I don’t really spend time participating in comment sections anywhere, but I do occasionally skim comments to gauge the mood. I’ve been appalled at how full of nastiness and vitriol the comments are even among many of my “happy warrior” sites like Instapundit. Most of this would seem to be coming from the new “alt-right” crowd. Let me offer an interview of Jonah Goldberg by Hugh Hewlett which I don’t even think ought to be controversial, but apparently is among some folks:
Jonah Goldberg, author of “Liberal Fascism” is big on the philosophical roots of political movements, and believes we ought to have nothing to do with the core, racist alt-right, and shouldn’t aid in expanding the use of the term. Because of Jonah’s comments here, I noticed this over at Instapundit of all places:
Jonah is a hundred times worse than the vaguely defined Alt Right. They are not traitors to their own side of the political spectrum. They are not trying with all their force to get the Alinsky communist government weaponizing Islamophilic mega-criminal Hillary Clinton elected president.
Jonah is part of what is in fact a Jewish cabal (prominently led by himself and Bill Kristol and backed by numerous other prominent Jewish conservatives like Ben Shapiro), created expressly to betray the strong majority of Republican voters who chose Trump as their nominee. Trump took the lead on the issue Republican voters most care about: stopping illegal and jihadist immigration. Establishment Republicans always betrayed the voters on this issue and now this de facto Jewish cabal is doing the same.
I’m not going to be a participant in a political coalition with racists and anti-semites. Note that I’m not saying IÂ believe that every, or even the majority of Trump supporters are racist and/or anti-semitic, and I actually don’t believe Trump himself is either, but Trump was shameless enough willing to dog whistle racial politics to audiences eager to embrace it. This has emboldened some very distasteful individuals who now don’t feel so marginalized.
I also noticed recently that J.D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy (which I have not yet read, but I’ve been reading a lot of his commentary) takes a beating in the comment section of National Review over his article on why race relations have gotten worse. I don’t think there’s anything particularly ridiculous about Vance’s statements here, yet in the comments, you see comments like:
What a gigantic heap of baloney. White failure to empathize with black problems is responsible for all the problems in the black community? Good grief. Black behavior is responsible for problems in the black community. Vance is just another dizzy excuser of black pathology.
I know from a decade of blogging that reading comprehension is not the strong suit of a lot of people, but did this well-liked commenter read the same article I did? I didn’t get the impression Vance was making excuses so much as trying to promote understanding. Understanding among factions is a critical thing if we’re to avoid being at each other’s throats all the time.
One of my big problems with the anti-PC movement coming from alt-right camp is that there are some things that you don’t say… not because of PC conformity, but because decent people don’t say shit like that. I feel pretty confident in saying that if you utter “Jewish cabal” in public, you suck as a person and I don’t want anything to do with you. If that makes me PC, well, so be it. This is not the kind of thing I’m willing to tolerate or look past for the sake of political coalitions, and I’m glad there are other people who feel the same way.
How did we get here? Unlike a lot of people, I don’t blame Trump or his supporters. Trump is a symptom, not the cause of the disease, and I don’t think most of his supporters represent the kind of nasty discourse we see above.
In the current political situation, both parties have weak coalitions. The fastest growing party in this country is no party. Granted, most of those “independents” tend to lean one way or the other, but increasingly Americans aren’t all that interested in party politics. Johnathan Chait alludes to the weakness of the party system in his article, “Why American Politics Really Went Insane,” but I think Chait glosses over the fact that the Democratic Party’s leftist nuts are just as radical and out there as the Republican Party’s newly rediscovered alt-right whack jobs.
Barack Obama was, in fact, the transformational President he claimed to be. He was transformational in the sense that he realized (or perhaps accidentally stumbled upon) that the Democratic Party could build a stronger coalition than the one previously constructed by Bill Clinton. The limits of the Clinton Coalition showed with the Obamacare vote, and the devastating election results for the Democrats that followed. The Dems never really got what they really wanted out of Obamacare, but it cost them control of Congress, most state legislatures, and most governorships. Bill Clinton’s coalition was simply not capable of delivering European-style Social Democracy to US shores.
But the 2008 election results showed opportunity if that same coalition that easily swept Obama into the White House could be reproduced reliably.
What Democratic strategists figured out (and this is very much a “Chicago politics” divide-and-conquror style of running things) is that if money and grassroots effort was funneled to causes that helped nurse identity (racial, sexual, gender, etc) grievances, a thoroughly progressive coalition could be maintained that didn’t require catering to moderate suburban voters, as Clinton had done. But in order for the coalition to work, turnout among those groups needed to remain at Obama-like levels. The results had to be repeatable.
I don’t believe the fact that most people view race relations at an all time low is any accident. The Democratic political class engineered this in order to shore up their political power. That this would fuel the rise of white racial politics isn’t a bug, it’s a feature, and the hateful people coming out of the woodwork and participating in this nonsense are actually playing right into their hands.
This is not to let off the Republican Party off the hook in all this. They went into the 2016 elections thinking it was business as usual, which of course meant running someone else named Bush. I marginally more identify with “elites”, and I thought this was the very definition of insanity by the donor class. It would have been a moronic move even in a normal election year to line up behind Jeb!, but it was a disastrous one this year. The problem the GOP has is that they are beholden to the same wealthy interests as the Democrats. The difference between a Republican Wall Street Banker and a Democratic Wall Street Banker are not nearly as great as the difference between any Wall Street Banker and an unemployed coal miner from West Virginia, or some poor dude working two jobs to pay the rent and back child support. That gap in understanding is the real cause of our political woes, if you ask me. All this racial and gender bullshit is nonsense ginned up by our supposed rulers.
See, if working class whites, working class Blacks, and working class Hispanics suddenly realized they have more political interests in common with each other than they do with their wealthy coalition partners in the major parties, they might just figure out that if they vote together, they have the power to call the shots, and that would be the real disaster if you were to ask the donor class of either party. So best to keep the working classes divided against each other before they realize it. As for the rest of the rubes? Let them have bread and circuses culture wars!
That’s my cynical take on it all. I’m not comfortable with believing this, because class is something Marxists obsess over, and I’m not a Marxist. If we had a growing economy that was lifting all boats, I don’t think we’d be in this mess. But we don’t have that, and given the advances in automation and robotics, it’s going to be hard to achieve the kind of growth for the working class. The post World War II order is now coming to an end, and I don’t know what will replace it. But I don’t like what I’m seeing so far.
If you hear a dog whistle, you might be a dog.
One can identify dog whistling without being a dog.
Jonah just wants to be witchfinder general.
Purge away dude.
If you’re openly racist or anti-semite, I’ll gladly purge. I don’t want their votes.
Seconded. I won’t belong to a political coalition that rolls out a welcome mat for bigots. Either they go, or I do.
Racist? Like mitt Romney? He wanted to put black people back in chains!
There is a difference between what the media says is racist and what actually is racist.
There is also a different between fighting against the media’s portrayal of racism, and just adopting racism.
Might want to learn them.
Is there a test I can take to prove I’m not a thought criminal? no, I could just be lying.
Oooh, I know! I just need to denounce a whole bunch of people!
Well, try not saying “Jewish cabal” and work up from there. I never thought it was all that difficult myself.
Any other things I didn’t say that need correction?
I’m all ears!
And yet look how difficult it was for those below…..
I don’t care what people think, I care what people say. And you can say whatever you want. But if what you want to say is racist and anti-semitic, I’m not going to be part of your political coalition.
*virtue successfully signaled*
No, I just disagree with him. Before everyone went crazy, we used to have this thing called “disagreement” that didn’t necessarily involve “virtue signaling.”
Listen, I don’t give a shit what people think of my opinions. I wouldn’t have lasted a decade blogging if I did, because this is not a medium where people pat you on the back for agreeing with them.
*virtue successfully signaled*
…Allen metasignalled.
See, right-of-center folks can use Kafka-traps, too!
Allen, is there anything other than complete capitulation that you will accept?
Uh huh, thought so.
You can say that, and I completely, 100% sympathize with your predicament. The problem is that in the 2 party system, that just isn’t realistic unless you opt out completely, which means settling for irrelevance. It’s a big diverse country, and no matter what side you choose there are unsavory, racist, maybe even anti-Semitic people who are also on that side. Life is, unfortunately, very messy that way.
Seabastian, If you refused to be part of the GOP coalition and all the sundry that it includes then you are voting for the leftist bigots that will take away your guns.
No. I have no intention of voting for leftist bigots.
This is why I will never come to this site again.
This right here? It’s part of the problem. I’ve backed off on reading the comments in a lot of places, but I still visit sites with opinions contrary to my own. Part of it is to get blogfodder, true, but part of it is specifically so I don’t get isolated in an echo chamber.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Nor are their votes something that will win an election.
I’ll involve the fucking Marxists. I definitely blame them for the situation. A lot of this is stirred up by people spouting versions of critical race theory or other Marxism derived “analysis”.
The soviets will have their revenge.
I’d say part of the cause is 50+ years of the left labeling anything they don’t like as an “ist” racist, sexist, etc etc. You can only do that for so long before
A. You end up as the “boy who cried wolf” and
B. At least some people decide that if they’re going to be vilified as something they’re not, they may as well be it…
There’s some truth to what you’re saying, but honestly, anybody whose thought process is along lines of:
is part of the problem, not the solution. You don’t have to like the reflexive, bullshit accusations of racism and bigotry from the left, but that shouldn’t lead you to validate those accusations by actually going out and behaving like a racist, bigoted dickbag.
I’ll be contrarian and say I don’t think the alt-right even exists. There have always been enough white supremacist groups out there for reporters to go get a racist quote anytime they want one. They’re pulling out all the stops for Hillary these days, so doesn’t it make more sense that they’re just scaling up the OMG-the-white-racists propaganda and making up a catchy new name for it?
I’m open to the possibility I’m wrong about this, but I think Occam’s Razor goes in favor of my theory.
Where are all the nasty, racist comments coming from then? Even on sites that generally don’t cater to that kind of thinking.
I didn’t say those people don’t exist, I’m saying there’s no new movement. The Overton Window has been moved to where at least some people feel ok making comments that they wouldn’t have before. It may just be that the moving of the OW was caused by excessive political correctness to the point that you couldn’t suggest, for example, that someone’s behavior is “thuggish” because someone else in the thread insists on saying “thug” is code for black (seen this multiple times).
At some point, you get a backlash. My guess is that it will peter out after the election, regardless who wins. There is no alt-right trying to bring back the George Wallace era.
My guess is that it will peter out after the election, regardless who wins.
I hope you’re right.
I wouldn’t discount the possibility that at least some of the “racist” comments are being generated by left wingers under the guise of boosting Hillary by bolstering the mantra that conservatism of any strain is really racism incarnate.
Mobyism. I am sure much of it is.
The only problem is when you hear those racist sentiments coming out of the mouths of people you know personally and who you once considered a rational right leaning person.
I never said it was the correct response, just that it was one. It’s the same mechanism of “nice guys finish last” thinking that drives people to be rampaging d-bags. People reach a point where they think “I’ve been good and it got me nowhere, so &$^% it I may as well be bad.”
The reason the left wins is not because they are nasty, it’s because they are ruthless, and more importantly, they are ruthless strategically. They are very good at using government power and the cultural institutions they control to advance their agenda. The right are pikers at this, to the extend they try to control cultural institutions at all. Actually, the only group on the right that has tried to do this is the Religious Right, and they haven’t really been all that successful.
To further complicate matters, certain sides within the correlations of conservatism lean strongly to “slash government and leave people alone”, and that’s basically the core tenant of libertarianism in particular. The left, in contrast, actually *wants* and *seeks to use* government power.
The American right has a difficult time finding people who are willing to seek power, and play political games, because the intrinsic attraction of these philosophies discourages these things…
And people wonder why I’m so vehemently against making holding political office any more Hobbseian than it already is (nasty and brutish, anyway). The people I want to hold office already view it as a nasty job. I don’t want to make them any less likely to run for office
This is the problem with alt-right. “Well they say I’m a wife-beater, so I guess I’ll just start beating my wife!”
Makes no sense. You don’t fight against incorrect accusations by adopting them. You fight by rising above and fighting back.
That is a strawman arguement. The alt right seems to be not conservative, but values Western civilization over and above other cultures . I happen to agree with that aspect. They also have adopted identity politics and the tactics of the left and the SJW. so they are very rude and mean at times.
But if they push for the canddate I support does not mean that I am tarred with thier worse aspect and I will not reject the entire coalition. To do that is to cut off my nose for spite
There is NO “alt-right” movement. It’s just a fancy way of “othering” people. Goldberg has done a fantastic job of it.
Mostly I find that “alt-right” really means “non-neocon”. Or “non-what-I-believe-to-be-acceptable-conservatism”.
Jonah Goldberg is mostly a clown and has been speaking out against “libertarian-right” politics since since the days of Iraq invasion. Like it or not, this is a gaping split in the conservative movement, but it isn’t new.
BTW the Jew hatred stuff really has nothing to do with politics. It’s pure hatred as it has always be.
My favorite NRO contributors are Jim Geraghty and Charles C.W. Cooke. I liked Liberal Fascism as a book, but I don’t regularly read Jonah Goldberg. But I don’t think Jonah Goldberg is a RINO, or some kind of closet liberal.
Jonah in his position has been purging NRO for a while on the more intemperate columnists that often speak truth Especially those that show Isalm is itself a violent religion
therightstuff.biz
In fact, Trump has more in common with Ron Paul than Gary Johnson. Like Ron Paul, he’s never used recreational drugs–in fact, he’s never even had a drink, a cigarette, or a cup of coffee! (With the exception of his weakness for Slavic supermodels, Trump, in his personal habits, may be the most socially conservative candidate for President in history.)
Holy shit. I’m pretty sure that guy is smoking far danker shit than whatever Gary Johnson is. Yeah, real angel that Trump guy. Just ask all the folks he’s ripped off and conned. They’ll tell you!
Sweet hell. Trump has as much in common with Ron Paul as does Obama. Which isn’t much. Paul has actual principles, and doesn’t change his mind every other day.
“Trump may be the most socially conservative candidate for President in history”
LOL WUT. Yeah, that cheating on his wife, getting divorced, running casinos, constantly lying, and cheating people out of the their money is REAL socially conservative!
Gotta disagree sir. There is a strong alt-right movement. Its a collection people who use the same tactics of the left- identity politics, propaganda, hate, anti-liberty ideas, among others.
Its definitely different than non-neocon, or paleocon. I see plenty of people in those groups who do not associate and refuse to associate with the alt-right.
Paleocons, non-neocons, concons all have different ideas of what conservative means. The alt-right doesn’t care about conservatism- only winning and promoting identity politics. They are definitely separate groups.
I’m not a huge fan of Goldberg, because of his anti-libertarian-right positions, but he is right on the mark on the alt-right
I consider the source, and Goldberg is not someone I would trust to find a conservative. He is a clown and a neocon globalist who will never admit how their movement betrayed conservatives (or the country).
The picture is painted broadly. When the media (or Goldberg or Beck or whoever the flavor-of-the-month conservative should be) says “alt-right” they are really talking about non-neocons. This is really the no different than the political definition of “assault weapon” except it is “whatever ideology I don’t like”.
I’ve read Reynolds since 2001, but his commentariat (thanks, PJM) is mostly godawful.
Not that NRO attracts a significantly superior class of comment, though I’m not sure why, given that it’s NRO and they’ve always tried to be intellectual about it.
(The only “political” place I think the comments aren’t simply godawful is McArdle’s blog at the Atlantic, mostly because she brought her commenters with her.
n.b. “Gunblogs” don’t count as “political” in this analysis – as much as I sometimes blink dunbfounded at how people jump to conclusions or don’t read legal sources for comprehension, the gunblogs I follow, like here and SaysUncle, and – before she nixed comments – Tam’s place, all have a step above.)
I have a whole ‘nother article I’ve been thinking about that a big part of the problem is that Facebook brought the Baby Boomer generation into new media without the same amount of time to socialize to it as later generations who’ve grown up with it. I’ve been taking part in Internet discussions since the Usenet days of my early 20s. After a while you learn not to be such a big jerk, and try to be cognizant of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory and not be that guy. I haven’t written the article yet because I’m torn between that idea, and the idea that Facebook in general is what’s poisoning our political discourse.
Write it! I think you’re exactly right about people (not just boomers–think of all the millenials on twitter, gamergate etc) on the Internet who haven’t been fully socialized. FB and Twitter aren’t a separate phenomenon, they’re the most popular conduits for this one.
FB and Twitter have both degraded political thought in this country for the same reason that AOL users getting access to the old Internet newsgroups did: make it too easy to join and you let in fools.
Wow. That’s fascinating. I would definitely agree – though I think the problem is far deeper. I see two strains of unacceptable behavior. One, yes, are baby boomers who on facebook have no idea how to behave or engage with people (and they are bad on both the left and right).
The other side is the social justice warriors and the political operatives who refuse to see views other than those that help their preferred candidate in the immediate moment.
There’s a lot of truth in this comment about Facebook, Sebastian. You should write the article.
Hear, hear, Sebastian
It would seem that you are still playing the PC game, which only helps the other side. Trump is the Anti-PC candidate.
As far as the “Jewish Cabal”, what is so wrong about calling a spade a spade? It doesn’t seem to be an anti-Jew position, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a label for a group.
I still don’t understand the anti-gun stand of Jews in general, and US Jews in particular, especially after the Holocaust, and “Never Again”. Not logical. Stupid, even. Even their love of socialism is puzzling, given their strong efforts in business endevours throughout history. I worked at an Israeli startup, that was peopled by battle veterans, and they made fun of our 2nd Amendment. Clueless people on human history, for the most part. I guess their schools are as bad as ours are.
Don’t try to label me as anti-Jew, either. I’ve had Jewish friends most of my life. Dated some. Had a Jewish roommate. Considered moving to Israel when I was young. Still a cheerleader for that country.
I mostly don’t worry about a person’s religion, although I don’t include Islam in that category. Not for at least 30-40 years, now.
I hate to agree with you, but I must. And I am Jewish.
Note that “Jewish Cabal” does not mean every Jew is a member. But it does mean that there is a very large group of influential, vociferous, SJWs who happen to be Jewish and push in the same direction.
A classic example is the Anti-Defamation League, which is currently moving its focus to general Social Justice issues, and is run by a Obama operative. And is strongly anti-2A.
Don’t bother trying to figure it out. After nearly 70 years, I can’t either.
But also note that there is a very strong core of Trump supporters in the Jewish community – myself and my students included. Interestingly, I have noted that the support for Trump is directly related to the strength of the religious observance of the community.
Anti-PC doesn’t mean it’s OK to be a racist or anti-semite. Personally, I don’t care what you do or say. I won’t try to shut you up. But I’m not going to be in a political coalition with you either.
Are you even prepared to define “racist”?
Or, are you just establishing your “goodthink” credentials?
Why do I have to define racist?
But I’ll give it a stab: do you hate on people because of immutable characteristics? Do you buy into racial stereotypes of dubious truth? Like the fact that Jews conspire to form cabals to control things, or that white people are superior to blacks, or that people are to be measured in their worth by their group’s imagined characteristics rather than their character as individuals? If so, I feel pretty comfortable saying that’s racism.
Does that mean you can’t criticize “Black Lives Matter?” No. It doesn’t. Does it mean you can’t talk about problems in the black community? No. It doesn’t mean that either. It doesn’t even mean you can’t be racist. I don’t have time or energy to police what people say online. But I can choose who I associate with politically.
In this post I’m accusing a Black President of helping to gin up racial tensions in order to politically advantage himself and his own party. I think it should be pretty clear I don’t view any criticism of people of different races to be off limits, or even criticizing racial politics, but the key is whether you accept people as individuals, or lump them and judge them by the ethnic or racial groups they belong to.
I agree.
I certainly don’t think whites are superior to blacks. If we were, we wouldn’t be the beta males of society.
If whites were superior to blacks, you wouldn’t have every single black thug in America having more say in national policy than white Republican presidents.
If whites were superior to blacks, you wouldn’t have white men walking down the street staring at the sidewalk while black rapists and murderers walk with widespread legs in such a way as to take up most of the sidewalk with their gait.
If whites were superior to blacks, you wouldn’t have white women leaving their white husbands to marry morbidly obese black men, simply because the latter are vaguely associated with “gangbanging” sexy bad boys (never mind the fact that real gangbangers would eat them as a pre-breakfast snack).
Clearly blacks, in any real context, are superior to whites–albeit only by default. Blacks have nothing on real alpha males, such as Arab terrorists.
(And on that topic, look at how many whites nowadays wear keffiyas to signal their support for the killing of US troops overseas).
Is it racist to believe that there are average IQ differences between various races? And that these differences explain a lot of the outcomes between various racial groups?
It’s a controversial topic. I don’t think it’s racist to state facts, and it is a fact that in a lot of surveys some races show higher/lower IQ scores than others. But I do think it’s racist to want to believe in such things.
Personally, I don’t think IQ is necessarily a valid means of measuring intelligence. You could make an argument, and the argument has certainly been made, that the explanation in variation is that the test measures intelligence in a way that biases the test for more educated people to have better outcomes.
What is “race?” How are you defining it? I’ve taken a look at some of these studies, and the methodology they use to define “racial” categories is somewhat dubious.
(Same goes for almost any “race”-based study. “Race” is a social construct, unless you drill down a lot farther and use a lot tighter grouping than “skin color.”)
And it’s still a somewhat pointless exercise, because an individual is still not the “average” point on whatever bell-curve you assign them to.
Race? Race? Never heard of it? Don’t believe in it! What is race anyhow? IQ? IQ? What is that? How do you measure it? Anyhow it’s not important! If differences show it must be because the test is biased! You can’t make generalizations! Anyhow, all generalizations are false! We are all individuals! Virtue signalling is strong in me! Please Mr. Alligator – eat me last!
Exactly – how do you measure it? What makes a black person “black” for your purposes.
And what does the putative average IQ of the “black race” tell us about how smart and/or successful any particular individual actually is? At a higher predictive rate than their family’s socioeconomic status during childhood.
Even if I were to grant you that it’s true, so what? From a policy point of view, why does it matter?
Am I signalling virtue to argue against “affirmative action” in all its myriad “soft bigotry of low expectations” forms?
Virtue signaling is the new buzzword for weak minds.
Which is why SJWs engage in it.
“Virtue signaling” has become an accusation for those on the right the way “racism” has become an accusation for those on the left. Something that can be accused instead of actually trying to win an argument on the merits.
Plus, treating people according to their racial group rather than individuals is what collectivists do, and I want no part of that…. whether it’s coming from fascists or marxists.
I’ve noticed the same thing Sebastian. “Virtue signaling” has lost its original meaning and now is a baseless accusation just like “racism”.
“How did we get here?”
The answer to that is, very slowly, but inexorably. And we did it with the aid of denial, and with the fixation on our own issue(s) that made us willing to coalition with people who really seemed a tad unsavory, but hey, they would contribute to the coalition. (Of course, for the sake of our single issue, we would be expected to tacitly support their multiple issues, or if not support them, at least keep our mouths shut about them while being team players.)
We also did not want to believe that what was called “stealth” really existed as a tactic, and we were called “paranoid” by coalitioners if we did believe it. Being sure of the virtues of sterling honesty, and believing that everyone who gave lip-service to that virtue really meant it, we could not believe that anyone would deliberately infiltrate our organizations to use and subvert them, while having no specific interest in our organizations’ issues, other than how they could be used to expand political power. Sometimes we had to find ourselves stabbed in the back multiple times until we recognized there was a pattern there.
And today, voila’,, here we are.
Hear, hear, Sebastian.
Look people, when you find yourself sharing major policy positions with Nazis (or Commies), it’s time for a rethink. And if you have a problem with that, tough.
“when you find yourself sharing major policy positions with Nazis (or Commies), it’s time for a rethink.”
But (see above) we’re supposed to be team players. The people we coalition with, not so much.
They’re the only ones with “principles.” Just ask them.
What’s this “we” stuff? I’m not a part of any “we.” Voting is not, in fact, a group activity. That’s why they have those little privacy shields.
Whatever it is you’re selling, I’m not buying, in part because it is couched in a level of sophistry that suggests either you didn’t think it through — or you’re hoping none of your readers will.
But “stabbed in the back” is pure-dee dogwhistle. D’ye think we’re too dewey-eyed to notice?
Roberta, I have a feeling we’re not getting each other. I thought I was agreeing with you, albeit with sarcasm, that often doesn’t come through quite right in print.
For years I have seen our current scenario coming (though not in fine detail) as I bit my tongue to support coalitions with alleged gun-rights supporters who grew increasingly distasteful. I was supposed to defer to them, and did, “for the Cause,” while their “high principles” wouldn’t accommodate anyone else’s principles.
I sat in offices with Republican legislators, who tried to convince me to support their Gun Control Lite bills, by telling me stories about what “niggers” (their word) had done to sweet, blonde-haired, blue-eyed convenience store clerks. The point of that story being, that they just naturally assumed that if I was a gun rights activist, the way to persuade me would be to tell me horror-stories about “niggers.” (Why would they just assume that? It wasn’t like the didn’t know any gun rights activists. They had long reputations as “Friends of The Sportsman.”)
Regarding “stabbed in the back,” I could give a flying flock whether you buy it or not. I lived it. And what it was, was more than once discovering that someone in a place of trust and influence in an organization I was part of, was in fact an infiltrator who had no interest whatsoever in our issue, but had been attempting to utilize (in some cases, successfully) the organization’s resources to advance their own issue. (For clarity, both being issues “on the right.”)
The extent I am “dog-whistling” is, I am stopping short of naming affiliations or leanings or issues, because I don’t really want to offend people who embrace those and conduct themselves in an ethical way. But if people think that I’m defining shoes that seem to fit certain groups or issues better than some others, well, there is probably a good reason for that.
Buy it or don’t; there’s not a damn thing you are going to change, at this point, anymore than I will. We both have let other people make our beds for us. And that is what makes me mad enough to finally talk about it.
You do not speak for me. And you still sound like a smarmy crypto-Nazi to me, so there’s some, “shoes that seem to fit certain groups or issues better than some others,” for you.
I make my own bed. I vote for who I choose to vote for, quite often third-party, and I do not collude with nobody nohow. When NRA can manage to STFU about social issues and concentrate on guns, I like ’em and reward them; when when they can’t, I don’t.
All elections are “an advance auction of stolen goods,” but they are better than the alternative. Politicians are like the guys who muck out the sewers: it’s a dirty job and you ought not shake hands with them, but we do need ’em.
Falling apart at the seams? Not so much, man. Pull yourself together. We’re still here. Think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5mmFPyDK_8
We are not yet forsaken, young man, nor shall we be.
Do not believe the Democrat bull manure. It is part of their political playbook.
In 2012, Romney was a big old racist, the worst in the world. “He’ll put y’all in chains!”
This year Romney is the “Respected Elder Statesman of the GOP.” Mostly because he hates the current Republican presidential candidate.
The current candidate, Donald Trump has been a NYC real estate developer for over forty years. Never any reported racial issues, despite being in the public eye in NYC and on national TV. His employees in Trump Inc., are more diverse than the staff of news organizations like Esquire that are attacking him. This year he is the biggest racist bigot in the world. You would have thought he founded the KKK.
The only reason he is a “racist” is that he is running for President as a Republican. It is the standard Democrat playbook.
In twelve years that GOP candidate will be a racist, sexist, bigot, unlike that nice egalitarian Donald Trump. Even if she is Mia Love.
I’m not speaking as much about the veracity of Dem accusations against Republican politicians: I know that’s bullshit. I’m talking about what I’m noticing in the trenches in right-leaning media, and what I’m noticing is validating the worst caricatures the left has about the right. There is a lot of vitriol, an unwillingness to listen to reason, dismissing people as “Cucks” and RINOs who are no such thing. Embracing of racial identify politics. This isn’t Dems accusing Republicans of racism, this is people claiming to be Republicans demonstrating actual racism and intolerance themselves. It’s not everybody, but it’s out there and more prevalent than it was a year ago.
How many are trolls and mobys from and for the Left?
I do not know, but I have seen it in action. It is a cheap, easy and effective way to discredit an entire site. ” OOOOHHH! Look at the Racists!”
I would say not many. They very much seem like people are haven’t commented before, because it wasn’t acceptable. But they heard the whistle, and now they are.
When you have a political and legal system where Official Victim Groups are favored (and you do), identity politics is a logical response.
Yup. SJWs have encouraged a lot of upset people to play the identity politics game and the SJWs are upset that there’s no exclusion rule for whites.
Frankly I prefer the world where its ok to utter garbage, that way I know who the real bigots are. Please announce your bigotry loud and proud. The real problem is that by complaining everyone is racist xenophobic bigot for the smallest slight, its impossible to differentiate the real bigots. It minimizes actual bigotry.
It’s not racist to oppose immigration. Anyone who opposes immigration invites accusations of dog whistle politics. Some people are opposed to immigration because racism. Others because in an era of an endless welfare state, weak growth, and poor opportunities for unskilled labor, we really should only be accepting people with employable skills. Java programmers are not the ones sneaking over the border. But before that, we should have a robust economy generating jobs. If wage growth is tepid, why increase supply of labor? I really dont care who comes here as long as my taxes don’t support them and as long as we are at full employment here in the US.
It is inevitable that these two groups opposing immigration vote together on the same issue. What other people do or why they do it is not my problem. Nor am I willing to cut my nose to spite my face.
And: people are angry because of the economy. It is not as good as the numbers imply. What shows up in the comments section is just the outpouring of frustration.
“And: people are angry because of the economy. It is not as good as the numbers imply. What shows up in the comments section is just the outpouring of frustration.”
…Which could also be said of the Nazi party. And was at the time.
Eyeroll. So, being pissed at the economy makes one a Nazi?
No, being racist and anti-Semitic in the comments and trying to pass that off as “just being angry” does.
“being pissed at the economy makes one a Nazi?”
No, but the Nazis took advantage of a bad economy, coupling it to hate, fear, and scapegoating to advance an agenda that was all about expanding their own power, in an entirely cynical way.
Everybody in Germany was pissed at the economy; only a small percentage of them were Nazis. But the Nazis used it to leverage their minority status to total political control.
I call Godwin rule Roberta.
I see a lot of comments that would be labelled racist by the SJWs but are simply statements of fact: murder is largely black on black; white murder rates are roughly equivalent to Europe.
You know how the Godwin Rule came about. Mike Godwin got tired of being reminded that he was in agreement with the Nazis about gun control.
If I were into paranoia, I would suspect Godwin of being a Neo-Nazi plant whose purpose was to discourage people from saying it out loud when they began to notice the coming parallels between Nazi Germany and our own emerging fascist scenario.
Weatherman, perhaps I am misunderstanding your point. You seem to think that the alt white or white nationalists are leading into the emotional fervor that allowed a Hitler get elected. I understand that concern.
However I see it differently. Fascism is not nationalism. It is included . The left uses fascist tactics all the time. The alt right or white nationalists do not .
To be honest I see Hilary not leading to a Hitler model but rather to a Chavez model. She is not the worst . Sanders would have done it but I think he would not be effective.
Trump is a nationalist. Yes.I think that is a good thing.He also reaching out to displaced electorates . I also think that is good. Whether that electorate is forgotten whites that have been left out like coal workers or now blacks that are stuck in welfare dependancy.
I have hoped that Trump would reach out to blacks.
Trump is not seen as a Republican by many. To me he is a 1950 or 1960 Democrat.
Because he is not seen as a republican he reaches out to gays and drives a wedge in that coalition. He is now doing that to blacks. I think that he has that ability that any other GOP candidates would not have.He is breaking up the left/ right hard line separation. that is A good thing.
The effect is a bit of chaos.
You don’t get to call Godwin unless you can quote it. Hint: it does not say “shut up,” or even, “first to mention Nazis loses.”
I was on the Internet before 1993, chum. Back when this stuff meant something and you needed more than a frikkin’ AOL login.
The “alt-right” are Nazis, minus the Hugo Blass uniforms and armbands. Decent folk don’t sit down with ’em.
Did I strike a nerve? Roberta. I am civil. You do not appear to be so. Blanket statements are invariable false . “Like alt right is Nazis. ” So if Ican speak with them, I am not decent . That is classic othering, a SJW tactic.
Your arguement is not convincing . You resort to ad hominen. Also demonizing the opposition.
I don’t care how polite racist authoritarians are. It does not spare them the infamy of their positions. And if that bothers you, well, tough.
Notice you can’t scare up what Godwin’s law actually says, either. Tsk.
I know but why bother? I have no urge to prove myself to you. Not worth the argument I leave you to your moral superiority.
I agree. Part of why ignore Alex Jones and the rest of infowars is the paranoia and bad company.
You are absolutely correct, the majority of Trump supporters are not racists: they are just going to vote for him because they hate the Clinton cabal!
Bottom line: I think that the country will survive 4 years of Trump. I do not think that the constitution or the country will survive 4 years of Clinton and her supreme court appointments. She is not even hiding the fact that she is going to govern through executive orders, and she will appoint justices who will rubber stamp expanded executive authority, expanded federal power over interstate commerce, and read the 2nd amendment out of the constitution.
Trumps one saving grace is that he will defer SCT appointments to conservatives like Cruz and Pence. With the media, congress, the courts, all hating on Trump, he will have a hard time pushing stuff through and will need to build consensus. Clinton on the other hand – congress, the media, and the courts will all rubber stamp her executive orders. They are already in the bag for her.
When I say supporter, I mean someone who actually supports Trump. I wouldn’t call someone who will hold their noses and vote against Hillary a true supporter.
I am old enough to remember that people made the same complaints about Reagan the first time. They also accused Reagan of dog whistle politics. Realignment elections are always filled with fake outrage.
The media and internet are incentivized to generate maximum eyeballs and outrage. If you go by the media, every day there is a shark attack, school shooting, and every Trump supporter is a racist homophobic xenophobic bigot. Every gun owner is a cowboy looking to shoot someone. We are winning the war on terrorism, and the market will tank and take us into a deep global recession if Trump wins. Never mind the fact the large banks mostly support Clinton because big regulations stymies competition. The Wells Fargo pac #1 recipient, 2-1 over #2, is Clinton. Goldman Sachs partners can donate to Clinton but not Trump. Small banks and competition have been crushed by Dodd-Frank and lending regulations and capital rules largely hamper “high risk” lending to minorities. Which one is the real racist?
Mostly I think: believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear or read on the internet or media. If you want to find the truth, follow the money.
” If you want to find the truth, follow the money.” And the money says Trump is all about himself. Who also has a GS man as his finance chair, and wants a GS exec for Treasury Secretary. Hmmm why is that?
The media of course is always hyperbolic about the Republican president. But the idea isn’t to fulfill their ideas, but to fight against them.
I support Trump . He was not my first choice but I don’t think this Republic will last with Clinton
So am I a racist? I get real tired of being called every name because I disagree
“He was not my first choice”
Hitler was not the Centre Party’s first choice either, but they coalitoned with the Nazis and their votes put the Nazis over the top in the Reichstag. That resulted in the Enabling Act, which eventually made Hitler the outright dictator.
The Centre Party was just looking out for the interests of its constituency, and by doing so sold out everyone else, and ultimately, its constituency.
In my opinion the danger of dictatorship has already happened with Obama and gets encased with Hilary.
The GOP is differnt from The Democrats . We will go after our own when they trangress. The Democrats do not.
If Trump wins, the news media will get out from their position under Obama’s desk, take off the knee pads, and start doing their “tribunes of the people” pretend job again.
The hate has been there from leftist commentators for years. I think you are right that there has been a upsurge in hate from the right this year. Whether it is really rightists doing this or leftist trolls projecting their own mentality on the right I can’t say. Whatever the source, it is certainly demoralizing for conservatives as witness your post.
I think this is kinda of ridiculous thing to generalize based on the internet. About 10% of the right has always been like this. About 10% of the left has also always been like this, for different reasons.
The problem with generalizing based on blogs and comments is that that the 20%-30% with the strongest opinions are the most emphatic and generally the most motivated to comment or post. If you read the comments section of the NYT for example you would think 90% of the country is anti-hunting, yet the reality is precisely the opposite, especially in uber liberal areas like Central Maryland where deer are wildly overpopulated and destroy everything. There is an otherwise bleeding heart liberal with Obama stickers on her car down and no doubt a NYT subscription down the street from me who will give hunters coffee in the morning and help identify offending deer who have eaten her carefully manicured ornamental plants (“please take care of that one”). If only it worked that way.
about the middle 70-80% are shockingly open minded, but its the other 20-30% who blog and comment because they have a strong opinion.
The bottom line is that stereotyping is wrong in all forms, and that includes stereotyping republicans, democrats, or independents based on what *some* republicans, democrats, or independents say on the interwebs.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very true. I have acquaintances who are progressive stereotypes. A French-born Jew who thinks ISIS was created by Bush, and is primarily resistance to Western aggression, and Islam is a religion of peace not a threat to civil liberties (unlike Republicans) but only a small fraction of Americans are this crazy.
The “alt-right”, or whatever you want to call it, is simply a new label for the death throes of the ultra social-conservative movement, which has been a sinking ship for the last several decades and IMO about to be relegated to a regional-level force. What we need to decide is whether we’re going to stay on this ship or whether we’re going to re-calibrate gun rights as a civil rights issue and throw out all the dead weight that’s going to doom us.
Conservative media like Breitbart and such may be giving us a vehicle to deliver our message but aren’t doing us any favors in the long-run IMO. We’ve allowed ourselves to be co-opted by entrepreneurs who have perfected the art of click baiting and meme making. Most of them may care nominally about gun rights, but it’s not at the top of their list, they just know that they can lock up a sizable chunk of their readership by pretending it’s a huge issue for them. In reality they would dump us in a heartbeat for an immigration crackdown, abortion ban, or same-sex marriage ban.
Not that I’m a fan of crusty neo-cons or RINOs either, because they are just as likely to throw us under the bus in the name of their pet issues, but supporting bigotry isn’t going to somehow sustain (let alone enhance) 2A rights with where this country is going demographically.
There we go with tarring with a broad brush. Now “ultra social-conservative” = “alt-right” = racist. What is the difference between an ultra and regular? Basically anyone with views other than you, right? As for an abortion ban, yeah, I care first about ending the murder of children before I care about guns. Because when you lose a generation before they’re born it sort of makes it tough to sustain much of a country in the first place.
I didn’t say the majority of social conservatives, even hardliners, were racist (every group has its 5-10% of nuts). I simply said their platform is a dying breed and from a strictly gun rights perspective if we continue to hitch a ride on it we will suffer the same fate.
Surveys are consistently showing that millennials are not universally liberal as their parents were at their age. There is a significant libertarian lean to their outlook. This is an opportunity to bring a young and diverse group into the fold of gun rights instead of attaching it to a whole bunch of other viewpoints that aren’t getting anymore popular.
The alt-right isn’t socially conservative. They don’t care about abortion, religion etc. They love Trump, who doesn’t care about any of these things either. Trump is laughable on “family values.”
Cruz was the social conservative running in the election and they HATED him.
If I were to actually buy into the given definition of alt right on this forum, I would have to agree with you on that.
Let’s just say what the people posting on internet message boards are who post foul stuff: morons. How many of them would be as insulting to someone in person? Do we need to come with another label for that?
!!!!!!!!!!!!! Moron is the defining characteristic of most commenters. Often ignorant, poor readers, and weak on logic: Ordinary people, which is the great risk of democracy.
“They love Trump, who doesn’t care about any of these things either.”
But we should support Trump because he cares about gun rights.
Is that about right?
Because Trump is the only realistic alternative to Clinton.
If you’re in a contested state. I’m not, so I’m registering a protest vote against the state of affairs that made him the only “realistic” alternative.
Your anti-theism is showing. It’s remarkable how the rise of anti-theism has paralleled the rise of the pathologies you say you hate.
After years of the Democrats labeling every Republican or Libertarian as a
racist, is it any wonder that the term has become meaningless? It isn’t Trump or the GOP that has led to a resurgence of anti-Semiticism, it’s the leftist scum on campus that attack Jewish students as Zionists, the BLM thugs who target anyone not sufficiently dark-skinned, race pimps like Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson or Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton. Compared to the viciousness of the MoveOn and Occupy crowd,complaints about the alt-right movement are like worrying about hemorrhoids when you have Stage 4 colon cancer.
Point on and well said!
So it ok to openly call for black votes because the candidate is black but not for whites?
The real beef is the one sided of standards. BLM is by definition racist The democrats says that is OK so the alt right is just doing tit for tat
Plus every Republicam has been called racist Big deal.
The alt right are obnoxious because they adopted the tactics of the liberal fascists.
We now live in a world where anyone who disagrees with any liberal person or liberal ideology is a racist–at least according to liberals and the news media/entertainment industry.
I think we also need to be careful to distinguish between true anti-Semites (those who hate all Jews and especially those who are considered to be Jewish based on ethnicity or adherence to Judaism) and those who really are just hating a minority segment of Jews because that minority is the left-wing progressive/Socialist/Marxist/DNC who enjoys stirring passions and then using that as ammo to label those who oppose them as hating all Jews (or foolishly fall into the trap of blaming all Jews when it is really only the minority who is the enemy).
Then there is the issue that a lot of this is being caused by the reality that the left is using race/religion/class to screw anyone who doesn’t follow and embrace them which only stirs passions and triggers lashing out and which is then gleefully exploited by the left to shout, “see those white Christian/NRA/GOP, etc are all racist and evil bastards!”
Then there is also the evil reality that the left also uses and exploits their “special” minority groups to stir them up into angry mobs against everyone else.
The left and it’s supporter groups are very racist.
Damn depressing!
“The left and it’s supporter groups are very racist.”
Which is why ever card-carrying racist in North America is supporting the right, this year?
Got it.
Oh, I couldn’t sully myself by voting for so-and-so, since someone I dislike is also planning on voting for so-and-so. The horrors!
Get over yourself. You sound like an idiot, or a tool for Clinton.
Heh. Listen to what’s talking!
It’s not that “someone” I dislike is planning to vote for so-and-so. It’s that everyone I’ve ever disliked is voting for him.
Call me crazy, but the correlation seems a tad more than coincidental.
My mom always told me I’d be judged by my friends, and I don’t see why that good-ole downhome wisdom shouldn’t apply to candidates.
Chances are someone laden with fleas, has been lying down with dogs.
“It’s that everyone I’ve ever disliked is voting for him.”
Oops. I misspoke. Obviously I’ve disliked beaucoup Democrats, and they won’t be voting for him.
Narrow that to, “whole classes of people I have always disliked” will be voting for him.
(Misspeaking like that is one of the dangers associated with being Politically Homeless.)
Because the New Black Panthers, La Raza, etc. are on the right. Got it.
I’d call you dumb as a sack of hammers. except that’s an insult to hammers. And sacks.
That’s utter nonsense
Never seen that card. Have you? In 2008 a candidate of race X received 98% of the X votes. Racism? Not to a Democrat.
Just so I understand things here, I’m anti- Semite if I see that Semites support their own race over my race. And if I notice that after 200+ years a certain a very large subset of hyphenated Americans still can’t speak recognizable English and hate my race I’m the racist. OOOOkay, but I don’t think this is going to work out the way you are hoping and wishing it will.
Sounds to me as if someone is hoping to be one of the last ones thrown out of the (diversity)sleigh.
But then I’m just a curmudgeonly septuagenarian who has been watching my country disappear since around 1964.
“But then I’m just a curmudgeonly septuagenarian who has been watching my country disappear since around 1964.”
Was that the Civil Rights Era, or are you referring to the Abington SCOTUS decision in 1963?
No, that was when the utterly detestable poc Johnson took over the reins of the country. Kennedy, the typical demo-whoredog druggie, wasn’t much of a man or a president, but at least he was not Johnson. And the presstitutes showed their true colors(Kennedy/Nixon//Johnson/Goldwater).
Between Johnson and the “Civil Rights Era” how does one decide which did more damage to black families?
Of course those 8 black-robed oligarchists had been re-writing law and the Constitution long before the ’60’s.
Here’s a somewhat fragmented TL;DR, as far as I understand it:
The most important point is that Neocon interests are not our interests.
The “sensible” right always purges everyone to the right of them, while walking two steps behind the left. They’re working for the left by purging any real resistance, and never offering any of their own.
This is the equivalent of the toothless pre-Cincinnati Revolt NRA. And now that we actually fight back the NRA is smeared as “white trash racists who need to be declared terrorists and purged like Buckley purged the Birchers“.
In return for betraying us, the Neocons get comfy jobs writing for CATO, Heritage, and thousands of other foundations. They just watch as the base and their country gets screwed (which is why calling them “cuckolds” became popular).
I’m sure we can mostly all agree on the above, right?
Now, a lot of the alt-right has noticed that many of these guys are jewish, as are the ones on the left who talk about “the final solution to the toxic whiteness problem”. Naturally, they suspect a conspiracy.
The real modern right thinkers have other explanations (see Moldbug’s “Why I am not an anti-semite”), but pepe memes spread ideas faster than giant essays on Thomas Carlyle.
So, will you keep purging to the right every time the left demands it, ensuring that they win every single time? Because the next group to be purged is the NRA, and it’ll be our fault if we let them.
You summed it up perfectly. Agreed.
Well stated
“The “sensible†right always purges everyone to the right of them”
But, should they purge no one to the right of them?
Is it preferable to allow everyone, no matter how far to the right they are, to have free rein? As we discussed above, defer to and coalition with them, as if there aren’t legitimate questions about where boundaries should be?
“So, will you keep purging to the right every time the left demands it, ensuring that they win every single time?”
You have already stated that this is how you think.
However, it’s not your business to be deciding where the line to the right of YOU should end. Unless, of course, you actually ARE a Clinton operative.
Racists are not to the right. They see everyone as a member of a group, not as individuals. There’s a reason the KKK was a Democratic Party operation and slavery was the Democratic cause.
What’s the difference between a plantation and a collective? 156 years.
Fitzhugh’s _Cannibals All!_ (1857) one of the defenses of slavery, argued that slavery was a traditional form of socialism and far more humane than capitalism (the Cannibals of the title being capitalists). His arguments have an uncanny resemblance to those that 1960s progressives made for the moral superiority of the Soviet Union.
Speaking of which, the alt-right has a far better response to left propaganda than feigned outrage: http://puu.sh/r6Bak.jpg
For the intellectually curious, Mike Enoch from therightstuff.biz is doing an AMA on reddit tonight at 9, if anybody is interested. It doesn’t get any more Alt-Right than TRS.