Libertarians and the Alt Right

[lpetrich]

Why Libertarians are embracing Fascism – Elliot Gulliver-Needham – Medium

If you’ve paid attention to politics on the internet as long as I have, you might have noticed a worrying and confusing trend: traditionally libertarian figures transitioning into alt-right supporters. I’ve followed the ‘classical liberal’ faction of the internet since about 2014, the year I started becoming interested in politics. I was watching Christopher Cantwell before he became known as the ‘crying Nazi’, when his chant was ‘taxation is theft’, not ‘Jews will not replace us’. I remember Stefan Molyneux when he was debating whether we should have a government, not whether government should be used to promote eugenics.

Like Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, and Tim Gionet.

The latter used to identify as “a carefree, easygoing libertarian” who “firmly opposed the war on drugs, and championed the cause of Black Lives Matter”. But now, he’s being banned from Twitter for promoting white supremacy and ranting about how Jews control the media.

Self-proclaimed libertarians having authoritarian tendencies is nothing new. Consider Mises liking Mussolini or Hayek and Friedman liking Pinochet.

Then the New Atheism, and how some New Atheists started hating "Social Justice Warriors", contributing to Ron Paul's campaigns, and started supporting libertarian causes like legalizing marijuana. Then on going from New Atheism to Classical Liberalism to the Alt-Right, like TheAmazingAtheist or Sargon of Akkad.

Then on similarities between libertarianism and far-right / alt-right ideologies. Consider immigration, something that libertarians profess to oppose restrictions on, because of their ideology.

However, if you actually talk to libertarians, very often you’ll find that they are far more against immigration than their supposed ideology would suggest. The same rhetoric around the ‘undeserving poor’ is used both towards people on welfare, and immigrants who are apparently coming to live on welfare. This is also due to the idea that immigrants will vote for left-wing parties more (which they do), and then lead to a stronger welfare state. Time and time again, libertarians have shown to be willing to abandon what they would claim as their core principles to uphold the societal order, which places them at the top.

Libertarians, "classical liberals", and alt-righters / far-righters / neo-fascists can be hard to distinguish when they talk about "social justice warriors", especially feminists. Self-styled classical liberals much prefer attacking the Left to attacking the Right, even obvious targets like racists.

We should also discuss the failings of the left here, as much as I am reluctant to do so. Quite frankly, the left is pretty terrible at explaining its ideas.

Like Marxists talking about "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" instead of "makers" and "takers".

Then,

We also have to acknowledge that capitalists will always side with the far right over the far left. Historically, when faced with a choice between the two, the capitalist will side with the fascist.

Consider all the capitalists who were willing to support a party that called itself the National Socialist German Workers' Party, a party that in its early days included some genuine anti-capitalists.

 

[repoman]

This stuff is a lot more slippery and fluid than the physical sciences that you are extremely skilled with.

There is also the fact that capitalists will try to subvert both "leftists" and "rightists" to their ends. And why not? Capitalists have a lot of money and power. To expect them not to is insane.

 

[lpetrich]

As to emotional reasons, libertarianism can get support from anger at government. But libertarianism is ultimately about peaceful cooperation, so it may not be as satisfying as racial intolerance, for instance. Contrarianism is another possibility. It's hard to compete with neo-fascism there.

As to ideological similarities, along with supporting a dominant position for middle-class white men, there is also the belief that society has been on the decline. Libertarians believe in a Good Old Days of wimpy government, and the alt-right, a Good Old Days the subjugation of women and immigrants and disliked racial and ethnic groups.

In both the libertarian and authoritarian right, you have a strong appreciation of ideas of strength. Unemployed people are characterised as stupid, lazy, or weak. If someone is being exploited by their employer, they should just deal with it and continue to work 60 hours a week. If you’re someone who suffers from institutional racism, you should just ignore it. You can see how easily this would transition into the alt-right.

Both of them also support a foreign policy of isolationism, despite sometimes advocating it with pacifist rhetoric that seems to me very out-of-character.

There’s also the possibility that white supremacists were drawn to the libertarian movement in the first place, simply because if you believe the government is a Jewish plot to wipe out white people, you’re going to advocate for it to become smaller.

Then a lot of stuff on free trade vs. protectionism, and the belief of many on the Right that minorities are much better off than white people.

... but I think the argument around freedom of association is supported here, with ‘crying Nazi’ Christopher Cantwell writing:

“In libertarian philosophy, nobody ought to be compelled to associate with anyone else. If blacks are committing crimes, or Jews are spreading communism, discriminating against them is the right of any property owner.”

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Libertarians, "classical liberals", and alt-righters / far-righters / neo-fascists can be hard to distinguish when they talk about "social justice warriors", especially feminists.

That's true. They all have similar criticism of these "Social Justice Warriors" and toxic feminists (not all feminists). Do you think that could have something more to do with the "Social Justice Warriors" and toxic feminists than with all of these groups being the same?

Self-styled classical liberals much prefer attacking the Left to attacking the Right, even obvious targets like racists.

The right won't change because liberals are telling them they are too far right. The regressives, if they were true to their professed values, would listen when liberals tell them they are becoming illiberal. It is a change that liberals are fighting. It is a fight over the survival of liberal values. Of course they will speak more often about this than about the evils of conservatives, which are already understood and agreed on by those on the left.

 

[lpetrich]

The Lost Boys – The Atlantic – Medium "The young men of the alt-right could define American politics for a generation."

Unlike old-fashioned, monolithic political movements, the alt-right is a fractious, fluid coalition comprising bloggers and vloggers, gamers, social-media personalities, and charismatic ringleaders like Spencer, who share an antiestablishment, anti-left politics and an enthusiasm for the political career of Donald Trump.

... TheRedPill was infamous for its mix of virulent misogyny and retrograde dating advice. The young men who frequented it obsessed over the male pecking order, evolutionary sexual psychology, and the decline of Western men, who had become too meek to stand up to their women.

... But by 2015, [Roosh V] was ranging further afield in his search for the source of male woe, writing pieces like “The Damaging Effects of Jewish Intellectualism and Activism on Western Culture,” a positive review of an anti-Semitic conspiracy text popular among the alt-right. The Proud Boys, a group founded by the former Vice impresario Gavin McInnes to fight the forces of emasculation (in part through a renunciation of masturbation), also blended sexism and creeping nativism.

...
Posters in these online forums became adept at using offbeat humor and new media to wrong-foot the establishment. Anyone caught fretting about the right’s online youth movement was met with the contention that the entire thing was a joke — and anyone taking it at face value was a clueless outsider.

Part of their humor was to claim that the "OK" sign was a white-supremacist one. It was a hoax, but too many people took it seriously.

At a moment in history when the right seemed to have died of terminal uncoolness, this strategy of making the left seem puritanical and humorless represented no small cultural revolution. Ever since the 1960s, the right, holding fast to stuffy tradition, had struggled to compete with the youthful vibrancy of the left. But the earnestness and fervor of contemporary progressives, particularly on college campuses, opened the left up to mockery.

Like "Social Justice Warriors".

Then what a setback the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" march had been. What was supposed to be a big get-together only left the alt-rightists divided. But they did not go away.

It is often said that the left won the culture war and the right won the economic war. From the point of view of angry young white men, however, neither side has scored any victories. A generation ago, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher championed the individual and the market, while liberals abandoned institutions like religion, national pride, even the nuclear family in favor of individual freedom. Together, right and left created a world in which a young person could invent his own identity and curate his own personal brand online, but also had dimmed hopes for enjoying what used to be considered the most basic elements of a decent life — marriage, a job, a house, a community. (Liberalism claimed that a village could raise a child, but never got around to building the village.)

The author concludes

The alt-right overplayed its hand, fracturing before it coalesced and consolidated its gains. But the forces behind the movement, not least the rapid demographic transformation of the Western world, are not going away.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Part of their humor was to claim that the "OK" sign was a white-supremacist one. It was a hoax, but too many people took it seriously.

It was yet another example of the regressive left boosting up white-supremacists and of businesses caving to them for PR reasons. Blizzard actually kicked a player out because he gave an OK has gesture.... meaning "ok!".
If all white-supremacists have to do to steal our cultural symbols is to use them and say they stand for them, and then count on the regressives to publicize it and hand it over to them, we're at risk of losing whatever part of our culture they feel like ruining.

 

[repoman]

Part of their humor was to claim that the "OK" sign was a white-supremacist one. It was a hoax, but too many people took it seriously.

It was yet another example of the regressive left boosting up white-supremacists and of businesses caving to them for PR reasons. Blizzard actually kicked a player out because he gave an OK has gesture.... meaning "ok!".
If all white-supremacists have to do to steal our cultural symbols is to use them and say they stand for them, and then count on the regressives to publicize it and hand it over to them, we're at risk of losing whatever part of our culture they feel like ruining.

Not all trolling efforts have been as successful as the OK sign:

 

[Trausti]