Last night on the Chris Hayes show, Rubio SuperPAC advisor Rick Wilson lost it and felt the need to attack the alt-right. Almost immediately afterwards, Jonah Goldberg and many others began attacking the alt-right on Twitter. In short, the establishment now feels threatened by the alt-right.
Interestingly, for a while, there has been a short memo about the alt-right floating about among “Conservatism Inc” warning people of the alt-right. I’ve read parts of this memo and surprisingly its description of the alt-right is not inaccurate, just too succinct. Here I’ll give a more detailed explanation of the alt-right.
The alt-right was first coined by Richard Spencer, as an intellectual alternative to the dry “Conservatism Inc” that then passed for right-wing thought. Since then, the term has really taken on a life all its own. As others have noted, the alt-right really isn’t a political movement per se but rather a zeitgeist. The big-tent alt-right includes identitarians and archeofuturists, race realists and HBD bloggers, European New Right (ENR), edgelords, neo-reaction (NRx) and reaction (Rx), trad Christians, neo-pagans, white nationalists, PUAs, etc. (Note, these groups are not mutually exclusive. For example, an alt-righter might consider himself an identitarian and race realist.)
One thing commenters have correctly noted is how young the alt-right is. While there is no objective way to determine the average age of the alt-right, I would place it in the early 20s. (Compare this with the average age of a National Review reader, which is about 65.) And this youth movement is different from, say, the “College Republicans” of the 1980s. These young alt-righters did not grow up reading National Review (a good thing). They grew up with /pol/, Reddit, Twitter and other social media, and were later introduced to sites like Radix Journal, AmRen, VDare, Occidental Observer, Heartiste, MPC, and The Right Stuff.
How large is the alt right? Really impossible to tell, but some estimates have placed it around 4 million people (mostly in the USA and Europe) and growing rapidly.
While the alt-right is a large tent that disagrees on some issues, one issue that really unites the alt-right is immigration. The alt-right is fed up with Third World immigration into the West and wishes to see most of these immigrants / migrants / refugees / invaders repatriated back to their ancestral lands.
The alt-righters usually are not free-market ideologues. They believe the health of the nation should supersede free-market globalism, which often leads to a deracinated cosmpolitanism. It’s why many on the alt-right are skeptical of free trade.
Philosophically, the alt-right might be called a rejection of universalism, itself a left-wing idea and product of the Enlightenment. Nonetheless, the alt-right does not reject all Enlightenment ideas, especially science. (And those trads who say they do are probably liars.) The alt-right might be thought of as archeofuturist which attempts to combine ancient relativistic and manly virtues with the findings of modern science, including those in human biodiversity.
Michael Brendan Dougherty recently called the alt-right “race obsessed”. A better phrase might be: race realists. Most alt-righters actually take Darwinism seriously. (If you are at a loss of what “taking Darwinism seriously” means, you might want to read this book.) Young alt-righters are comfortable with modern science which shows that human biodiversity is a facet of life. The fact that so many today in Conservatism Inc. want either to ignore or deny human biodiversity, shows how untethered from reality modern conservatism has become. It is living in a politically correct fantasy land.
Someone recently emailed a list of “popular college majors” of alt-right people. I have no idea how someone could determine this, but here’s the list: computer programming, mathematics, genetics, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, economics, classical languages, Germanic studies (think Tolkien & Wagner), and philosophy.
The younger alt-right is quite technologically savvy and has made many hashtags go viral: #Cuckservative, #WhiteGenocide, #MerkelMussWeg, #NRORevolt, #ISaluteWhitePeople, #WhiteGirlsAreMagic, #BoycottStarWarsVII, etc.
The most successful alt-right meme to infect the general public by far is the cuckservative meme (roundup here), which I’m happy to say I played a part in. Other memes created by the alt-right: white genocide, ((( ))), the current year, dindus, and many more.
Some critics have asserted that the alt-right is anti-Christian. This is not true. What the alt-right is against is mainstream Christianity today where you have “Christian leaders” supporting the Third World immigration invasion of the West and telling white people that they should adopt non-whites instead of procreating and white babies. Much of modern Western Christianity has become suicidal and the alt-right is correct to mock and criticize it. But in terms of religion, the alt-right is quite diverse. Some are atheists and agnostics. Some are neo-pagans. And many subscribe to an “uncucked form of Christianity” that is not antagonistic toward Western Civilization.
Trump. Many mainstream journalists seem obsessed with the fact that many in the alt-right support Donald Trump. Yes, many (but not all) do. Nonetheless, the alt-right would still exist without Trump. And many in the alt-right are not even American and are more interested in leaders like Orbán, Le Pen or Putin.
Many journalists have labelled the alt-right anti-semitic, which is more a smear than an actual description. There is actually diversity among the alt-right on the “Jewish question” (JQ). Some like Jared Taylor do not discuss it. Others like Kevin MacDonald do. There is little dispute that Jews have disproportionally been involved in starting left-wing movements of the last 150 years: Marxism, Cultural Marxism, Freudianism, Boasian Anthropology, etc. Also, many Jews support Israel building a wall, deporting Africans and refusing Syrians while simultaneously supporting mass immigration for the West. Most in the alt-right would probably agree that a free and open society should not have a problem discussing this. Some younger Jews sympathetic to the alt-right I’ve talked to see more comfortable with these ideas being discussed, so there might be a generational divide on this.
Whatever happens, one thing is clear: The alt-right does not seem to be going anywhere. In fact, it seems to be growing very rapidly.
Updates:
Interestingly, we’re also witnessing the rise of an alt-left, which in many ways compliments the alt-right.
Occam's Razor 
The cuckservatives, neocons and SJWs are all shitting their pants over the rise of the alt-right. Loving it. Get the popcorn.
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These fuckers are so triggered by the alt right… it’s hilarious watching them have meltdowns…
Cheri Jacobus is having nightmares about racist green frogs.
Rick Wilson had a meltdown on national TV
Jonah Goldberg thinks it’s 1939
SHUT IT DOWN! THEY KNOW. SHUT IT DOWN!
Great job describing the alt right. Wow, that video is hilarious.
Where did you see the 4 million estimate for Alt Righters?
The immigration crisis is Europe is largely responsible for the recent up swell of the alt right. For years the various factions of alt right have existed, but have spent a great deal of time in-fighting, while making very little mainstream penetration. But now the existential crisis that is mass immigration has unified these groups and also inspired many newcomers to search for perspectives outside the mainstream. Trump has given this zeitgeist a spectacular mainstream presence. Unless the establishment backs off immigration quickly (they won’t) it’s only gonna grow from here.
“Alt-Left” just sounds like high time preference WNism.
Alt-Leftists sound like hipsters that got redpilled by Stuff White People Like.
Also wanted to mention that this is a great primer on the Alt-Right.
Lets not forget the other great Alt Right video from Uncuck the Right:
good post. sounds similar to stuff I’ve written about millennials. It’s worth repeating that not all of the ‘alt right’ rejects ‘enlightenment’ (particularly math, science, philosophy, modern medicine, logic, etc), rather the SJW perversion of liberalism.
Could you provide a link or post a copy? Thanks.
So what DOES ((())) refer to? I have some ideas but you can’t web search on punctuation.
Instead of being race-focused, would AltRighters support an across-the-board eugenics policy to prevent births to all low-IQ women?
No.
But that certainly would serve Jewish interests.
Plenty of Jews have high IQs.
And they have used that IQ to destroy Western culture.
No thanks.
What is the threat to Western civ other than stupid people?
“What is the threat to Western civ other than stupid people?”
People who don’t care about things that their ancestors didn’t create.
theres a couple problems with that the european diaspora is in demographic freefall thats due to many aspects of leftism and modernity foremost feminism as we know it thiese could be addressed and then i think many would be in favor however the other problem is regression to mean even low iq europeans are likelier to have a 100 iq child than not and average iq european people contribute at least 50% of the cognitive elite every year and its fresh blood while there will be some mean reversion because sorting most will marry cog elites and half to stabilized cog elites.
((Jews))
The Alt-Right-Jugend needs to throw meme-spears on Merkel loyalists.
In some ways the late Larry Auster could be considered a godfather of the alt-right, although if he were still alive he would probably insist that he was simply a Christian traditionalist.
No, he most certainly could not.
In fact, most alt-righters see Auster as just another cuckservative — a Jewish propagandist who, like Buckley, tried to disqualify anyone who didn’t toe his line on Jews.
Another unifying front I’ve seen is opposition to feminism. Can’t think of one person on the alt-right who supports it.
yeah many yes but i wonder is it more gender realism than what is imagined as anti feminism. i keep asking what would alt right patriarchy look like what era european or would it be muslim like is it 1700s 1950 you see we all agree its really destructive but im not sure we have thought to hard about whats next. this is our problem generally lack of clear vision. this was ok when a tiny band of MM readers decrying democracy so no policy neednt but collapse now we are in the shit with no paddle
Hmm, good question. How about we start the debate here:
Legal changes: Eliminate “no fault divorce” and tie custody into the “fault”, mostly eliminating joint custody. Don’t entirely eliminate women voting, solve that with a more general reduction of the franchise, details out of scope here but eliminating most women would be a goal. Any of the welfare state remaining (details also for another debate) would be geared at incentives to encourage marriage. End affirmative action, including for gender.
Cultural changes: Slut shaming makes a big return. Heavy social disapproval of bastardy. Big boost in social standing of mothers vs women with careers.
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Ok, so what’s the difference between the alt right and nazi ideology?
Troll!
But rather than trying to ban you or shut you up, I actually wrote something about that- search my blog for “Hitler”.
More briefly- German National Socialism was based like communism on German Romanticism, the alt right is not.
We alt righters are Makers for our snappy Hugo Boss uniforms.
We also hand forge our own swastika-encrusted Kriegsmessers.
Any other questions?
The Nazis were beautiful. Who cares if there are differences. We don’t need any cucks.
“…some estimates have placed it around 4 million people (mostly in the USA and Europe) and growing rapidly.”
Needs citation – and would be helpful to know the basis for the estimates – by whom, of whom, how defined. .
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Don’t rule out that some old pharts who were punks in the 1970s now swing alt–>
The basic phalanx of structuring ideas has been around for awhile.
RF Laird would fit right in. (Author of The Boomer Bible, affiliated with The Shuteye Train in mean ugly Philly.)
Anybody else see Bateman on Bowie a couple weeks ago at Radix?
I saw stirrings of alt–> in the “community internetworking” movement on both coasts and in between in the early 1990s (particularly among the earliest globalization-resisting geek/high-tech small farmers).
By the late ’90s we had Linkola and Faye for those of us who read French.
What we had to wait for was largely technological: an internet to break free of the centralized broadcast MSM…and computers that could crunch sufficient DNA big data to put quant legs under HBD, for instance. That all had to be invented and deployed…then enough people trained to use it.
I know a dozen folks 60 and over (older than I, ahem) whose views converge on the alt–> but didn’t know there was a name for it, a category. Other than Menckensian.
So I’d guess way more than 4 million. On principle we oughta start with 6 million as a quantmeme.
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“alt-right” as a term needs to die swift death. It’s extremely bad if it spreads, leading to people who are not all that informed to band together viewpoints as different as neonazism and monarchism. Speak of issue A, plebs immediately think “ooh, alt-right”, then associate you with ideas B, C and D which have absolutely nothing to do with your position. It’s much worse than bundling together anarchists and communists as “lefties” since some of the alt-right ideas have very little in common.
Off topic (but not much): The SHITLORD HUB (http://theshitlordhub.blogspot.co.uk/) aggregates almost 100 feeds for Alt Right blogs and sites, allowing Alt Righters to check their most recent updates in a convenient, time-saving way (OCCAM’S RAZOR for example is among them). Give it a look, bookmark it, spread the word.
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What concerns me about the alt-right is it’s propensity for collectivism. As soon as you stop seeing people as individuals or as having innate, God-given human rights, you open the door for evil on a large scale. Now the author did address the anti-Christian element in the movement, but I believe his attention was mis-placed. I have seen many on the alt-right demonstrating a profound disrespect for the rights of others, advocating large-scale, government sponsored programmes which almost seem dystopian.
I support the alt-right, but cautiously. I am aware that some think of it almost as the mirror image of the totalitarian left. I want a world free of any form of over-bearing, tyrannical government, but where morality and Christian virtues are still respected and promoted. Where the government does not mass-import third worlders, and political correctness as a credible political force does not exist. That’s all.
“Many journalists have labelled the alt-right anti-Semitic, which is more a smear than an actual description.”
We have to be careful and differentiate “Jew” from “Zionist Jew”, there is a difference- although that won’t stop the left from labeling anyone who even brings up a positive fact about Jews as “anti- Semitic”. It’s a great way for them to obfuscate facts “they” would rather keep quiet.
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If Spencer is the beginning of the Alt Right, then the Alt right is an alternative to Paleoconservatism. The Paleoconservatives had too little success, were insufficiently race conscious and too Christian and culture focused for Spencer and his mentor Gottfried although Gottfried is wasn’t particularly racialist. This was obvious if you were watching Spencer in the late 2000s.