The Unsinkable Milo Yiannopoulos?

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[1]Last September, I wished Milo Yiannopoulos would just go away [2]. Frankly, I found such antics as dressing in drag and bathing in pigs’ blood disgusting, and I wondered if he was repulsing more people from the Right than he was attracting. I even specifically mentioned his remarks on pedophilia: 

The final straw was when Milo showed up to give a speech in drag. . . . What does Milo have to do, exactly, before his enablers will throw up their hands in disgust? His defenses of male genital mutilation [3] and pedophilia [4] were not, apparently, enough. Does he have to show up with a basket of fruit on his head?

Seeing Milo in drag made me wonder. His defenders point out the people he brings in. But it is impossible to count the people he is keeping away. Our movement has been so marginal for so long that we are desperate for attention. Hence we often embrace and coddle freaks. If we really believe our message, though, then we have to believe that we can change the minds of all of our people, including the best. And we have to wonder if every freak like Milo is repulsing a hundred normal people for every one that he attracts. That’s why I wish he would just go away.

But careful what you wish for. After Milo was invited to speak at the CPAC convention, his remarks on pedophilia were circulated in a deceptively edited form, setting off a storm of signaling, disavowal, and unseemly gloating. CPAC pulled its invitation, and Simon and Schuster dropped Milo’s book contract. Rumors circulated that he was in danger of being fired from Breitbart.

It really looked like Milo was finished, and to my surprise, I actually felt bad about it. Why?

After all, Milo’s remarks on pedophilia, even in their unedited version, were beyond the pale for anyone on the populist Right.

Just to be clear: Milo did not say he was a pedophile. In fact, the claimed to be the victim of one. But he laughed it off as a good experience and said things in favor of sexual relationships between teenagers and adults.

Right wingers cherish the innocence of children and are deeply disgusted by pedophiles. Pedophilia, moreover, is the vice of the establishment [5]. Covering up epidemics of pedophile rape [6] and trying to turn pedophiles into a protected PC victim group [7] are crusades of the Left. An apologist for pedophiles has a very low life-expectancy in our circles. So it was only a matter of time before Milo’s comments blew up in his face. Frankly, I was surprised that it took this long.

Milo’s hair-splitting distinction between pedophiles (who only go after pre-pubescent children) and more normal predators who go after teenagers is morally obtuse. It is true that only profoundly abnormal people are attracted to prepubescent children, whereas it is perfectly normal for adults to find sexually mature teenagers to be attractive, even though they do not have the maturity to consent to sex with adults. But the fact that the number of potential offenders is so much larger in the case of teens makes age of consent laws all the more urgent.

Beyond that, Milo’s defense of what basically amounts to classical pederasty — in which teenage boys take up with adult men — is highly misleading. It might have been normal in ancient Greece, but it is certainly not the norm among homosexuals in the modern West.

To Milo’s credit, however, he did claim that he believed in age of consent laws, which would effectively render most of his cringe-inducing discussion moot from a legal point of view.

This leaves only Milo’s crack about being molested by a Catholic priest, which basically amounts to an extremely vulgar and morally idiotic dismissal of the suffering of untold thousands of victims of a vast criminal conspiracy of pedophiles and their enablers. The fact the Milo is apparently a practicing Catholic (pity his poor confessor) might well explain his glibness here, but it does not excuse it. Among the many disgusting things that Milo has said or done, for me, this is the worst, and I still wonder if there would be any net downside if he simply retired tomorrow.

Yes, I defend the Alt Light [8] to the extent that they defend nationalism, populism, and Western civilization and attack feminism, globalization, and political correctness. It’s really the best we can expect from a half-Jewish race-mixer like Milo. The Alt Light aren’t perfect, but they are better than mainstream conservatives, and since their Trumpian civic nationalism is ultimately incoherent, we can bring the best members of their audience over to White Nationalism. But surely we can find someone to fill Milo’s niche who is less cringe-worthy.

But even if we would be better off without Milo, I don’t want to see him taken out this way. Why? Because the video and campaign against Milo originate from the Never Trump wing [9] of the Republican Party and the evil for which they stand. The operation bears the fingerprints of Deep State dork and Bill Kristol lackey Evan McMullin.

The cucks are only attacking Milo because he is the lowest hanging fruit (no pun intended) on the Trump tree. If they take out Milo, they will turn to Anton and then Bannon and Miller. But their ultimate goal is to destroy Trump and the nationalist-populist forces he has unleashed.

The cucks want to go back to losing gracefully to the Left, cashing their checks and clipping their plaudits from the enemy press while America is destroyed. (Funny how they fight dirty only against the Right wing.) But we can’t let them win. And we might as well stop them here. So I am hoping this is not the end of Milo Yiannopoulos. Frankly, I hope he destroys them.

But this is not just a cuckservative attack on Milo as a proxy for Trump, it is an establishment attack, for the Left-wing media immediately jumped on board. Yes, that’s right, the Left-wing media that covers up and minimizes widespread pedophile rape by Muslims and Mexicans and has been working to transform pedophiles into another politically correct victim class, has turned on a dime to press the attack on Milo. Even Salon.com, the flagship for pedophile normalization, joined the attack on Milo [10] and quietly deleted its articles by Todd Nickerson [11], the self-proclaimed “virtuous” non-offending pedophile. If Milo really is a pedophile apologist, you’d think that Salon would offer him a column. Clearly, Milo is not a tempting enough target to explain such blatant hypocrisy and transparently false sanctimony, which we Right-wingers will be milking for years to come. Obviously, there is a much bigger target here, namely Donald Trump. So, again, I want to see them defeated.

As of bedtime on Monday night, my position on the matter was, to paraphrase St. Augustine, “Dear Lord, please destroy Milo Yiannopoulos. But not yet.”

On Tuesday, February 21st, I awoke to find my prayers answered. Milo gave a news conference where he explained himself, apologized for and retracted his most egregious remarks, emphasized his moral denunciation of pedophiles and his agreement with age of consent laws, announced his resignation from Breitbart, and vowed that he is not going anywhere. Pedophilia is indefensible, and he simply decided not to defend it. He really had to do it, because nobody on the Right will defend a pedophile or a pedophile apologist.

I thought that it was a very plausible and effective performance. It might even be sincere. Americans love apologies and comebacks almost as much as they love moral signaling and denunciations. In the end, pedogate may have no more lasting an effect than pussygate. Since the establishment clearly wished to use Milo to harm Breitbart, resigning was the classy thing to do.

Is Milo finished? I think it is premature to count him out. As I expected, other publishers will bring out Milo’s book. He will find or create new platforms. He will keep on writing, touring campuses, courting media, and triggering the Left. And I will go back to ignoring him and working on making a case for White Nationalism.

From a White Nationalist point of view, there are a lot of bad things about Milo. But the establishment is not united to attack him because of his flaws. They are attacking him because of his virtues. For what he gets right, not what he gets wrong. Above all, they are attacking him because they think it will hurt Trump. A victory over Milo would only have emboldened them. So thank you, Milo, for standing your ground, but please try not to embarrass us again in the future.