Back in 2008, the Ron Paul movement grew to perhaps its high-water mark within Republican circles against Senator John McCain. Dissatisfied with eight years of “compassionate conservatism” and a failure to adhere to the principles of Goldwater and Reagan, the liberty movement grew ascendant.
The problem of course is that with any anti-establismentarian effort, those who are not in it for the best of reasons will find shelter in the storm. Such was the case with the identitarian movement — a nativist, right-wing and racialized sentiment organized by disaffected libertarians who saw their rise and decline within the Tea Party movement as an opportunity… one that would weld American populism to a new reactionary ideology pitted against the identity politics of the left.
The opportunity for the alt-right to exercise that power came in 2014, where a coterie of left-leaning and nativist/nationalist organs colluded to take out Minority Leader Eric Cantor. This writer warned against the rise of the alt-right as early as February 2014, as other publications in the Virginia blogosphere — namely The Bull Elephant — embraced the alt-right with embarrassing aplomb. While writers over at Bearing Drift fought the nationalist drive (Brian Schoeneman and myself among them), the alt-right methods of trolling and charges of “cuckservatism” — a term used by white nationalists to describe Christian conservatives — continued to descend.
Fast forward to today. Steve Bannon — whose flagship publication Breitbart (not to be confused with its founder, who utterly rejected the alt-right) was proudly proclaimed as the “platform of the alt-right” by none other than Bannon himself — is now ensconced as special counselor to President-elect Trump. Knowing this, the alt-right made their presence open, clear, and known at their recent confab in Washington, D.C. as their Richard Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute and publisher of Radix.com, cheered on both the movement and their influence in the public square.
NPR covered the event, as did The Atlantic. Their coverage of the alt-right confab was perhaps the most illustrative:
For most of the day, a parade of speakers discussed their ideology in relatively anodyne terms, putting a presentable face on their agenda. But after dinner, when most journalists had already departed, Spencer rose and delivered a speech to his followers dripping with anti-Semitism, and leaving no doubt as to what he actually seeks. He referred to the mainstream media as “Lügenpresse,” a term he said he was borrowing from “the original German”; the Nazis used the word to attack their critics in the press.
“America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer said. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”
Spencer’s speech — though edited — offers a glimpse into what the alt-right and identitarian movement intend for America. While the clips may lend themselves to the idea that the alt-right are merely warmed over neo-Nazis, that is a dangerous error to make with regards to the prescriptions and the cure.
For starters, national socialism is a particularly German form of fascism, not fascism in and of itself. Much as socialists themselves are divided into social democrats, Trotskyites, Marxists, Maoists, Stalinists and so forth, nationalists too are divided into corporatists, falangists, fascists, and Nazis.
The danger of conflating Nazism qua fascism into the identitarian alt-right is simple, and it involves a rather simple formula. The alt-right believes in the following:
- Politics follows culture
- Culture follows identity
- Identity follows . . .
Now where most folks would argue ideology, faith, class structure, family, community or some other variable, the alt-right would argue race. They argue tribe.
The reason why there is something much more insidious about this is because tribalism is much more difficult to eradicate as an idea. In fact, tribalism is embedded in our DNA. If one really considers it, one’s circle of friends probably doesn’t extend more than 150-200 people truly (and we’re talking actual friends, not friends on social media). On the whole, those “friends” share a common identity, background, class, thought pattern, and so forth.
…and they might even be overwhelmingly of a certain ethnicity.
But don’t feel racist or anything like that. These are social choices that education, location and experience generally overcome. What the alt-right argues is that these choices should be made in the context of one’s racial identity.
National socialism (Nazis) argues that identity follows ideology. Consider again that though the Nazis were indeed racialized, they put a tremendous degree of emphasis on the Volk and the idea of Germans as a Herrenvolk. Those outside of the Volksgemeinschaft (literally, the people’s community) were conditioned to be apart, and in its worst manifestation, eradicated.
The alt-right isn’t arguing at all for eradication. Because unlike Nazism, there is an overemphasis on the technocratic, on aristocracy, on the idea of Christendom (sic) without the Christianity. In short, not only do they view Anglo-Saxons as a sort of Herrenvolk, this master race is predicated on the existence and subservience of the Other.
Of course, the alt-right would prefer — in the words of Rep. Dave Brat — to “love you, but love you over there” — but this doesn’t make them National Socialists in the slightest. Instead there is an appeal to identity, an appeal to culture… an appeal to self and to tribe that makes the alt-right so much more dangerous.
The diagnosis of neo-Nazis to the identitarian alt-right is not just incorrect, but it dangerous because it will mean an improper prescription for an improper cure. We are not dealing with an hate-driven ideology in the alt-right, but rather an ideology driven by tribalism — a hypothetically neutral, passionless appeal designed to weaponize and identity that will drive both cultural and political aspirations.
…and they intend to fight.
That’s far more dangerous, folks.