It’s been almost two years since the Alt-Right imploded. The alternative right wing movement serves as a useful case study in dissident politics. One minute, guys like Richard Spencer and Chris Cantwell seemed like they were on top of the world. The next, it all came crashing down.
When analyzing the Alt-Right’s failure, most commentators point to the Charlottesville debacle as the moment the wheels came off. That may have been the point of no return, but it wasn’t the root cause. A catastrophe as big as Charlottesville requires making all the wrong decisions at all the wrong times. Such total failures of planning and leadership don’t just happen overnight.
It’s like sifting through the wreckage of a plane crash. Sure, the crash killed the passengers, but it didn’t cause itself. Identifying what went wrong is a matter of investigating structural faults and human error.
Rather than any single event, the place to look for the Alt-Right’s bane is in its ideological structure and the people piloting the movement.
Watch Dave Cullen’s interview of Dr. E. Michael Jones for a big hint at the fundamental flaw in the Alt-Right’s core philosophy. Guys like Spencer urge white people to embrace some abstract concept of “whiteness” as their main identity. But as Jones points out, whiteness worship unmoored from any religious or national identity is idolatry–a crude form of paganism.
Big brain bugman “biological realists” have a point about IQ and crime statistics and diversity shattering social trust. But there’s a crucial question they never address, because they don’t have an answer: Why?
“The US must return to pre-1965 demographics to maintain an average IQ above 90.”
“OK. Why?”
“So we can have functional democracy and a post-industrial lifestyle.”
“Great. Why?”
“So I can have low taxes, recreational drugs, and internet porn.”
Because most of the leadership are materialist reductionists, their arguments boil down to, “muh stuff!” And we’re right back to soft paganism.
Shallow materialism cannot stand up to a fanatical death cult. As biological realists will grudgingly acknowledge, human beings are wired for belief. Destroy their faith in God, and they don’t believe in nothing, they’ll believe anything.
The death cultists are willing to risk their lives for the Revolution. No one will risk his life for a ranch house in the exurbs, an Audi A9, and a terabyte of fat porn.
Here’s a thought experiment: If Andrew Anglin could snap his fingers and make the US 90% white tomorrow, would the nation’s existential crisis be solved? Only an idiot would say yes. A majority of white Americans accept the underlying assumptions of multiculturalism, and a good 25% actively hate themselves. The ideological factors that led to the current crisis would remain.
The argument that biological realists usually give at this point is that every nation has the right to define its membership, and America is no exception. They’ll emphasize that the Naturalization Act of 1790 limited citizenship to white people. If white folks prefer to live with their own kind, they say, that preference should be respected, just as it is for Israel.
At that point, the dissident rightists who delight in pointing out how Conservatism accepts the Left’s frame adopt the frame of Liberalism themselves.
Arguing for an ethnostate based on rights and group preferences is an appeal to liberty, not the good–the a priori error of Liberalism. The dissident Right couldn’t escape the long shadow of Liberal ideology after all.
Biological realists may sneer at Christian nationalists, but show me a nation successfully standing up to the globalist elite on the basis of biological realism alone. To the contrary, I can name a number of nations that are successfully defending their national identities–pretty much all of which at least pay lip service to their Christian roots. Hungary, Poland, Italy, Russia, and–against biological determinist dogma–Brazil are putting America and most of Europe to shame in terms of resisting the poz.
But not even nationalists who embrace Christianity as a necessary component of Western civilization aren’t totally off the hook. Their premise falls into the same soft idolatry and Liberal frame as the materialists’.
To be serious about embracing Christianity is to acknowledge that all nations exist primarily to render worship to God according to their particular gifts. The nations of the West are no exception.
Returning to Christ in order to save the West gets our priorities backwards. If the West will not offer God worthy praise and adoration, it doesn’t deserve to exist.
*standing ovation*
*bows*
Well said. Aside from the unmoored nature of most Alt-Right "leaders", there is also the problem of infiltration. I'm pretty sure that by now everyone in our corner of discussion knows that Spencer is a Fed, which is a huge part of why the Alt-Right went tits-up, but why are Rightist dissident movements so open to infiltration? I think that part of it is the long losing streak we're on (since 1917, 1865, 1776, 1688, pick your preferred start date) and resultant demoralisation, but a big part of it ties into what you're talking about here:
Rightist ideology unmoored from traditional Christianity is artificial (in traditional Christendom of course). Making Whiteness your touchstone is just another way of accepting the Enemy's false frame. Whites are hated as a vestige of the old order of Christendom, even if some of our foes have forgotten that. "
Whiteness" is itself so artificial a unifying principle that it could only arise in America, which is the only place on Earth that "Whites" could appear to be an ethny, as opposed to Englishmen, Frenchmen, Danes, etc. I've come to believe that as American ideology is inherently connected to Liberalism, that the whole idea of "Whiteness" as a thing in itself comes from Liberalism in the same way.
I'm not saying that Whites in America and the West should close our eyes to the fact that we are despised by our rulers and on track to be an oppressed minority, only that this common foe cannot substitute for a real unifying principle. Ultimately, that can only be found in Christ and His Church.
Cantwell is also a federal informant, if he wasn't before.
I recently read Michael Malice's "The New Right." Really interesting book. He has a chapter on Cantwell (a guy I have never heard of before), and wow is his "ideology," as it is, confused and confounding. The guy sounds like an utter moron.
So yeah, I'll buy that he's been a fed all along.
Brian,
Could you elaborate: what exactly is a country's particular gift and how that leads to ordered worship of God?
Thanks,
xavier
xavier
God is the Lord of history. We know from Scripture that divine Providence guides the destinies of individuals and nations alike.
The clearest example of a nation's particular call to serve God is the nation of Israel being divinely constituted as a kingdom of priests that would bring forth the Messiah.
God uses other nations for other purposes, such as Babylon and Assyria being sent to chastise Judah and Israel.
God allowed Rome to conquer the world so that she would become the seat of His Church and spread the Gospel to all nations.
Brian,
Thanks I get it. For example God shaped Spain and Portugal so so they could colonize the New world and pull up the native populations from their primitives.
Saints like Francis and Catherine of Siena helped usher astounding reforms and renewal that reinvigorated. And so on.
Thanks again.
xavier
"Providence guides the destinies of individuals and nations alike."
Hear, hear.
"The singular interpositions of Providence in our feeble condition were such, as could scarcely escape the attention of the most unobserving; while the perseverance of the Armies of the United States, through almost every possible suffering and discouragement for the space of eight long years, was little short of a standing miracle." -George Washington
That interview is really good. I only heard of Cullen after someone–I think it was you, Brian–made mention of his conversion. Turns out he's one very thoughtful and insightful Irish gentleman. Praise God he's returned to the faith of his fathers!
Amen. Thanks be to God for the grace f conversion!