My attention was recently called to a
movement, or phenomenon, or whatever, called “Alt-Right”. As is
often the case, this term is used not by the adherents themselves,
but by their opposition – and, on a perhaps simplistic level, it
seems to, basically, refer to “everyone that everyone else doesn't
like”. In this, it shares a pedigree with terms like “fascist”,
“reactionary”, “isolationist”, and so on – a way of
categorizing, and thus setting apart, a certain group with a certain
alleged mindset, and thus making them a handy target of political
attacks (and thus a welcome distraction from the real issues of our
time, like with a population of over 320 million, how did we manage
to wind up with these two freakazoids as presidential candidates of
the major parties?). On another level it describes people who feel
that history, which is running at warp speed these days, has passed
them by. And on another level, it describes the current group of
people who have been, or feel they've been, neglected, demeaned,
disenfranchised, ridiculed – basically declared non-persons and not
welcome in the political arena, since they have nothing to contribute
to the dialogue and no coherent (i.e. “progressive”) program.
And on a more immediate level, it refers to Trump supporters – and
as I've said before, assumes that the Trump phenomenon is something
new under the sun... unprecedented... “un-American”... and
dangerous.
The salience of this concept can be
illustrated by the recent statements of none other than Hillary
Clinton, whose “basket of deplorables” consists of those who are
“racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name
it.” But she was right on target when she identified Trump
supporters as “people who feel that the government has let them
down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to
their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for
change.” Every once in a while the truth slips out, even if it's
Hillary who's speaking. Of course, in her mind, and in the minds of
her supporters, those people don't count, because their grievances
are only imaginary and characterized by “prejudice and paranoia”.
The “Alt-Right” is the basic theme
of a recent essay by Thomas J. Main:
But his definition, if one can even
call it that, is a bit of a crazy quilt. It's a hodgepodge, and
winds up tossing people of markedly different (dare I say “diverse”?)
types into the same basket. But one common element, at least, is
that they are people who have been more or less asleep in the
political sense but who have now awakened, and who find that the
world is radically different from the way it ought to be, and the way
they have always expected it to be. So in this sense it's an
alliance (if that's not too strong a term) for the shocked and
scandalized, but it's also a populist phenomenon of sorts, since
pretty much everyone involved comes from the ranks of the people, as
opposed to the elite. And by “the people” I don't mean the
mythical “people” of communist/socialist/progressivist
propaganda, but the real
people, “warts and all” -- with all of their frustrations,
resentments... hatreds, even. And the perennial paradox, as always,
is that in a relatively prosperous society there are nonetheless
frustrations, resentments, and dissatisfactions – as if all of the
Utopian schemes forced upon the citizenry for over 100 years now have
come to naught. Not only that, but the frustrated, resentful, and
dissatisfied ones are not the usual suspects –
officially-designated and approved minorities – but a class of
people who have scarcely ever been on radar, to say nothing of being
defined by the Regime. They seem, like all populist movements, to
have come out of nowhere – but the roots are deep, and any
suddenness about them is largely attributable to their discovery by
the mainstream media. (When the faceless and voiceless acquire faces
and voices, the servants of the Regime quake in fear.)
We know that
“people's republics” serve anyone but the people... and that any
“worker's paradise” is more likely to resemble Hell. The first
refuge of political scoundrels is to declare that anything they
advocate, or do, is aimed at the betterment of the “common man”...
or “the people”... or “the children”... or “oppressed
minorities”... or what have you. This is a mark of legitimacy that
is embraced by anyone seeking office, and seeking power over others,
and it sort of provides a protective shield – a Teflon layer, if
you will – that insures that nobility of intent will be the sole
criterion for merit. Not results, but good will... “ideas”. So
whenever disasters befall a collectivist scheme, the excuse is that
“we meant well”, and that the failures were not due to flaws in
the program but to “resistance by reactionary elements”, and
sabotage, and general human perversity and butt-headedness. (Oh yes,
and “hate” -- the latest enemy of the thought police.) The
Alt-Right, among other things, seems to be made up of people who
question these premises, or – if they believed them at one time –
have now awakened to the fact that it's all a scam.
Another
alleged characteristic of the Alt-Right is that it's not confined to
any one nation or society. Alt-Right murmurings (and more) can be
detected (by the finely-tuned instruments of outfits like the
Southern Poverty Law Center) in Europe – all the way from Ireland
to the Russian steppe. I'm not aware of any particular Alt-Right
activity in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, or the Islamic
world, but fear not, if it's there it will be discovered and rooted
out by the never-sleeping organs of the Regime. (In this sense, it,
again, appears to be a phenomenon not unique to prosperous, “western”
societies, but definitely found in abundance there.)
The problem the
critics of the Alt-Right have is that there is no single organization
they can put their finger on – no tower of power – no master
control center. And in this it does resemble populist movements down
through history. I mean, was there ever a Tea Party or Occupy
“headquarters”? A single strongman dictating policy and
political action? Not that I'm aware. This is not to say that, once
a political trend is detected, there won't be plenty of people
anxious to jump on the bandwagon and pretend to be in charge. It's
just that monolithic oppression of any sort (political, economic,
social, etc.) doesn't necessarily lead to monolithic opposition.
What it does lead to is a reaction, if not an outright rebellion, and
that, in turn, is based on, quite frankly, human nature. Just
because a lot of people think the same thing at the same time doesn't
mean that a “conspiracy” is afoot, any more than a famine creates
a conspiracy of hungry people. People react a certain way because
they are people – and the “out group” (to resurrect an ancient
sociology term) reacts in a certain way to the “in group”, and
this reaction tends to have common elements wherever it occurs.
So is the Alt-Right
just a variety of populism? Well, it might be, if we allow for
populism to have more flavors than Baskin-Robbins. But there are so
many manifestations, and so many sources of discontent, and so many
grievances, that to call it a single movement (a “vast right-wing
conspiracy”, if you will) is to oversimplify in order to facilitate
dismissal.
Having said all
that, let's look at some of the alleged earmarks by which (according
to the article, which is, admittedly, a sample of one) we can
immediately, and unambiguously, detect a member of the Alt-Right and
thus annihilate them with some sort of death ray before they spread
like the pod people in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. These
are general impressions, of course; how could it be otherwise when
the group is so ill-defined?
* Do they “...
reject American democracy?” I'm more inclined to believe that they
are the true democrats (with a small “d”). They don't see
themselves as a minority, but as a sort of vanguard, and if the rest
of the country would only wake from its stupor it would agree and
join them.
* Are they
“anti-Semites”? Well, it depends on your definition. I don't
see them attacking Jews in the United States, or anywhere else, for
that matter. What they might do, on occasion, is express skepticism
as to Israel's policies in the West Bank and Israeli influence in
American politics. So if this is anti-Semitism, the shoe fits –
problem is, a lot of Jews in the U.S. and in Israel feel the same
way. So are those Jews anti-Semitic? (Maybe they're just
“self-hating” -- that's an easy out.)
*
Are they “racists”? Who knows what's in their heart of hearts?
But the label these days is typically applied either to the police
(many of whom are black, which is odd) or to those who are skeptical
about our immigration policies – said policies being fairly recent
in the scheme of things. (A real
(alleged) racist would still be griping about affirmative action and
quotas, and I haven't heard a peep about those issues in a long time,
although they are still very much with us.)
* Are they
“protectionists” when it comes to trade? Well, so are a lot of
businessmen, union members, farmers, etc. Can it be that they are
all, therefore, “Alt-Right”?
* Do they oppose
feminism? I'm not even sure what that would entail any more. The
feminists have completed their long march through the institutions
and have won every battle they have fought, except for the “mother
of all battles”, namely the ERA. But when's the last time anyone,
from either major party, mentioned the Equal Rights Amendment? That
seems to have been relegated to “old news”, and besides, pretty
much everything the ERA was supposed to fix has been fixed –
either by the courts or through executive action and regulations. We
now have women going through Ranger training in the Army, and I don't
see too many people picketing the Army bases where that training is
taking place. So what's left? The only major exception I can think
of is the abortion issue, but is that synonymous with feminism?
Someone else is going to have to answer that one. In any case, I
suspect that Alt-Right adherents may oppose feminism as a concept or
a movement, but there is, frankly, not much left to oppose in terms
of actual law or policy, so how big an issue can it be?
* Do they oppose
“diversity”? Well, as I've said before, diversity is more a fact
than a movement – and, frankly, the promotion of “diversity”
is, by and large, a scam. It's a way to get everyone, regardless of
background and traditional loyalties, to sign on to a
politically-correct, collectivist, gray uniformity. I'm all for
genuine diversity the way I'm all for a four-season climate, but this
faux “It's a Small World After All” diversity makes my gorge
rise. In this case, I expect that, again, an Alt-Right type might
oppose “diversity” as a government program even if they take it
for granted on the practical level.
* Do they oppose
“gay rights”? Possibly some do in principle, but in everyday
life I doubt if it has a whole lot of impact unless you're in the
wedding cake business. Overall, I suspect that Alt-Rights are a lot
more into “live and let live” than any liberal.
* Do
they oppose globalism? Not so much on principal but in terms of
plain old jobs and wages. The steel worker whose job was moved to
India probably has any number of gadgets, appliances, etc. -- not to
mention a car – made overseas. It's only when it hits your
wallet that it starts to hurt. Call it hypocrisy if you like, but
there it is, and it's pretty ubiquitous.
* Do
they oppose gun control? I doubt if they oppose all
gun control, the way certain anarchists do when they pronounce
themselves perfectly cool with toddlers with Uzis. What they do
oppose is the gradual noose-tightening that is taking place, and what
they feel is the government's agenda behind it, and in this I do not
blame them. Rendering the people helpless against the government,
and against criminal elements (assuming there's still a difference),
is a major building block of totalitarianism.
* Do they oppose
civil rights? That issue is, once again, pretty old news unless
you're talking about the absurdities of school bathrooms and gay
wedding cakes. Maybe if they just said they oppose “stupid”
they'd get more of a hearing.
* Are they “white
nationalists”? Well, this is pretty much the same as asking if
they're “nationalists”, which is akin to asking if they're
patriots. The United States, for good or ill, is a nation founded
by, and for the benefit of, white people, and it continues as such if
you consider not domestic policy but foreign policy. When we
“project (military) power” to the four corners of the globe, what
kind of power are we projecting? Black power? Hispanic power?
Diversity power? No – it's the same old testosterone-laden white
male power we've always projected. What is empire building (AKA
“spreading democracy”) but a program for converting the entire
world to the white American (Anglo-Saxon, even) way of thinking and
doing things? In this, of course, we are failing miserably, and the
intelligent thing to do would be to give it up, but that idea is one
whose time has not yet come – and may never. The American
Experiment might go gently into that still night the way Soviet
communism did – but it may also end with a cataclysm.
This
is the point at which Professor Main accuses the Alt-Right of being
anti-American, which, for anyone with a sense of history, is a laugh.
Racism has been with us from the founding – and it's still with us
to some extent on the domestic front, but blatantly on the foreign
policy front. Oppression of minorities, discrimination,
persecution... all too American, if history is any indication. In
the strict sense, it's globalism
that's anti-American (and anti-nationalistic), and that may be a good
thing, or it may not, but let's get real about our terminology and
our history (and our heritage).
A broader question
is as follows: Given that America started out “white”, and
remained so right up to the 1960s (if we're talking about laws and
about the dominant culture), does this mean that it should stay white
(by and large), or just meld into the universal, global,
coffee-colored planetary melting pot? (The same questions are being
asked in Europe these days, with much more urgency.) My personal
opinion is that what will happen will happen, no matter how any
individual or organization (or non-organization) feels about it. One
can protest, and resist, and carry picket signs, but there are
certain trends that, historically, simply happen. No one can stop
them; they might be able to slow them down at times, or divert, or
redirect, but the inevitable is, well, inevitable. So in this sense
it's a losing battle, which means that whoever is fighting it ought
to focus their energies elsewhere. Besides, who knows, the results
might turn out to be very interesting; there are many indications of
this already. When you allow real diversity, rather than the
NPR/PBS type, cool things start to happen. (And un-cool things start
to happen as well. Is it worth the risk? I would say yes, overall –
but the question is irrelevant since the process is well underway and
cannot be stopped.)
Finally – and
here's another laugh for you – he says that “The Alt-Right
represents the first new philosophical competition to liberalism,
broadly defined, since the fall of Communism.” Um.... I guess he
hasn't heard of either paleoconservatism or libertarianism, which,
arguably, although they had precursors before the 1990s, have come
into their own as distinct movements since then, in response to
neoconservatism and collectivism. And they are, unlike the
Alt-Right, coherent points of view with an extensive literature
(philosophical, political, and economic), known and respected
leaders, and actual programs (workable if never allowed to be tried).
So I guess, for my
money, I'll stick with my position, which is a hybrid of
paleoconservatism, libertarianism, and traditional Catholicism.
Although I sympathize with the distress of many of the Alt-Right
crowd, and understand where they're coming from and why, until they
come up with something more coherent and less half-baked I'll leave
them to their own devices. But unlike Prof. Main, I don't believe
they are “dangerous”. They are, after all, a minority and are
likely to remain so – and they have no political power and no
influence over those in charge. The Trump candidacy is an anomaly,
and it will fade as the morning dew and be forgotten except as a
footnote to history. The problems, grievances, and issues will
remain, of course; there will always be those who feel left out,
disenfranchised, and belittled – and that's just what happens when
people gather together in large groups and start to abuse the concept
of majority rule. There is always an out group; it's just a matter
of who is out, and why, at any given time.
