Counter-Currents
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It is ironic — or maybe just sadly fitting — that Richard Spencer, the man who launched the Alternative Right brand, may have just destroyed it. But that seems to be fallout of his speech at the recent National Policy Institute conference, which he ended with the words “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail Victory!” Spencer then raised his empty liquor glass in a toast. Some people in the audience, however, predictably responded to “Hail Victory!” (Sieg Heil) by giving Nazi salutes.
This was, also predictably, caught on video by The Atlantic, which had been invited into the conference to make a documentary about Spencer and the Alternative Right. When the video was made public, it was of course rapidly propagated. For years, the Left has been pushing the increasingly tired slur that Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, Kevin MacDonald, etc. are just “suit and tie Nazis.” But Spencer breathed life into this charge by furnishing visual “proof.” There was surely rejoicing in the offices of the ADL and SPLC, as well as the Washington Post and New York Times.
Now I do not wish to split hairs about the motives and culpability for this public relations disaster, except to say that I do not believe the charge that Spencer was intentionally sabotaging NPI and the Alt Right. Instead, I wish to comment on the consequences of this affair and how we should respond to it.
First and foremost, Donald Trump, when confronted with the video, naturally condemned and disavowed the Alt Right. He’s not a Nazi, after all, and he probably found it as embarrassing as I did. This is a pity, because Trump has to know that almost no mainstream intellectuals and commentators defended his candidacy and vision. But people on the Alt Right did.
Moreover, we have an enormous pool of talent and brainpower. Our public writers and activists are only the tip of the iceberg. The vast bulk of our people are secret agents, with clean public records. My hope was that during the first Trump administration, the Alt Right could start mobilizing this talent to craft policy proposals to help show that Trump’s ideas about immigration, trade, and foreign policy are morally defensible, politically desirable, and practically feasible. In fact, I rather hoped that the National Policy Institute would take a hand in crafting some of these national policies.
It was always a long shot, of course. Over the past two years, there has been a massive influx of talented people into our movement, but our organizing and fundraising have lagged far behind. We honestly don’t know what to do with all these people. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we are going to actually influence policy, and the way forward is not always clear. But when you are at a loss about what to do next, at least do no harm. Spencer really had one job: not to embarrass us or Trump, and he blew it. Now there is zero chance of any proposal coming from NPI being taken seriously.
But there is no reason why the rest of us have to share Spencer’s fate, which is why various Alt Right and Alt Light figures have distanced themselves from him. Mike Cernovich and Paul Joseph Watson have been most vociferous and strident, accusing Spencer of intentionally sabotaging the Alt Right. Stefan Molyneux recommended Cernovich’s take. Vox Day does not think Spencer is controlled opposition but that he nevertheless behaved in a self-aggrandizing manner and made a serious public relations error. Ramzpaul declared the Alt Right brand irreparably damaged, so he is now simply going to refer to himself as a man of the Right.
Those who actually spoke at NPI made more measured comments. In an interview, Jared Taylor declared, “I was very surprised. I was very saddened by it. I think it’s a terrible, terrible pity. I don’t endorse any form of National Socialism. I think that’s a completely inappropriate and crazy model for the United States.” Peter Brimelow at VDare and F. Roger Devlin at The Occidental Observer both rejected the Nazi brand, attributing Spencer’s words and the salutes from the crowd to “juvenile bravado” and “rowdy behavior on the part of a few overzealous and partially drunken young men.” In an interview, Matt Tait basically endorsed the analysis offered by Colin Liddell and described Spencer’s final gestures as “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” and “undoing what is good about the Alt Right.”
Spencer’s defenders have been pushing the line that we should not air our differences in public (of course). But there are problems with this. First, if Spencer speaks and we remain silent, people will assume that he is speaking for us. Second, criticizing Spencer is not about changing his behavior. It is about social signaling: communicating our differences to the public we are trying to persuade. So obviously it cannot be confined solely to back channel whispers. Finally, it presupposes a false unity to the movement. Literally the only thing that unifies us is common goals (and with Spencer I am not even sure about that). But if our movement is inherently pluralistic, colonizing every niche in the cultural and political ecosystem, then the only way to establish and maintain our different approaches is to criticize one another. Of course it can go too far. And there are some people who spend all their time attacking movement people rather than our enemies. But with healthy pluralism comes healthy dissent and debate.
Richard Spencer does not speak for me either. Spencer has damaged the Alt Right brand — perhaps irreparably — by associating it with Nazism. The Alternative Right began as a particular brand, the name of Spencer’s webzine. But it quickly became a generic umbrella term encompassing a range of different alternatives to mainstream Republicans and conservatives.
But from its start, the Alternative Right webzine was an entryist tool for White Nationalists. It was a platform for outreach and conversion of people who are closer to the mainstream. It created a safe space where “normie” conservatives could encounter human biodiversity, ethnic nationalism, the Jewish question, paleomasculinity, etc. without having to adopt stigmatizing labels like “Nazism.” But after Spencer’s NPI speech, there is good reason to think that will no longer work.
What’s wrong with branding the Alt Right as Nazi? Here are a few thoughts.
- What is White Nationalism based on? Is it based on objective facts about human nature and politics, facts that are true in all times and places? Is ethnonationalism a political system that is good for all peoples, not just the white ones, much less just the Axis nations? Or is it based on what happened in Germany between the World Wars? If ethnonationalism is objectively true and universally valid, then why bring the Nazis into it at all? Particularly because:
- Regardless of the truth about National Socialism, our enemies have invested decades of work and billions in capital in turning it into the ultimate political taboo, a toxic stigmatizing brand — the kind of brand that is seared into your flesh. If the NPI audience had broke out into cries of “Hail Satan!” we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Some of our people conclude that all these defenses must hide the enemy’s greatest weakness. I think that is silly, but even if it were true, only a fool attacks the enemy’s best defended spot, especially when they are incredibly weak elsewhere, e.g., denying the reality of racial differences, proclaiming diversity is a strength, supporting open borders, free trade, hate speech laws, etc.
- Even if there were nothing wrong with the Nazi brand at all, it would still have been wrong for Spencer to in effect foist it on people like Jared Taylor, who choose not to use it and trusted Spencer because they thought he understood this.
Please don’t give me the tired argument that they’ll call us Nazis anyway, so we might as well become them. First, some of us really aren’t Nazis. Second, even if you are, we’re only fighting against the whole damn world, so why take on additional and needless burdens? Third, just because your enemies are out to get you doesn’t mean that you should make their work easier. (Compare the press coverage of the recent NPI conference to the coverage of the NPI press conference back in September, then explain to me how the saluting made no difference at all.) Finally, they’ll call you Jews, informants, and fags too. Do you want to own those labels as well?
Please don’t tell me that all publicity is good publicity. There really is such thing as bad publicity.
Please don’t tell me that Spencer’s critics are all simply trying to make friends with an implacably hostile press. First, our concern is obviously not persuading our enemies but reaching people who are sympathetic or neutral. Second, if the press is implacably hostile, why is Spencer so focused on courting it?
The great irony here is that I have published quite a bit about Hitler and National Socialism at Counter-Currents, whereas literally the only thing Nazi-like about Richard Spencer is his haircut. This is why everyone found this gaffe so surprising — some pleasantly, others unpleasantly. When I first met Spencer in 2008, he was dating an Asian woman (something now public because of an article in Mother Jones). The only foreign regime he strongly identifies with is Putin’s Russia, which is valiantly battling against “Nazis” in Ukraine. As long as I have known him, Spencer has been chummy with Jews like Paul Gottfried. NPI, like American Renaissance, has always played patty-cake with certain Right-wing Jews. Before Spencer came on board, NPI had published Edward Rubenstein, Byron Roth, and Michael Hart. But, unlike American Renaissance, they published Kevin MacDonald as well. Spencer has continued in that vein, publishing additional books by Roth and Hart, plus Richard Lynn’s The Chosen People, and various essays and introductions by Paul Gottfried. Before long, Spencer will be back to business as usual, which means that most of his new-found friends will simply go silent — or be back at this throat.
Literally everything about this controversy, from Spencer’s “Nazism” to the press coverage to the adulation of the Nazi troll army is at best superficial and at worst fake. But that’s the stuff of which politics and publicity are made. The negative consequences, however, are real.
Now some Alt Rightists are rejoicing that Spencer’s gesture has caused Alt Light poseurs and “cucks” to abandon the Alt Right brand. But that is self-defeating. Outreach efforts only work by attracting people who don’t already agree with us. These people are only a danger if we fail to convert and assimilate them. But apparently some people don’t want to be bothered with converts.
I do want to end on a hopeful note. There is no question that the Alt Right is a useful brand, and because of that, it may well revive. But even if the Alt Right is dead, White Nationalism is still very much alive and growing. What happened at NPI was foolish and self-defeating. And there is always a danger that too much self-defeating behavior will add up to a simple defeat. But our progress has always been two steps forward, one step back. So let’s just learn from this setback and keep pressing forward.
161 comments
Greg, the alt-right is and always was a swamp.
Just like the Left.
Okee Dokee!!!!
Can we see your face now?
Greg Johnson is not stupid, like those drunk Nazi LARPing Sieg Heilers at the NPI. And please explain what contributions you have made, comparable to Johnson’s.
None.
Still tho, why can’t we see his face?
Richard went full public from day 1 and now he’s paying for it by the very people who glorified him hours ago.
I said it would happen. It was a sucker’s bet. Obvious.
The dems, republicans, left and right need restructuring.
Discrediting the SJW’s online is emotionally rewarding but essentially meaningless.
Arguments AGAINST something and FOR an ideal get a movement nowhere.
One has to advocate for long term change by incremental policy change, OR, for outright revolution while holding a manifesto for institutional change in hand.
I got flack from the Alt’s for not towing the line.
But that’s because there was a damned noose at the end of it.
Time to graduate from high school rallying and shaming to doing the real work of political change.
And you’ll be doing that from the Ukraine on your Facebook account, correct? Tell us again how propertarianism is *the* answer to all our problems.
Straw man. I didn’t say it was. I said that either we propose incremental, institutional solutions and a plan of transition, and demand it by violence, or we are just asking the left to double down and marshall against us by further controlling the discourse. The only reason the past few years have been possible is because they didn’t regulate right-speech. But as you see, (like bitcoin can be regulated) it is entirely possible to regulate right speech under false pretenses.
I consistently make the same criticism: the only solution is a solution demanded by violence that overthrows the system that makes our oppression possible. There is no answer in the alt-right. It’s a good tactic while you have ‘permission’ to ridicule on the same terms as the left. But in the end, their profession is ridicule and gossip and rallying and shaming. And our profession is violence. Or we have no profession at all.
Then you definitely have no profession.
I’ve always labeled myself as pro-White because keeps it simple. To me you are either pro-White or anti-White. But the bottom line is that if you are pro-White and want a homeland for White kids the respectable conservatives & rest of the anti-Whites will label you a NAZITHATWANTSTOKILLSIXMILLIONJEWS. We will never win the title of Respectable from the ” mainstream” so call yourself what you want and let’s get on with establishing a Whites Only homeland somewhere.
I really don’t believe the Alt-Right brand has been irreparably damaged by this. Not even close.
I’m not even so sure anyone in the Alt-Right is fine with simply branding the Alt-Right as Nazi. 5 guys give Roman salutes at NPI and it’s over? I bet those 5 guys aren’t even National Socialists. So, the media does what it has always done but with footage of 5 guys saluting. The knee-jerk reaction by some to disavow and back away seems somewhat faint-hearted for people who were public activists.
This was not an unpredictable event. Can’t we come up with a better way of dealing with this than suggesting the Alt-Right has died? Do we really think similar events will not occur again?
Just say you’re not a Nazi. There’s a video somewhere of Oswald Mosley defending the Roman salute as a counter-gesture to the clenched-fist salute of Marxism. At the very least, it might be a good idea to point out that the “Roman salute” has been popular among MANY right-wing nationalist movements. I might just be too far outside normiedom now, but it’s hard to see how making a Roman salute = definitely a Nazi yet writing and speaking positively (although with criticism) of Hitler and the NS and Fascist regimes = not a Nazi.
Thank you this is exactly what I’m talking about. The beta cuckery needs to stop.
That all might be true, but we won’t win with cool-headed arguments against the Left and the dumb-ed down public at large – we need to play smart or we will fall down tripping on our own shoelaces, just like the original “Nazis” did btw. they lost because they (over)valued ideology over street-smarts.
Stop punching right.
We will be called Nazis no matter what we do. Making a joke out of the whole Literally Hitler® smear is the best way to defang it. Frontal attack – reframing Nazi meme with Pepe images, six gorillion, etc – is working,
The Alt-right trolls, /Pol, and TRS have done more for the movement than all the desperate-for-respectability pearl clutchers constantly begging for acceptance from the left that will never be granted. They want us dead.
Flippantly using Third Reich imagery or jokes works in one particular context.
When our enemies or their unwitting collaborators with religious-like seriousness put forth the Holocaust or Spielberg Nazis as a way of psychologically intimidating our people, puncturing that mind control regime with taboo shattering humor is effective and appropriate.
It wrong foots our enemies because, straight off the bat, it shows them their most time-proven weapon doesn’t work on us. And it acts as a psychological release for our own people who are still held mesmerized by such mind control techniques. Mockery really is the best way to undermine and break the pall of a religion.
But this stance is only appropriate as a RESPONSE to their own overdone pietism. Nazi memes are funny as forbidden humor only because anti-Whites themselves have become so humorless and self-important.
The mistake is to think that adopting Nazi imagery is a witty or effective tool as a stand alone thing. The mistake is to think that what works as return fire, illusion-breaking also works as a separate self-identifying brand.
The fool may mock the king but he’s still the fool. When mockery of your enemies has served its purpose you then need a positive self identity which is not just reaction.
I didn’t see any humor in what Spencer said or did.
He doesn’t seem to have much of one anyway. He should just strop trying–in other contexts (I think much of that speech was in earnest).
Thank you for this answer! It explains very well how and why memes and real life must be distinguished. Often people cannot understand why a Nazi Pepe humorous image is ok, while real life Nazi LARPing is not.
It’s not punching “right”; it’s punching stupidity. Giving Nazi salutes is about as clever as jumping on a table at your local bar and howling to the room about Jews, Blacks, and the Federal Reserve.
Yeah, I was making so much progress with redpilling my family until my great aunt, an Italian-American matriarch who is very race-conscious but whose brother died on a beach in Normandy, France, saw that clip and disavowed it. Awhile back, Nathan Damigo did a YouTube video about framing, and that is very pertinent here.
A lot of other people are reporting similar reactions from their families, friends, acquaintances. Not just in the United States, but in Europe and the rest of the Anglosphere. Very unfortunate. Yet Spencer just keeps on talking to the media as if he is the leader of the Alt Right. And as if he has some kind of inside track into Trump’s thinking.
The refugee crisis hasn’t gone away so neither will we. It was a bit of a stumble but events will continue to carry us forward. A few more Islamist attacks and a few drunken salutes will begin to pale in comparison.
Alt-Right emerged as an edgy online presence via pol/trs/mpc/ds and Twitter trolling. Had nothing to do with the alternative-right blog from 2009.
Richard Spencer decided to appoint himself Alt-Right leader despite not really getting the memes and banter.
Spencer holds an NPI conference and is surprised when violent anti-fa turn up to the Alt-Right leader’s gig.
Spencer invites hostile media – The Atlantic – which records inebriated hailing goys who were unaware of its presence.
Pool parties, book clubs and forums were a better model for IRL meet-ups.
NPI could have been useful as a front organisation for the Alt-Right – not part of the Alt-Right.
NPI was apparently a Sam Francis vehicle. The Trump phenomenon was Sam’s MARS. That’s what the conference should have been about with a discreet Alt-Right presence.
Spencer learnt nothing from the Budapest debacle.
Thank you very, very much, Mr. Johnson!
We/the Alt Right needed to hear this from you! This is a YUGE relief…
I will continue to use the term Alt Right to describe my worldview and my pro-WASP activism and advocacy.
I have no ill will towards Mr. Spencer, but I am very grateful, that his conduct and behavior is finally being examined more critically and thoroughly. Since he is so closely associated with the term ‘Alt Right,’ he needs to be held to the highest of standards.
Quality Trumps Quantity.
Thank you, again, Mr. Johnson, for again! stepping up to the plate, when it was most needed: https://counter-currents.com/2016/10/what-the-alt-right-isnt/#comment-1369666
Something that the neo-Nazi contingent is seemingly incapable of grasping is that one cannot simultaneously espouse Nazi ideology and White Nationalism (or even pan-White identity). Adolf Hitler was *not* a White Nationalist; he was a Germanic/Nordic supremacist. To say that Hitler was, at his core, “pro-White” is to make an embarrassing misstatement.
Regarding NPI’s utility in shaping policy and widespread discourse… I’m always skeptical of the potential of sites that rely on Disqus for commenters to post their thoughts. Inevitable shenanigans result (for instance, I saw someone on Radix smoothly admit that he’d posted on the site under (at least) three handles, and it’s far too easy for trolls and plants to pollute discussions. I actually wish that AmRen had a Facebook option – I regularly post pro-White (and certainly anti-anti-White) comments on sites that have FB commenting sections, and I think that this does lend a degree of seriousness and credibility compared to Disqus.
Finally, while Spencer cannot be directly blamed for the incident at NPI – it was not he, after all, who gave the salute – the catalyzing action reflected a wannabe LOTR-style LARPing that’s very common among the Identitarian Right. I can imagine Spencer thinking that after he gave his hails, he’d be greeted with a resounding, unified “HAIL!!!” from everyone in the room. His speech was also way over the top (“children of the sun”? really?), and I’m not sure that such attempts at waxing poetic are likely to draw in anyone other than committed nerds.
Spencer’s speech was peppered with Nazi references, including actual German words. He ended the speech with “Hail Victory [Sieg Heil]! Heil Trump!” and an ambiguous rapid upward gesture with his arm. He sports a “fashy haircut.” The salutes by Tila Tequila and friends from the night before were already circulating in the press and causing controversy. Spencer was on notice.
I have to think he knew exactly what he was veering into.
This is (((enemy propaganda))) from WWII, to divide us. As is well known, the NS race concept was ARYAN, not German. Every European was included (and many fought with them).
And yes, in wartime things changed, the own people was glorified and the enemy was vilified in ugly terms – on both sides – as in every war.
I see the validity in all of your points, but I think you’re massively overblowing this (as have many others). The alt-right has been spamming social media with Holocaust jokes for the last year and a half and has only grown ever faster.
Conversely, attempts at respectability have failed for decades.
I can understand saying this is a tactical misstep and that you disagree with it, but the venom and fatalism (not so strong from you as from others, but still there) is not necessarily productive.
Nice recap of salute-gate but im much less pessimistic about it.
Of course Trump denounced us. I would advise him to denounce us myself. Most people are still living in thought prison. I agree that we shouldn’t use nazi brand or any of its symbols for reasons you stated. Damage was not that big. Taylor should stop using the brand anyway. He’s married to Jew and denounced national socialism (doctrine not the brand). Watson, Ramzpaul and Cernovich will continue their work under the brand, because this is business for them. Nothing more nothing less. Even if some of them stop… does anyone remember Milo? There is so many other entry points. There is zerohedge, breitbart, infowars and so many others. Additionally troll and meme army is over every board and comments section and they are noisy bunch.
Many of us intellectual types like to think we can influence the public mood and way of thinking by rational argumentation and clever persuasion. Sometimes, I wonder if our role is just a commentary on unfolding mass psychological events that would play out that way just the same in our absence.
What articles and books do is mostly giving people the words and ideas that best correspond to something much more fundamental and primitive.
I’m from Italy, and when I see our Minister of the Interior (Alfano) proclaiming that people will have to give any free house or apartment they have available to sneering Somalis fresh off the boat OR ELSE, while our leaders keep marching us straight to ruin, that bit of news is more powerful that any essay, book, or video.
I believe things have progressed to a point where subtle intellectual analyses are nearly inconsequential, for the simple fact that our continued existence is more and more VISIBLY threatened. In “normal” circumstances, politics is at best 80% instinctual and emotional, and 20% rational. At the moment, it is perhaps 98% instinctual and emotional.
“Conservatives” are sheep in search of a shepherd that won’t butcher them and throw them to the wolves for a little while longer. Leftists are basically religious zealots worshipping the wolves, immolating their own as human sacrifices. The rapidly growing ethnonationalist crowds are the first clear sign of a much delayed visceral reaction that, once fully active, will sweep the West like a red flood. People are waking up to the fact that politics in the formerly white countries is really now a struggle for SURVIVAL.
Greg, you are my favorite author in the movement, and you make, as usual, very valid points, but I think you are far too optimistic about the possibility to slowly, patiently, reasonably influence the social and political currents in the next few years.
Our (((enemies))) have reduced the white nations to a giant powder keg of misery, distrust, centuries old feuds, barely contained hatred and blood-lust. It is only a matter of time before some bigger than usual Muslim attack, some outrageous genocidal demand of overconfident overlords, the unintended consequences of a false flag or – most likely – a sharp economic downturn in the middle of a new migrant wave sets it all off.
The election of Donald Trump has just tripled the pace of the train headed for race war, or civil war, most probably both. It will happen within the next 10 years. 5 is probably more like it.
That is the great genie waiting to explode out of a cracking bottle, and in light of that, I find hair-splitting discussions about brands and public relations quite useless. Nature is about to come back in from the window, with a vengeance. The good news is, they can’t stop it. The bad news is, we can’t control it.
When it happens, Hailgate will look like some squabble about the font for a new business card, and we are going to wish we would have used this time more wisely.
What should we do then?
I don’t know. Perhaps we should just strive to popularize our most fundamental, irrefutable memes in the most easy, immediate, digestible, normie-friendly form, so that the highest number of white men will have had some time to process them and won’t hesitate that one second too long at the moment of truth.
This is not first comment of yours that completely overshadows the article itself. Perhaps it feels like that because I share your view completely. Looking at our movement not only from political but also economic, environmental and biological angle it quickly becomes clear where this is going. All the knowledge is already out there for long time. Yet its so compartmentalized that even the greatest minds of Alt-Right fail to put all the pieces together.
Darwin was able to predict this 150 years ago already. Why cant our leaders? So the only explanation I can come up with is that they do, and they are trying to control the aftermath. Ultimately there is only one way to deal with threat of entropy. And to remove that threat without morally and mentally harm our people is not an easy task.
Stop picking at it.
Brand Alt-right may or may not recover but the more you think about Richard Spencer’s current situation you have to realise what deficits this generates for pro-Europeans everywhere. Perhaps the best move for everyone would be if Mr. Spencer to just receded into the background. A shame and a sad waste because NPI and Radix did provide stepping stones for alt-lighters moving forwards toward more reality based world views, even if NPI was more than a tad chummy with outliers from tribe J. Spencer’s obviously unprepared and ill-conceived interview with that Christian Negro Gentleman (or human-bulldog genetic hybrid?) is further proof that, at least in current incarnation, Richard Spencer is basically not up to the task that ambition would have otherwise driven this still youngish man onward and upward to.
Perhaps the best move for everyone would be if Mr. Spencer to just receded into the background.
I strongly agree. He should give one last press conference making clear that he does not speak for the Alt Right. And that he is not associated in any way with Trump.
And yet, Spencer keeps talking and talking and talking. Documentary coming out on him in the Atlantic in December. New article in Vox. And a newly released one-hour radio interview in which he got thoroughly schooled by Jamie Weinstein.
Best comment on the affair so far. Thanks for staying reliably sane and grounded.
Thank you
The Roman salute is associated with a desire for genocide in our culture. It does not matter whether that is fair or not. People who use it in public are either autists with zero social intelligence or shills.
It is not a matter of punching people that are more to the right. It is about the smart use of symbols.
The left never punch to the left, or have to excuse themselves. Why? Because they are in power, that’s why! But we are not, so we must be smart.
Can we all stop punching to the right please? Keep focus on the enemy. Christ have we learned nothing from Trump’s success? This whole thing could’ve been handled easily if we all disavowed publicly those four people who saluted and kept moving forward with the agenda. We’re falling for the same leftist attack as we have time and time again. They get us focusing on ourselves and not on them the enemy, by the way the left never does this to itself only the conscious right does.
Cowards…
“Better is heart | than a mighty blade
For him who shall fiercely fight;
The brave man well | shall fight and win,
Though dull his blade may be.
Brave men better | than cowards be,
When the clash of battle comes;
And better the glad | than the gloomy man
Shall face what before him lies.”
Thanks Greg. Sound analysis as always even though your sense of outrage is evident. ( I note a quite uncharacteristic number of typos in your this article. Speaks volumes.)
It was all very depressing but you provide grounds for hope. If we can make it Spencer’s problem and the NPI recognises that too, we can still salvage the brand.
The conference was a PR disaster but the problems won’t go away and we are the only people honestly addressing them.That’s got to win out in the end. As you say ,and it is also evident from the range of comments here, the Alt Right is not one man or one entity ; it is a movement and as such the brand will and should survive.
Typo of my own. Should read: “your article” ; please delete the stray ” this”.
I think the media/image criticisms that Greg and others have made are true , but they are true within the context of Jewish media hegemony, because Jews have come to dominate the discourse on these matters with their interests, not because we are all personally morally tormented by the evils of Nazism.
I also agree it’s been extremely useful to have the Cernovichs and PJWs in this outer, safer ring of the AR. Although they never represented WN, when it comes to White-oriented politics, diversity has proven to be a strength – particularly in this election campaign, as long as we are all more or less pushing in the same direction, even if we don’t want to endorse each other. That’s a strength. And it’s been significant factor in the growth of this and gaining new interest.
What troubles me though, is this disproportionate bitching aimed at Richard Spencer personally over something that was clearly a well-intentioned, heart-felt moment combined with some exuberance and that the media, being the opportunistic liars they are, magnified into a scandal …as they do…
Seeing how brittle the Right can be when a little media pressure is applied, when it’s presented with the ‘Nazi’ word, doesn’t inspire confidence among the converted. If I was to ‘distance’ myself from this, it would be because of the extraordinary display of disloyalty, which to me is a far greater concern than ‘Hail Trump’.
If the media hadn’t exploited this, none of this criticism would exist. No one would think about it.
Is Spencer a leader?
Greg’s forum approach was preferable for metapolitic thinking.
NPI should have been a policy front group for the Alt-Right. Spencer is delusional if he thinks he will get funding now.
Spencer has no right to speak for anyone but himself, NPI, and, possibly, “his readers.” But that’s not how he presents himself to the media.
You guys still do this? Knowing 99.999% of the public today literally forgets mass shootings in less than two weeks? Yet each time something like this happens we have to go through this again. Moreover, If I went out tonight and tomorrow and asked EVERYONE that lives in a fifty mile radius of me who Richard Spencer is, and got a dollar for everyone who knows, I would be shocked if I could buy a cheeseburger with the money.
It’s long overdue we stopped being the first casualties of the media.
David Duke’s photos in Nazi and Klan regalia have been recycled for decades
There’s a difference here between Spencer and Duke. They have radically different backgrounds, also this kind of backpedeling is what the left wants us to do. Waste time arguing amongst each other and and lose sight of the movements goal. Besides us millennials are the least likely to accept myths of the 20th century unlike Duke’s audience. It’s a lot easier to grow and spread pride in ones European ethnic heritage especially when it’s being so severely and openly attacked. This is a new phenomenon and different from what boomers and gen x were facing.
Most people don’t know who David Duke is. Again, stop being one of the first casualties of the media. You guys also focus too much on what our enemies and the Left think. STOP. WORRYING. ABOUT. THEM. Concentrate on the rest. Most of them never even heard about this incident. The ones who did are already forgetting it. It’s been days now. They didn’t care anyway. Gatlinburg burning down is all the news and FaceBook posting this side of the Mississippi now.
This is idiotic. You can’t premise politics on the denial of reality.
It seems to me a lot of Altrighters are in denial of what actually happened here, and they can’t let it sink in and admit it, being afraid of appearing as “cucks”.
There is of course an amount of reality denial going on. That said, you can’t underestimate the extent to which “reality” has changed for many who have recently joined this movement. For many of these young Nazi-larpers, the stigma of Nazi imagery and symbols has either been completely erased or had never fully taken hold in the first place. Being on the older end of the Alt-Right age spectrum, that stigma is deeply ingrained in my own psyche, and yet even I can testify to just how much this stigma has lessened its grip on my own mind in the past two or three years. Nazi symbols no longer provoke in me the same danger/disgust response that they once did, and I now find the general Nazi aesthetics to be quite awe-inspiring and even beautiful; almost the complete opposite response I would have had three years ago. That said, because I’m old enough to have the presence of mind to know that others do not share my changed view, and because these symbols are not my own, I feel now need to adopt them and would nevere personally Nazi-larp. Given his age, Spencer should likewise have had the presence of mind not to Nazi-larp; or if he insisted on doing so, being sure that he controlled the cameras, which was completely within his power to do.
How many here would agree with the statement “The Jews should be physically removed from my country”?
Hate to break it to you, friends, but if you agree to that, for all practical purposes, you are a “Nazi”. In for a penny, in for a pound. And if you do not, you are a pussy.
Right.
But the JQ is usually the final and most bitter part of red pilling.
The Alt-Right & Alt-Lite had a kind of symbiotic red pill pipeline going. Ramzpaul was an effective populist. Even some of the eBook salesmen.
Spencer broke the pipeline.
If what you’ve said is correct, then why hasn’t Richard Spencer said as much? Or has he? In the little bit I’ve heard from him since this trouble arose, he’s mouthed nonsense: What happened at NPI was “exuberance,” or “ironic exuberance,” or I-don’t-know-what. If there’s anyone toward whom some straight talk should be addressed, it’s Spencer. He should be told that he should explain himself. If he thinks of himself as a Nazi, then he should say so and say what that means. If he doesn’t, then he should explain his Nazi theatrics in that NPI speech. The explanation might be a simple, embarrassing acknowledgment that he allowed himself to be influenced by persons with whom he’s not in sympathy. Whatever is the truth, he should simply say it.
If he backtracks or even comes close to apologizing, he’ll be seen as weak by both us and the media. That would ultimately be terrible in the long run. I think he already explained himself pretty well by arguing that the stiff arms were just done out of exuberance. Greg, you have a good point about the NPI now not having a chance to influence the Trump administration….but I think that if you write an article about the perceived need to “punch right,” it would be a net negative. It would just be giving license to various leaders within white nationalism and the alternative right to engage in unnecessary infighting. Better, perhaps, for leaders within our movement to simply communicate with one another privately.
Harold Covington is the only one who is going to give it to you straight. He’ll come out and tell you he’s a Nazi. He will openly say that our only hope for racial survival ultimately lies in effective armed resistance. From the rest you’ll get some meager slivers of truth, mixed in with a heaping helping of neatly parsed, obfuscatory bullshit. Image is important, keep muh shekels rolling in. This isn’t necessarily a criticism, it is just the way things are.
That’s black-pilled defeatist bullshit. Have you been paying any attention to the successes that WNs have accomplished lately?
“You’re a pussy if you don’t want to do something totally impossible.”
~*CaptainChaos*~
Much ado about nothing. I think those in the alt/new right are a bit taken aback by the media response to this “incident”. But guess what?
This is what it’s like being in the lime-light as a dissident movement. Are we seriously concerned about Spencer toasting to Trump and about 6 out of 275 of the attendees sticking their arms in the sky?
As a true dissident movement, we have to provide an alternative to the mainstream in which their moral judgements hold no weight. We deal with the aftermath of world war two (or one, to be more precise) in our own way. The alt-right has done a fantastic job appropriating the Hollywood Nazi stereotype and mocking it relentlessly, while terrifying the SJW’s and cuckservatives who have modelled their political and personal identities in opposition to the aforementioned stereotype.
In an interview on Red Ice radio, just after the conference, Mike Enoch and Richard Spencer respond in an admirable manner, and I encourage everyone to watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFalXA-RNjI
We can either stress ourselves out over the possibility that a few young dissidents are caught on camera giving salutes, or we can shrug it off. And that is the difference with the old neo-nazi movements. This isn’t about larping or foolishly trying to embody the Hollywood Nazi stereotype, this is about trivializing it. This is about reducing the symbolic power of the aforementioned stereotype (its late, excuse my repetitiveness) by turning a Hitler salute into a harmless prank. I guarantee you, this will be a breath of fresh air to your average goy.
The alt-right brand was being high-jacked by cultural libertarians. There was a legitimate danger that a slightly edgier reincarnation of mainstream republicanism would effectively destroy the immediate need for any serious alternative for dealing with SJW’s and political correctness. A portion of the alt-lite will move in our direction, the rest will either be converted in the coming years or they will have to resign to the fact that they are little different from the safe-space dwellers they used to mock.
Spencer’s toast has not destroyed the alt-right brand, it has saved it.
Spencer doesn’t get the /pol/mpc/trs/ds jokes and memes. The parts of his speech which were Alt-Right memes didn’t work. The Hail Trump finale enthused trs goys to salute whilst THE ATLANTIC, invited by Spencer to film a documentary about the Alt-Right Wonderboy, was recording.
Spencer has no banter. Roland Martin with kangz and cotton got the better of their interview.
Who appointed Richard Spencer the face of a movement that derived it’s energy from an trolling, amorphous and largely anonymous mob?
Well it derived its energy from the online anonymous banter you refer to, but also from the Trump campaign and some public dissidents. Spencer really had nothing to do with either of those two forces. He’s kind of glammed onto both.
I also agree with you that he “has no banter.” If he continues in politics, he should really just drop all pretense at humor and just speak earnestly with dialectic and rhetoric about policy.
Good point.
You make a lot of good points, Greg. Richard Spencer has made me cringe a few times with things he has said or done. But there are a few things that bother me about the reaction to the controversy. Is the media calling us nazis now really any different from them calling us nazis pre-Salutegate? Yes, they have “proof” of Roman salutes caught on camera, but our racist views were already all the “proof” that they needed. Hell, the media tried to smear Trump with his Alt Right nazi Twitter followers (it didn’t work). Donald Trump was “literally Hitler” for wanting to deport illegals and ban Muslim immigration.
When I joined the Alt Right about two years ago, it was already associated with Fascism and National Socialism. I joined the Alt Right because I didn’t give a damn about being called a nazi for my beliefs any more. I had outgrown Jared Taylor and other moderate race realists. I think that some people are over-estimating the effect that this incident is having on “normies.” Those that are appalled by it would probably be equally appalled by any association with racism. Some are probably beginning to see through the media’s biases and recognize the irony in the NPI video.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I view this as a minor setback at worst. Perhaps it seems shocking because things have been going so well for us for the last year. Does this NPI incident really damage the “Racist Right” more than Dylan Roof did?
Spencer made himself the face of the movement. No one asked him to.
Now Alinskyite tatics can be used against him by the media. They have someone to pin down and attack.
“If you push a negative hard enough it will push through and become a positive” (Alinsky).
As one of those who has come to Richard’s defense, I actually think this is a great piece that is worth serious consideration. That said, I also agree with you that I don’t think this will hurt us in the long run, as most Americans are beginning to understand irony again. Only time will tell. I say we let the dust settle and keep chugging on.
A clear distinction needs to be made as soon as possible between Spencer and the rest of the “Alt Right.” Otherwise, this thing is just going to continue to bleed out. The connection between the inflammatory words and images at the NPI event and the rest of the movement will solidify.
Spencer should tell the media in no uncertain terms that he only speaks for himself and NPI. That if he gave another impression he was mistaken. That his views diverge from much of the rest of the movement. Spencer can perhaps do this at a press conference.
He can also take that opportunity to explain how his Nazi-era terminology and iconography was intended to be sarcastic and to give context to some of his other more extreme sentiments (advocacy of ethnic cleansing; of a “pure” White ethnostate on U.S. soil.
P.S. Spencer should also make absolutely clear there is no connection between the Alt Right (or himself) and Trump and that he has no special insight into Trump’s thinking.
This is how I know someone has never read anything from Spencer, and probably only knows him from a 5 second video clip. Spencer has said time and time again that there is no official connection between himself and Trump, except for ‘psychic’ one. He has said Trump wasn’t Alt Right. He has also said that he isn’t a nazi and thinks that it is a movement that should be left in the 20th century.
NPI could have been a perfect Trotskyist style front group for entryism to mainstream institutions.
But clueless Spencer decided to invite Tila, Jews and Jeffrey Goldbergs The Atlantic.
While I understand your concern, and I feel it was a mistake, I think that saying the “brand” is irreparably damaged is a huge over statement. At least one of the people you cite in your article thinks chem trails are real, but race isn’t.
Tomorrow we are all still going to wake up in a declining multiracial empire, where there are machete attacks on college campuses done by freshman Somali refugees. A little ole Roman salute doesn’t seem so bad when you compare it to what the average White American is up against.
Surely you are correct that the things our enemies fret about are far less worrisome than the hellish consequences of their own ideas. But here’s the problem: they still have the media megaphone, so their narrative dominates the minds of the people we need to wake up. That video is manna from heaven to our enemies. They are going to be playing decades hence.
Maybe. Again, you make some good points and I have deep respect for your work and your opinion. The problem is Spencer was already tagged by “the establishment”. He was already cataloged on SPLC. He got purged from twitter BEFORE the conference. Sure, he wasn’t a house hold name, but the chances of walking the halls of congress were already extremely low before the video.
He calls himself an activist. His primary job is to spread ideas. When exerts of his speech are played on CNN that is exactly what is happening.
Ever since Hillary’s alt-right speech, and even before that in regard to social media supporting Trump, the mainstream (((media))) has been aching to attach the “nazi” label to the alt-right (and in fact doing so) – this was happening long before Richard Spencer’s speech. So the thing about “they’re going to call you that anyway” is surely true. If the public is so frightened of “nazi” that it will shrink in horror and affix the mark of Cain to anybody even CALLED nazi, then there is not much hope for success. If that is all it takes to crush a foe, that is exactly what an unscrupulous system will do, sooner or later, to any enemy. How does one then lessen the impact of this go-to smear of the establishment? Mock it and make fun of it, which is in large measure what the alt-right online community is doing, and one could say Richard Spencer was doing in his speech. He was acknowledging the connection the media had made and, to a certain extent, ridiculing it by playing along in a light-hearted way. Anybody who can’t see that is not likely to be in the vanguard of a radical movement — sheeple are sure to believe what their TV is telling them until it is telling them something different. Certain of them might be red-pilled by life but not by any call to reason or history. The speech did generate a lot of publicity and if the jewsmedia wish to question Spencer about how “nazi” his meeting was, he can expose the cumulative media lies which account for such a reading. So a tempest in a teapot, and, while I greatly appreciate Greg Johnson, don’t think the piece he wrote here was at all necessary.
Frank, you are surely right that we need to take the sting out of the Nazi smear by mocking it. These people want you to believe the Mitt Romney is literally Hitler too. But do you also agree that we can also take the sting out of it by not acting out the part before the cameras of the world media?
Had the Nazi images from the conference been limited to Tila Tequila flanked by jews, the spirit of mocking our enemies could have been retained. I agree that a room full of men with Nazi haircuts hailing victory was a mistake and bad optics. But, a big part of the publicity and growth of this movement in the last year or so came from mockery and the absurd, such as jewish journalists being memed into gas chambers with Trump operating the lever. I hope that spirit won’t be diminished by the fallout from hailgate. After some reflection and a deep breath, let’s get back on offense where we belong.
I agree with respect to Tila. That was irony or sarcasm.
Spencer’s speech came off as earnest. The salutes at the end came off as earnest.
I doubt a few European salutes matter one way or the other. We are in a vicious war. They hate us, we hate them. We are right. That are Satanic. Hail Victory.
With an attitude like that you might as well tear down your clothes and run butt naked into the bayonets of our enemies shouting “Heil Hitler, Sieg Heil” – what outcome of that do you think would be?
While Spencer did get over excited over the recent election and felt the need to say something high in stamina, I think it’s unfair to say that he somehow damaged the brand… or gave it a mortal wound. Those that gave the Roman/Nazi salute how ever should have been more reserved and I wonder how they feel now. I am sure most of them if not all were gesturing that simply out of fun, though there is always the possibility of someone that actually means or agent provocateurs or both.
As was discussed over at the War Room TRS, it’s best if we simply stay firm and hold our ground. By cringing back, attacking and black pilling our own is what would ultimately lead to a collapse. Holding our ground is really the only recourse of action we have, the media would have eventually found their “smoking gun” as to what alt-righters really are. That smoking gun could have been anything, a red ice radio podcast, a TRS PODcast with Spencer or Johnson on it, a Counter Currents article or an AMREN article. The fact that they by now they have not replayed some Daily Shoah monologue with everything that is said there by now is itself a surprise. The recent media attention will eventually die down and go down the memory hole anyways.
There are always reasons to be optimistic. I was in a crowded NYC train on my way to my NAVY recruitment center just yesterday and something happen that made my face go, o.O. There were 3 school children chatting and were grouped next to me. One was a rather pretty white girl, a white male and a smaller midget sized Jewish girl. They were chatting about school life and the topic of Jews came up. Eventually their chatting came around to joking around their Jewish friend about “gassing the Jews” and how so many of their friends would joke in the same manner. The Jewish girl apparently also joked around in the same manner and stated that some of her male Jewish friends would draw swastikas on their own notebooks just for fun..No one in that massively crowded train cart seemed the slightest bit disturbed over this rather loud joking.
It’s really just the older generations that are bothered by these salutes and hails, eventually that will change.
Look on the bright side, in our hyperreal world this will be forgotten about in a week or so (I’m guessing it’s largely forgotten already) and we’ll all go back to being “Nazis” again anyway to the media.
I think that video will be shown in 30 and 40 years, just like David Duke’s photos in Nazi and Klan garb.
Another thought on this Greg. Few other phrases have been dragged through hell and back like “White Nationalist”, and you still prefer to call yourself that.
If White Nationalist someday becomes as stigmatized as “Nazi” I will drop the label immediately.
Let me elaborate on this. It is clear from the recent Jamie Weinstein interview of Spencer, and the NPR interview of Ramzpaul, that the media is going to home in on this goal of “White Nationalism” and what its implications are for non-White residents of the United States. Whether or not the Nazi label is attached.
Some of the implications are CONCEIVABLY sinister are they not? Deportations, partition, uprooting, removal of voting and other civil rights with respect to non-Whites. The specter of any of these things happening would legitimately frighten non-Whites to the point that anyone espousing “White Nationalism” in American politics and leaving the door open to them is probably going to get stigmatized. The media, out of sincere concern for the purported implications, or because they know it is stigmatizing, are focused like a laserbeam on the possibility. That is obvious in the interviews. And I didn’t hear Spencer or Ramzpaul allay these fears. My estimation is that a movement that does not rule out those implications will be dead in the water politically. That means that anyone seeking political success must disavow.
You are obviously a system troll, and a good one, but this will be your last appearance here.
“Some of the implications are CONCEIVABLY sinister are they not? Deportations, partition, uprooting, removal of voting and other civil rights with respect to non-Whites. The specter of any of these things happening would legitimately frighten non-Whites to the point that anyone espousing “White Nationalism” in American politics and leaving the door open to them is probably going to get stigmatized. The media, out of sincere concern for the purported implications, or because they know it is stigmatizing, are focused like a laserbeam on the possibility. That is obvious in the interviews. And I didn’t hear Spencer or Ramzpaul allay these fears. My estimation is that a movement that does not rule out those implications will be dead in the water politically. That means that anyone seeking political success must disavow.”
I have a couple of questions for Anon2016. I realize that he/she is not going to be allowed to respond but I think the above propaganda needs to be countered (if you’ll excuse the phrase).
1) How do you get diversity without reducing the White percentage of the population?
2) Is it in the best interests of Whites, politically, culturally and economically, to be a demographic minority?
3) How do Whites avoid minority status with our current mass non-White immigration policies?
4) And in order to act “affirmatively” doesn’t that require discriminating against Whites?
Liberals and Leftists monolithically support affirmative action, diversity and mass non-White immigration. This in spite of the fact that these policies “legitimately frighten” Whites. Yet there is NO stigmatizing of these policies or the ideology that brought them to the fore. Funny how that works out.
in 30 or 40 years we will be either victorious or an irrelevant minority
The left has always mocked whites as having paranoid fears, and then once they were able to get their way, they would rub our noses in it.
Desegregating schools isn’t going to lead to interracial marriage!
The 1965 Hart-Cellar Immigration Act isn’t going to change the demographics of America!
Decriminalizing homosexuals isn’t going to lead to gay men adopting little boys!
The solution is just to mock the MSM and left as paranoid over a bunch of “nazis” in North Virginia. Then the moment we have the ability, we shove as much of what they hate and fear down their throats.
Privately I agree that what Spencer did was a combination of poor OpSec and Bad optics.
Unfortunately Alt-Liters are equally if not more irresponsible in their public condemnations and hand-wringing as Spencer.
Cernovich and those like him committed three cardinal sins simultaneously.
– Punching right in public: I shouldn’t even have to say why no one who wants to shift or expand the overton window should
– Reacting to the Legacy Media: If you react to the evidence the media supplies rather than getting the media to react to the evidence you supply, you’re being controlled by the Media. Not intentionally, not as a ‘shill’ but simply that they are able to dictate your moves and thus outmaneuver you. The media wanted this to become a big scandal, they wanted to make the alt-right label radioactive, and most of the alt-lite did precisely what would be needed of them to accomplish both.
– Accusing people of being shills on flimsy evidence: Ramzpaul and Andrew Anglin accusing eachother of being ADL Shills is wasted energy. Spencer is not a shill, and Cernovich is at worst only a shill in terms of book sales, but probably isn’t on anyone’s take.
As an aside, there’s are two extremes to this whole “movement”. You have people who think anyone who doesn’t make nauseating cultural libertarian talking points about individualism and nonjudgementalism is an SJW or Soros shill, on one side. On the other side you have people who think if your oven’s not at a full 1488 degrees, and don’t endorse the most avante garde proclamations about final solutions to the JQ, it must be because you privately enjoy being soddomized by the afro-semite.
The worst part about it all is that most of the disagreements between the two extremes are semantic and/or aesthetic, i.e. not substantive.
I am writing an entire article doing away with the idea that “punching Right” is a bad thing.
The media did not make up the video out of whole cloth, and pretending that they are the problem, rather than what actually happened at NPI, is just an evasion of responsibility.
Accusing people of being shills or controlled opposition without evidence, or merely by citing Hal Turner, should be every bit the taboo that “not punching to the Right” is.
Greg I’m writing this as someone who has been very inspired by your work, and I’m still a young man with many friends who have all been able to accept a lot of what the new right preaches. Both young girls and young guys (we’re all in our early twenties or late teens). You specifically wrote about this in the New Right versus Old Right. How the old right were able to be so successful because they adopted the tactics of their opposition. So it is especially confusing to see Counter Currents making claims that punching right isn’t bad. I never see the left do this, I see them say they don’t believe in nominal values that are about as vague as they can be. Why not use this against them? Young people tired of being told we are inherently evil because of our race and sexuality need group cohesion not dropping the label because of liberal attack. Its what kept and brought young people to trumps movement. By belittling the opposition for calling him racist and sticking to his principles this led to his victory and I think we can apply this strategy as well. It’s what the cultural Marxists did in the 60s and 70s.
Leftists constantly fall out with and purge one another all the time. The reason Hillary Clinton is not asked to denounce Bill Ayers is that the press is on her side. If the Left were back on its heels, yes, she would feel pressure to denounce Ayers lest she show the world that she’s a moral imbecile.
Maybe I’m too young to have seen this on the left, I definitely haven’t noticed it. I’m sure you have good reasons for this call though, just giving a different perspective although may have been a little hyperbolic. I appreciate all the material you guys produce and still have faith in the growth of the movement.
Well, there’s the story of Stalin and Trotsky.
Kek and zog and JFK.
Greg,
I think Spencer’s own conduct–words, attire, arm gesture at the conference as well as prior statements he has made–combined with his claiming to speak for the Alt Right would be highly problematic and put the movement in danger, even if certain audience members hadn’t given Nazi salutes in response to him that night.
One really wrong thing Spencer did was ignoring the govt of Hungary’s advising him that he was not welcome to hold his conference there in 2014. WTF. Who does he think he is?
He is Gumby, dammit.