Counter-Currents
1,656 words
As most of us know by now, Paul Nehlen, the Wisconsin engineer who will be challenging Speaker Paul Ryan for his seat in the House of Representatives this summer, doxxed Alt Right blogger and shitposter Ricky Vaughn. As the writer at Counter-Currents who has written most about Nehlen—four articles, all positive—I feel the need to address this issue.
Andrew Anglin provides an excellent summary of the events leading to the doxxing as well as some top-notched analysis. To put it all as briefly as possible, Vaughn had gained enormous influence during the 2016 presidential campaign as one of Donald Trump’s biggest boosters on Twitter. After the election, he was ousted from Twitter and became active on a similar social media platform called Gab where he became a bit of a Dissident Right gadfly, sometimes offering harsh criticism of the movement. This led to a spat with Nehlen who, in retaliation last week, revealed his true identity. The Huffington Post reported on this two days later. Shortly after, Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, deleted Nehlen’s Gab account.
You will note that the details of this little roundup are a bit sketchy. This is because they don’t matter. Nothing could be more irrelevant than whatever Vaughn and Nehlen had argued about or Nehlen’s purported reasons for doxxing Vaughn. Regardless of whether Nehlen was in the right while he was bickering with Vaughn, he quickly slithered into the wrong for what he did. There is no excuse. Ricky Vaughn could have been sleeping with Paul Nehlen’s wife, and Nehlen would still have been in the wrong. Doxxing honest members of the movement—whether they are Alt Right, Dissident Right, Alt Lite, or whatever—should be tantamount to instant expulsion and persona non grata status. This is actually an easy case to adjudicate. Nehlen proved that he couldn’t handle the fame and influence he was having and got a little too big for his britches. He put his ego before the movement and revealed a vindictive streak that, until now, many of us (myself included) thought he had under control.
So what’s next for Paul Nehlen? Given how often he shoots from the hip, sometimes without looking first, I really have no idea. That’s what makes him scary. Will he attack someone else in the movement? Will he try to dox me for writing this article?
While banishing Nehlen will come easy to the white advocacy, identitarian, and nationalist communities, admitting that we were wrong for supporting him all this time will be much more difficult. I was one of these people, and so I feel I deserve a small amount of the blame for what has happened. It is possible that someone could have been persuaded by one of my Nehlen essays to donate to his campaign or volunteer for him or defend him publicly. A month ago, knowing this would have flattered me. Today, it mortifies. I had been caught up in the excitement of a bona fide political candidate embracing his white identity and pushing for white interests. When he fought hard for us on social media we cheered him on. Even when he was jeopardizing his own campaign with his questionable choice of language or the acidic tenor of his messaging or his constant Jew-baiting, we still rooted for him. He was /ourguy/ after all.
It would be easy enough to say that I have been betrayed. But no. Ricky Vaughn has been betrayed. Regardless of one’s opinion of him, this man’s life will never be the same again. It’s one thing to be outed by the enemy as Millennial Woes was in early 2017. It’s something else to be betrayed by a nominal ally in Nehlen. To a lesser degree, the pro-white movement has also been betrayed. Paul Nehlen had an opportunity to be the ‘first Alt Right congressman’ as Jim Goad put it. Something changed however in late 2017. Nehlen became more interested in leading the Alt Right online community itself rather than taking the Alt Right undercover to Washington. And this was fine too, and likewise a lot of fun, especially if you go on Gab a lot. But by doxxing Vaughn not only did he hurt one of our guys, but he suddenly made the movement a more dangerous place to be if you’re anonymous, like many of us are. And for what? Because some shitposter rubbed his ego in the mud online? Sure, it hurts. I’ve felt a little of that hurt myself. But hurt like that comes with the territory, doesn’t it? Nehlen is a politician. He should know this. I am sure every single Dissident Right leader has felt the pain of character assassination from within the movement. I have seen what goes on. Punches do not get pulled. Things can get quite vicious. But this is still family. We have to remember to always close ranks and keep altercations within the house. That’s how we stay strong. That’s how we eventually win. But by doxxing Vaughn, Nehlen effectively isolated him so our enemies can tear him apart. This is tantamount to working with the enemy, and as we all know, no radical movement can survive long if its leaders work with its enemies. This is why Paul Nehlen harms the movement. This is why Paul Nehlen must no longer be part of the movement.
And the thing is, the signs were all there. I’m sure many of us saw them and misinterpreted them as I did. In my review of his 2017 book Wage the Battle, I show how one year ago Nehlen was not much more than a mainstream right winger with pointy elbows, not unlike Ann Coulter. Later, he proved himself highly aggressive with his anti-Ryan memes and wickedly good at trolling. We, of course, didn’t object since Ryan certainly deserved the abuse. Then Nehlen revved up the Jew-baiting and announced that he was reading Kevin MacDonald’s counter-Semitic classic The Culture of Critique. This was also fine. The Jewish Question does need to be pushed back into mainstream discussion, and who better to do it than Paul Nehlen? Furthermore, it’s not like his Jewish targets didn’t deserve a little baiting. But then Steve Bannon distanced himself from him. We chalked that up to Bannon being a civic nationalist, not a real man of the Dissident Right. Mike Cernovich also distanced himself from him. He said Nehlen was not a team player. Well, that makes sense, we thought. Cerno’s a cuck who won’t take on the Jewish Question. So of course he would say that. Then in 2018 (several weeks after my Wage the Battle review), Jared Taylor distanced himself from him. Initially Nehlen had been invited to speak at the 2018 American Renaissance conference. But after taking a close look at Nehlen’s campaign, Taylor disinvited him from speaking (but not from the conference). Nehlen responded by embargoing the conference altogether and making a big stink about it on social media.
For me, that’s when the cracks in the dam began to appear. Sure, Nehlen had his supporters, many of whom accused Taylor of cucking to the Jews. But other voices began to pop up. Nehlen’s campaign does lack a certain amount of class. Maybe Taylor was put off by that. Nehlen does kind of beat a dead horse with the Jew thing as well. Maybe that made Taylor uncomfortable. Nehlen also had some nice things to say about Louis Farrakhan, didn’t he? That certainly wouldn’t fly at Amren. So maybe Taylor wasn’t completely out of his mind by disinviting him. Furthermore, Nehlen certainly could have handled it better. He could have realized that the JQ simply isn’t Taylor’s thing and simply acquiesced to a man who has been a leader in this movement for a quarter century. Such unity would have been good for the movement. But no. Instead, Nehlen decided he’d rather hurl barbs at Taylor almost as if Taylor were a real enemy on the fake Right like Ben Shapiro or John Podhoretz. Furthermore, he said nothing when some of his followers posted disgusting comments about Taylor on his Gab posts. This all happened in late March, perhaps three weeks ago as of this writing. This was when I began to suspect that I had made a mistake in praising this man.
But the Vaughn doxxing sealed the deal for me. Maybe Bannon and Cernovich had had a point all along? Maybe they knew something we didn’t? Maybe they weren’t cucking? Maybe we were too blinded by enthusiasm to notice? Imagine that. The Alt Lite being right, and the Alt Right being wrong. Admitting such things and contemplating how they came to be is never pleasant. All we can do now is man up and move on and not be fooled again. That, and give a hat tip to perspicacious bastards like the Z-Man, who saw through Paul Nehlen from the very beginning.
But you know what hurts the most in all of this? That on paper Paul Nehlen remains excellent. He says the right things on immigration. His #ShallNotCensor legislation is just the thing we need. His economic positions are sound. He understands the pervasive threat of anti-white racism. He hates the Left in all of its manifestations. And, most importantly, he’s woke on the Jewish Question. If such a candidate seems too good be true, well, maybe he is. At least right now. If there is a silver lining in all this, it’s that Paul Nehlen has provided us a blueprint of what a Dissident Right leader can do correctly. And if a leader emerges who can emulate Nehlen in this regard and eschew his now obvious failings, we would have a tremendous leader on our hands.
But a question still remains. Despite all that has happened do we still want him to beat Paul Ryan this summer? I really don’t know, because if you can turn on your own, you can turn on anyone.
23 comments
To me, this issue isn’t about doxxing. Ultimately, in the final analysis, this is about what the Alt Right is. Are we – in the end – white nationalists with a white ethnostate as the final goal, or are we using white nationalism as a vehicle – a kind of Trojan horse – to advance a paleo conservative agenda? This is the issue we need to tackle.
For me, it seems we are advocates for non-intervention abroad, economic protectionism at home, and anti-immigration. This is pure Buchananism.
This is fine with me. If this is white nationalism, count me in.
I don’t think this discussion about doxxing with Nehlen and Vaughn can even be coherent without ultimately also discussing just who the hell we are and what PRECISELY we are doing.
Ben,
Very interesting distinction. Theoretically, I think there could be overlap between Buchananism and WN if enough whites have the will to deport millions of non-whites and cleanse out most of the rest. I’m afraid that once a majority of us has the will to do this, we will no longer have the electoral power. After that, it is Civil War II. And at that point, I am sure most of the paleocons will be on our side.
Ricky shouldn’t have been doxxed. Doxxing shouldn’t be taken likely and Nehlen, quite frankly, seems unhinged, but this case does bring up some potential issues it seems nobody is touching on.
https://dividedline.org/2018/04/07/rickygate-doxxing/
As I’ve said on Gab, the problem that arises from the mentality expressed by the article you linked is that it leads to individual people feeling like THEY can just become the thought police of the Alt Right and decide that this or that person is not WN enough, and therefore is not one of us, and so deserves to be doxed. “Ricky sounds a little like a CivNat and says we should be concerned with optics?? NOT ONE OF US! BRING OUT THE DOXING MACHINE! Because the unique set of rules that I have established in my brain says so!”
Only chaos can come from this Judge Dredd mentality
It’s gray area admittedly. But the point is that it’s gray area that you can’t afford to ignore.
Of course it shouldn’t be ignored. But that doesnt mean independent actors should be allowed to just make it up in their minds that this or that person needs to be doxed because he is a “GOP shill” or whatever. These things need to be discussed among leaders within the movement, or something.
Just out of curiosity, is your handle a Dunmer name? It sounds exactly like one. Hope you don’t mind my asking.
Haha yes it is. Half of it is. It’s a way of paying homage to my love of Morrowind.
That’s great. I have Elder Scrolls on the brain disease so it stood out.
I believe there’s some articles on it here
Thr fact that Ricky put himself on par with Antifa is the true issue here. Not the issue of doxxing and I am someone who stood against the dox. But the blatant disregard for the facts is disgusting really. Dors anyone have a problem with the 650 antifa who wete doxxed? NO. Why? Because there enemies of the Alt Right. Ricky litterally admitted to purposely subverting and splitting the alt right. This makes him essentially antifa and from that angle doxxing doesn’t seem so evil. Be honest or stop righting repetitive articles for the love of God.
“Ricky litterally admitted to purposely subverting and splitting the alt right. ”
Bull. Did he tell you its dumb to put on stahlhelm and goose step around in front of the normies and that hurt your precious feelings?
Ricky tried so hard to give the alt-right the tough love that i did not want but badly needed. There can be no doubt now, the message is clear: only kooks and charlatans are welcome in this treehouse, smart effective winners are NOT welcome.
I don’t know that a comparison between Ricky and antifa is fair, and I’m pretty certain he shouldn’t have been doxxed, but this whole thing is a lot more complicated than simply clinging to the safe, comfortable ‘thou shalt not doxx’ commandment because we’re afraid of nuance or thinking for ourselves. It isn’t at all clear that actual informants and astroturfing shills shouldn’t be doxxed. And they would be doxxed for the same reason doxxers are doxxed, because they undermine trust.
LGBT cool kid identity politics leftists broke out of their ghettos and mainstreamed because an astroturfing Democratic Party saw the opportunity to use them to eclipse and sideline the labor left which threatened their corporate donors. Now the left shills for cheap labor mass immigration and wars in Syria, completely against the interests of the working class they claim to care about. Really think about that, how total that subversion was and how quickly it happened. You’re telling me that actual subversive astroturfers seeking to use a white identity movement or destroy it with infighting and factionalism should just be tolerated because of a zero tolerance doxx policy? We’re not even allowed to question this wisdom of this without being accused of being a SIEGE posting fetishist who lives in a trailer park and who wants the alt right to remain some dopey, embarrassing subculture? That’s wildly dishonest.
Anybody who is reasonable wants white nationalism to go mainstream and I think we can all agree that we can’t do that with antisocial goon marches, but I’m not convinced anybody who thinks this actually has a realistic solution. You’re all acting it’s a debate about purging people as if you even have the ability to purge anyone. You don’t. We’re not talking about top down hierarchical and official organizations where you can revoke people’s membership cards. Really what you’re talking about is just attacking your own supporters, regardless if you wanted their support or not. There’s literally nothing to be gained from it except another round of the endless disavowal game where we give Jewish lies about history power and sign off on our enemy’s frame instead of making them accept our frame.
There’s no Jewish media somewhere that is going to make a distinction between your white nationalist organization and embarrassing goon marchers with poor fashion sense who play to Jewish stereotypes about their critics. They’re not going to say “oh well these are the good white nationalists, let’s not confuse them with the bad ones.” You will get lumped in with them either way. You think you’re going to be free of “goons?” Who is a goon anyway? Anybody can be a goon. Are you sure you aren’t a goon to somebody else? Nobody with tattoos or a BMI beyond a certain limit can support white identitarianism? This is getting stupid. I just don’t see where anybody realistically expects this to go.
I’m definitely open to having my mind changed on this, I’m not a bridge burning partisan or anything, but as far as I can tell, the only actual solution to fetishists, “goons,” and others you disapprove of (and everybody disapproves of somebody), is to ignore them. Quietly distance yourself from them, if you can, and if you can’t, respectfully disagree or try to offer constructive criticism. They’re not going anywhere anyway. Again, there will be no night of the long knives. You’re not going to purge them or impose dress codes or codes of conduct on normal people who are just supporters. They’re not members of organizations and even if you did have an organization like this, it would still be disastrous to attack people outside of it who support you simply because you don’t like how they dress.
The only thing that can realistically be done is to ignore these people. Bridge burning does nothing but discard any possibility of convincing them to stop doing what they’re doing, so what is the point of it?
Well the proof will be in the pudding now. Let’s see if his “optics cucking” serves him well in his future endeavors. I think it won’t. He will be cast in tge same light as those he has relentlessly been castigating. He will be seen as a clean cut, bourgeois “neo-nazi rayciss”. That’s my 2¢.
You may be right. To me, it is a goldfish bowl, I have never visited the U.S.A. Would like to some day.
Still, I am white, very good test scores, sports, etc. However, I have to live in an alien society to have appreciation (and I get and deserve it). If my spirit was dirty enough to be a real-estate speculator, I would be quite rich without going anywhere. Working-class mentality, so that is dirty, no!
Not a bad thing.
As not the only ex-commie on this site, I say it is crucial to your cause for members who can do so to build small- and medium-sized businesses doing practical things, commies used to do that.
The threat of destruction from the lunatic modern western left is too great. People need an alternative place to work.
As for Vaughan, six-figure salary for years, probably an inflated pension, he can still take international holidays and do his own projects (if he has the imagination to have any) until the end of his life.
Ricky doesn’t compare to Antifa and you know that. This is an example of what I’m talking about that creates problems in the long run. Individuals think “Ricky said this thing I don’t like, so he’s the same as antifa” and then act on that conviction, and it leads to problems for the movement.
Great way to dismiss the obvious fact that he and Weev admitted to dividing the movement on purpose. I’m sorry your wrong it has nothing to do with a disagreement in opinion in many ways. Now I’ll agree that much of this is egos and gas lighting. However the facts are the facts. I stand against doxxing but one could make a clear argument that Vaughn is the exception because he wasnt alt right according to his own words and his open hostility towards us, to destroy us puts him in fair game.
These debates are about fundamentally important topics. Not pointless side issues. The choice is to embrace self-marginalizing, subcultural goonery — or break out of the margins. Funny how the losers of this debate are pretending that it is nothing but pointless divisiveness or outside divide and conquer.
First, if elected, Nehlen certainly won’t be taking Ryan’s place as Speaker of the House. I don’t know if some actually think that but sometimes it seem like it. If elected I would be surprised if he is even given any committee assignments, Repub. party leadership knowing who/what he is.
Second, I sense Nehlen’s danger (or potential for it) as being an embarrassment to the Alt-Rgt/White-Nat in some way. The news media will try to bait him, even, to make him do/say something to blow out of proportion. We’ve all seen the media do this to those they wish to destroy.
So, whether he is a Trojan Horse or not, in office there will be an “incident” that will result in the Alt-Rgt/White-Nat being (probably permanently) tagged with a derogatory characterization.
Thank-you for speaking out against Nehlen. He’s the one who needs to be made an example of. . He appears to care more about his campaign than the movement because while Ricky’s action harmed his campaign, retributive doxxing threatens the entire movement. If someone lacks the altruism to take one for the movement, he should not be part of it.
In our eagerness for Trumpist candidates, we were projecting our hopes onto Nehlen. We mistook his recklessness for bravery, & his purity spiralling for 4D chess tactical vision.
The bottom line is that our side needs to be way more cautious about rising stars w/ little track record of long haul fighting in the trenches.
Mature allies like Pat Buchanan, Tom Tancredo or Kris Kobach would never have been this erratic or self destructive.
What do we think about being VINDICTIVE? There are plenty of ways to deal with disagreements, but what about the CHARACTER of a man who chooses to be vindictive in response to his disagreement, anger, etc.? I could imagine a future where Nehlen is in Congress making deals that harm our goals because his moral compass is “flexible”.
Anglin, in his entertaining article, consistently uses plural forms in statements re. the doxxing in his article. I would guess that this Nehlen has neither the patience nor the skill to have made the correlation between Vaughan on-line and the real person by himself.
Having seen it done (ROFMLAO) in Wiki contexts (not just the ‘paedia) up to abt. ten years ago, it does take a little concentration or, as with weev and others at times in those times, seeking docs or correlations via lures.
So, there are three interesting questions.
Whom did Nehlen initially inform?
Who informed Nehlen?
How did Nehlen’s informants make the correlation between Vaughan’s ID and the IRL ID?
Most likely, site admins at some place where Vaughan was also posting under his IRL name, but there are several other possibilities.
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