatives are not carefully vigilant and competitive, alt-Right activists will do to conservatives what Left activists have done to liberals in the arena.

  13. neo, I took your linking as a matter of interest, not endorsement. Sorry if I seemed to suggest otherwise.

    If you go over to Unz Review, Vdare, or Taki’s Mag, you will find some actual bigots among the writers. But not many. You will mostly find intelligent people trying to forcefully state extremely unpopular opinions. Many of them have been accused so often that they taken the attitude of “May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,” and are quite full-throated. Such bluntness is allowed in more places on the left than the right (though even the left has those who prefer everything stay underground), so it takes people by surprise at first.

    I think I consider those outlets, and the more libertarian ones as alt-right.

  14. Eric:

    True… they are insurgent in some sense, and are against the civility that the “mainstream right” has generally endorsed, seeing it as feckless. Or at the very least, ineffective. They are more of an extremist movement claiming edginess as a kind of sexiness, I mean in branding. They are modeling on the obnoxious identity politics activism of the left and that’s a bad thing. Conservatives have to rise to the occasion – no doubt and be “competitive” as you say and also yes, “vigilant”.

  15. putting aside the real racists who hate others of color, the left attributes racism to anyone who does not ignore disparities and does not subscribe to their notions that what happens to you in the past justifies or causes the behavior and so, is less responsible.

    the reason is often clear, they are not as insulated as the wealthy, and have similar backgrounds but that never justified such behavior on their part.

    its not that they hate the other groups, they just don’t seem to like having their legs pissed on and told its raining.

    even more so when many of these people come from families that survived the kinds of deprivation and insane behavior that only full scale no limit war was able to create.

    the lefts and academics and intelligentsia’s idiocy in trying to label and put the finger on groups and create these simplified pastiches that match their prior stereotypes and more, is quite silly. but they are competing to be remembered as the person that defined the group, a group that never really existed the way that later they are remembered by this practice. they become a form of literary caricature, real enough to associate, unreal if one was looking for a portrait. caricatures make even the handsome come out as one of leonardoes “grotesques”.

  16. If you ever read alt-right blogs, they leave the impression that one has slipped through a time warp and is reading the fevered rantings of socialist theorists in the 1930s.

  17. The problem with this “influential segment” theory of the alt-right is that it is the same segment that controls Islam. If 90% of the members will not stand up to extremism, what the hell good are they?
    Every bloody revolution was started by an influential segment.

  18. Matt_SE — When you write:

    Do you mean they are connected to Islam (which I haven’t seen) or that they are like or similar to the “influential segment” of Islam in that they are extremists who can influence the rest?

    I agree there is something time-warped and weird about reading the alt-right, something like the ’30’s. Some do express a nostalgia for what seems like a simpler time as well…

  19. When they walk like a duck, quack like a duck, feed like a duck, swim like a duck, they are a toaster.

  20. Alt-right threatens many rice bowls in Olt-Right. NR is one of the biggest rice bowls and is now struggling with Alt-Right. The first sign that they are very frightened of Alt-Right is that the “Racissts” card is flung down on the table. It’s Olt-Right using the methods of Olt-Alt-Left to try and suppress Alt-Right. Doesn’t seem to be working out.

  21. van:

    National Review lost a lot of credibility years ago when they bought into the Climate Change “conventional wisdom.” Their share in the rice bowl, don’t know. Some alt right are racists and worse, sorry.

  22. vanderleun:

    Oh, so you don’t think racists are big movers in the alt-right movement? And that, even if it’s the National Review that says so, NR might be correct, and it might have some meaning and truth other than merely them playing the “race card”?

    Your cynicism is leading you astray.

    And now you’re apparently saying they are, but it doesn’t matter?

  23. The racists in alt-right are not nearly, not nearly, as significant as those on the alt-right that, not being racists, do not mind being called racists. The “we don’t care how you paint us” alt-right is far more numerous and important to the growth of alt-right than stormfront fellow travelers. And even the main mass of alt-right is just a small pseudopod pushed out from the larger organism, hence easier to frame and name.

  24. The Alt-Right blogs are INFESTED with Putin’s Internet Storm Troopers – – there is no doubt about that at all.

    These are the fellas that NEVER find a thing to critique WRT Putin, his hyper-nationalism — or anything else Putin.

    They DO take time to opine upon Putin’s righteous and daring geopolitical strides… even as such blather is entirely off topic.

    They are especially active when their Big Man invades a hapless neighbor.

    Their spin on Georgia, Ukraine, Donbas, Crimea — even the Baltics — is nauseous to behold.

    This SVR agent-of-influence gambit is two-fold.

    1) It taints the alt-Right with Kremlinist ideology.

    2) It causes the alt-Right to be a socking puppet against American classical values.

    So, it’s a two-fer.

    Moscow has hijacked countless Western political and philosophical currents… yet this drumbeat of distortion goes largely un-remarked — unacknowledged.

    Even within this discourse, it is taken that the alt-Right springs solely from American keyboards.

    Nothing could possibly be further from the truth.

    Heads up Americans: everyone on the planet feels that it’s their duty to jump into American politics and discourse — all the better when their sole source of ‘truth’ comes from the international ministry of truth — the MSM hive mind.

    &&

    There is a forum of a technical nature — that has at least one venue for politics.

    Wouldn’t you know it, it was infested with English speaking aliens whose sole dominating interest was hectoring and lecturing their American ‘cousins.’

    Naturally none of them knew what the H they were scribbling about. The Canadians — the dominant crew — didn’t even know Canadian history — correctly.

    Canadian schools NEVER teach the kids why and how that nation was founded. It’s simply skipped past.

    Almost the way that Japanese kids only read three sentences WRT WWII in the Pacific. Those children think that Japan was attacked by the outside world. Poor Japan.

    Such artifices bamboozle modern man.

  25. There is a creature that posts over at Heartiste as “Arbiter” — who exudes the mala fides of a Kremlinist agent provocateur.

    He is obviously a graduate student of modern history and politics.

    While at the same time he expounds a paleo-Hitlerist world view.

    ( One might remember that Stalin had totally infested the Nazi ranks with double agents.

    They would march and stomp heads with the worst of them.

    And in a similar vein, when Hoover’s FBI went after the KKK, his agents out KKK’d the KKK.

    In no time at all, the FBI was ‘running’ this or that local KKK affiliate.

    This latter aspect of the FBI’s penetration operations — well — let’s say it’s just not publicised.

    Which brings us to the strange antics up in Oregon and all the rest.

    Agents provocateur are STILL the number one gambit of authority.

    ‘Cause it works every time.

  26. I might add that “Arbiter” does not post ( time zone wise ) like an East Coast American.

    He either keeps very strange hours — or is posting from Moscow.

  27. blert:

    Actually, many commenters on this blog have remarked on the possible foreign origins of some on the alt-right. Not in this thread, but in others. And I’ve written about it, too. For example, in a post I wrote in mid-April and that I linked to in my comment at 4:48 PM today, I wrote this:

    I reiterate that I don’t think anyone actually knows who the alt-right really is, because what we see is the tip of the iceberg. And I say that despite the fact that I generally don’t tend to go for conspiracy theories. But what I’ve seen of this phenomenon (and I’ve seen a lot of it) tells me–or tells my gut–that this is a large and dangerous movement with roots that may be well-hidden but are also international (foreign IP numbers, for example) and are the very opposite of classical liberalism and/or what is usually thought of as conservatism.

  28. I’m with vanderleun. The alt-right that gets actual traffic has people who no longer complain about being called racists, though few of them are. I don’t see the racists as all that influential.

    If any readers have evidence of either big numbers or measurable influence, I am glad to change my mind. I have to ask who it is you folks are reading.

  29. It is possible to hold a position for non-racist reasons but which impresses others as racist. For example, opposing affirmative action because you oppose discrimination (“reverse”, if you wish) parallels the position of those who oppose it for racist reasons.
    Thus, it’s useless to try to defend your position. The left knows they lie when they accuse those who oppose them of racism. Trying to convince them they’re wrong is a waste of time. They’re trying to shut you up, make you defensive, self-censor, and influence the diminishing number of observers who haven’t caught on to the scam.

  30. @liberty wolf:

    They are alike, not literally the same segment. Most alt-right cannot stand Islamists.

  31. Cuckservative comes from the term cuckhold. And that comes from the word cuckoo, the bird that lays eggs in the nests of other birds. Sort of like fed welfare.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo
    I was there online when the Alternative Right was coming up with the term, before it got popular. A lot of this comes from how Palin fought against McCain’s traitorous and greedy staffers, which weren’t Democrats I remind people.

    Then there’s Peggy Noonan, Reagan religious priest and speech writer, who voted for Hussein. Need I go on.

    The fact that Leftist bribed agents at NR don’t even know this much and are unwilling to state it with some modicum of accuracy, implies that they are hopelessly contaminated. The next thing they might as well claim is that Hussein is the Light Bringer and will calm the oceans and remove Global Warming, humanity’s Original Sin.

    The Alt Right is an alliance, just like the Left, and that means there are often factions in it which have mutually exclusive ideologies. Just as the Leftist alliance has blacks who hate homos and gaystapo who hate blacks and other homos even.

    But the Leadership Cadre of the Alternative Right is exemplified in Breitbart and Milo, as well as various other internet Gray Market economies and leaders online. They aren’t political operatives, which probably confuses people when they look for who is in charge. It is grassroots like the Tea Party, but not organized in a fashion that the IRS can comprehend. So just like with the Tea Party, they begin their plan of attack with charges of racism, just as they accused the Tea Party of spitting on Black Caucus zombies.

    The connections to Russian propaganda and operations are interesting, although still very vague at this point. The Russians are very good at promoting nationalist points of view, their own nationalism that is, when invading Georgia. Just like the Chinese, all Russian nationalists and patriots are required to defend Russian foreign policy, even if they don’t agree with it. They defend it by attacking the incompetence of the other people, like Georgia’s presidency. The issue is whether Russia has enough English language channels to promote their ideology to the Anglosphere. China’s foreign propaganda arm is CCTV. What is the Russian’s?

    If they have one, they don’t actually need agents online, because their culture spreads automatically and their pov is picked up automatically given the faster mutation and breeding of memes online now a days.

    The Alternative Right is just as good at picking up Russian propaganda tricks as they are at picking up useful Leftist tricks. The only thing the Alt Right lacks is the military arm, which is exemplified in survivalists, patriots with guns in the US, and those of us with a peculiar interest in logistics and military strategy. But even there, they might not be lacking for one, for long. If they can incorporate that group, they will gain real punching power, outside of the political sphere and arm.

    The reason is because survivalists and those factions I know of, are extremely “paranoid”. They already see half of America as traitors and soon to be enemies or competitors. They are not outlaws in society, but they are already soon to be outlaws in their own mind, and their priority is the safety of their families. They no longer particularly even obey laws because of the fear of punishment or because they think the laws are just. They are obeying the laws merely because it is convenient for their interests, for now. They are planning to go Galt.

    However, if the Alt Right can gain their loyalties, it would demonstrate something to the rest of us.

  32. We seem to have existed in alternate realities. For the duration of the Obama administration, I’ve certainly read many criticisms from the regular right of how Obama uses race and racism, exploits it, and has damaged race relations in this country.

    Those people did not hold power in DC, however.

    Peggy Noonan voted for Hussein and tried to convince her fellow Republicans that he was the Light Bringer to racial harmony. Or some other equivalent illusion.

    The schism in the REpublican party existed even before Sarah Palin. She merely showed the rest of us, that the schism was real and who it was between.

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