Political Propaganda as Seduction

1,788 words

^[1]Now that the Alt-Right has reached a critical mass and increasingly moving to the real world from the confines of the internet, there emerged the debate about how to present and comport ourselves in this new phase of our growth. After all, the real world is a completely different realm, and holding rallies and public speeches is a drastically different endeavor from posting on the internet, and hence it is important to decide which approach is to be taken.

Largely two distinct approaches are being advocated. One of them is continuing in the same vein as in the internet activism; shocking our adversaries and also the neutral observers by the same brash and unapologetic imagery and language. It is being argued that since this approach has won us many supporters among strong, masculine and rebellious white men and, importantly, the attention we dearly needed from the population at large it is meant to bear fruit if applied also in the real world activism.

Many others however disagree with this stance and argue that since the real world and the internet are two different realms, whatever brings success on the internet, more often than not, will lead to failure in the real world activism. They argue for cultivating an image more palatable to ordinary people when appearing in public.

Alt-Right has made great strides through internet activism and the approach of conveying the message through brash, unapologetic memes mixed with Nazi symbolism did indeed bear fruit. However, now that the long-awaited moment of manifesting our presence in the real world has come, the propaganda methods should also be reconsidered and modified for this purpose.

And here, game – i.e, the art of seducing women, can offer a lot of good advice. In fact, the methods by which an emergent movement communicates its message to the masses are governed by the same principles.

The first stage in every interaction with a woman one wants to seduce is to capture her attention and attract her. The most effective way to achieve this is to evince a dominant, alpha male, bad boy charisma. This is an indispensable, but not sufficient, component of seduction. Successful seduction of a woman requires an initial excitement in order to rouse her interest followed by comfort building to keep her attached.

Converting the masses to a certain worldview also follows the same rules of seduction. And the fact that western masses are being increasingly feminized makes the rules of the game even more topical. The first stage of capturing the attention of the masses was achieved by the shock effect elicited by the directness and brashness of internet posting and memes. This is equivalent to eliciting the much-needed dominant bad boy charisma and has been indispensable for the growth of the Alt-Right.

Now, after this initial attraction, comes the phase, referred to in Game as comfort building. This is indeed the phase of moving to the real world and communicating our message to the large masses. In many cases, unbridled alpha demeanour can make the man seem unattainable or too intimidating or threatening to a woman. Therefore, a man who managed to rouse the attention of a woman but failed to build comfort with her will falter eventually. The same applies to political movements. As much as unapologetic brashness mixed with Nazi symbolism was needed during the internet phase of the growth of the Alt-Right, comfort building through making the message more palatable to the general population (i.e., the “normies”) is needed in moving to the real world.

The combination of bad boy attitude with comfort building is a powerful seductive force because it plays a psychological trick on the woman’s psyche by defying her expectations. Bad boy traits in a man are arousing to a woman precisely because they are threatening. Subliminally a woman feels that a male possessing these traits is likely to rape or kill her, since this would have been a likely scenario in our primeval environment. However, as soon as he shows some traits of a sensitive provider, this flips the script in the woman’s brain. She falls for him precisely because she suddenly feels safe in the presence of a person by whom she felt threatened a moment ago. The bad boy attitude alone would soon have alienated the woman. The sensitive attitude alone would not have aroused her in the first place, since the man would have seemed weak, dull and boring. It is therefore the perfect combination of these two attitudes displayed in the above-mentioned order that builds up attraction and is utilized by a masterful seducer. In fact, at its most extreme, this psychological mechanism is also the basis of Stockholm syndrome, where the victim (more likely a woman) feels attached to her abuser, once he shows some sort of kindness.

The same parallels can be applied to the current situation of White Nationalism in the West. The Alt-Right captured the attention and roused the curiosity of the general population primarily thanks to the shock effect elicited by its online posting and memes. Indeed, the mainstream media has unwittingly done us a great and much needed service by its demonization campaign. It has brought the Alt-Right to the spotlight and more importantly portrayed it as a threat to the way of life of an average lay person. In the same way that jerky bad boy attitude captures woman’s attention and rouses her, the shocking internet memes of the Alt-Right and its being demonized by the media have roused the general public. Subconsciously, the public has been triggered by us.

However, this public attention can only be propitious if we make use of it correctly. And here is when we enter the phase of comfort building with the public. This can be achieved by performing the real world activism in a manner that seems non-threatening and respectable to the lay people. As soon as the bad boy evinces some kindness and sensitivity, the woman initially roused by his very threatening jerky attitude rationalizes that he might be a nice guy after all and is bound to him. Likewise, after being initially triggered and threatened, the public will suddenly feel attracted to the Alt-Right once it soothes their worries by presenting itself in a more palatable way in the real world. In this case, they don’t even need to rationalize (the word implies justification of something wrong), since we are really good people. Indeed, the only good people out there.

The mistake of white advocacy in previous decades has been the delusion that imploring people to come to their senses by pointing the obvious and logical argumentation are enough to convert them. What has been missing however was the initial trigger and emotional excitement. If we consider White Nationalist movement as a single organism and again apply the analogy of game, it will be clear that the movement was behaving like the proverbial beta male oblivious to the inner workings of the woman’s psyche. We were likewise oblivious to the nature of the mass psyche.

Which doesn’t mean however that rational argumentations on the basis of scientific findings relating to racial differences in intelligence and behaviour, and statistics on racial disparities in crime or moral justification of whites for their homeland are of no use. In fact, their time of peak effectiveness is coming now, since they will be presented on the backdrop of already achieved emotional excitement on the part of the masses. Therefore, the shock effect elicited by the unapologetic internet posting and memes combined with the more highbrow tone and the wealth of scientific data accumulated over the years provide the Alt-Right with a great seductive potential, i.e., with strong game.

Respectability in discourse and good optics at mass rallies should in no way be confused with toning down the message and compromising the core principles though. That should be avoided at all costs, otherwise failure will be imminent. Whether at a public discourse or a mass rally, the movement should continue to exude strength and confidence.

Another game analogy that can be of use here is the concept of “shit-test”. Once a woman is attracted to the man and feels secure in his presence, she subliminally needs further proof of his dominance and strength. Therefore she throws out shit-tests in order to test his mettle. This is the phase of seduction where most men falter indeed. They take the woman’s articulated wishes and demands at face value and acquiesce to her whims or are swayed by her faux indignation. They think that the surest way to win her over is to fulfil her demands, whereas in reality the woman expects the man to defy her and keep his frame.

The more the Alt-Right appears in the public eye the more its representatives should expect similar kinds of shit-testing, especially from female journalists. These shit-tests will involve associations of the movement as a whole with “Nazism”, “anti-semitism”, or “misogyny” or allusions to “controversial” statements by certain members of the movement. It is crucial to keep one’s frame, not to backpedal and never to disavow our “wayward” comrades in public once confronted with such attacks.

Precisely the inability to effectively fend off these shit-tests is what has been holding back the light-nationalist parties in Europe from making bigger gains. While they have successfully captured the public attention and later built a non-threatening, “respectable” image, until now they have failed to deal with the increasingly hostile shit-tests from the media. Like most failed suitors who take women’s demands at face value, they also have failed to understand that what would work best in case of such attacks is defiance and keeping one’s frame. Once have established a “respectable” image they assumed they have to confirm it with repeated concessions, denouncements of “extreme ideologies” and even ousting their embattled members. What those indignant journalists and reporters subliminally expect however is for nationalists to keep their frame and defy them. What works on women in general is also what will work in the public eye.

Like the art of seduction, the art of propaganda consists of different aspects, each of them requiring partly different skillsets and being effective on people with different psychological makeups. Therefore, this infighting within the Alt-Right regarding the best approach should give way to the recognition of each one’s merits and suitability into different contexts. Both the brash/shocking and highbrow elements within the movement are of equal value, since they are most effective under different situations and work best on different kinds of people. Therefore, they should complement each other and when necessary serve as each other’s shields. In this way, the Alt-Right will become the masterful seducer of the public mind and eventually will come to power.