the alt-right

Not being concerned about young, miserable men being drawn to the reactionary propaganda designed to appeal to their damged egos, which is coming through their social media feeds with the speed and intensity of a fire hose, is “completely insane.”

The alt-right is self-defeating; I’m not remotely worried about “defeating” them.

As far as alt-right conversion therapy goes, it reeks of more high road nonsense than I personally have time for; I’d much rather progressives, liberals and affiliates spend our precious calories on GOTV and enfranchisement work than worrying about the souls of disaffected white boys stranded in a shitty social network of their own making.

Something needs to be done about alt-righters, but it's not as if there wasn't a reactionary layer back when young generations routinely had better lifes than there parents...

Having MRA’s and Daily Stormer types operate on Reddit and Twitter is practically the same as allowing them to set up recruitment tables in local high schools, which no one would ever allow.

1. No it isn’t
2. Yes they would

I’d much rather progressives, liberals and affiliates spend our precious calories on GOTV and enfranchisement work

I agree with this. I suspect a significant number of "alt-right" saddos will magically turn liberal once that's perceived to be the "winning team."

Tombot where are these daily stormer school booths at

fwiw, it's also true that there are voices speaking back to the alt-right within the spheres where these disaffected white boys are getting indoctrinated. gamergate was terrifying but the reaction against it probably made a lot of gamers cognizant of and willing to speak about a version of gaming culture that embodies other values and rejects both the rabid white-nationalist/aggrieved-male culture and the "anti-PC" leading edge that first draws in the 13-year-old misfit who wants to seem cool and badass online. obv that's a long way from articulating a gamer socialism that would fully answer to all the structural realities that lie behind misfitism but maybe that work is beginning, idk.

Again, go for that vision-thing, if you believe it is a clear and simple way to defeat resentment. But there's sometimes a layer of 'white innocence' about it all, where the poor white men can't help becoming racists due to the economic fallout from policies that were as a matter of fact mostly put in place by other racist white men. I don't think that strategy is more useful than what Antifa is doing, but that's my opinion.

you forgot "rich"

I say there's no harm in pursuing both approaches

but there is definitely harm in thinking this problem goes away on its own

I don't think anyone here is doing that. And the rich white men got the votes of the poor white men to do their bullshit. So there's kinda no need to add that qualifier.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=recruiting+teenagers+white+nationalism

I don't think anyone here is doing that.

I pretty much am.

lol I was gonna say

lol, fair point. But even rushomancy seems to me to advocate more for a confrontational approach.

For example, most bullies stop being bullies past a certain age when it stops being “fun” and they realize it means they’ll be shunned by peers if they don’t tamp it down. The ones who continue to bully others into middle age and beyond are incorrigible sociopaths.

And as for the ones with hearts and minds, to allude to rushomancy’s post above, they sort themselves out more often than not.

Any approach to “doing something” about these people should be the same as doing something about any other population of angry, violent, depressed people. More behavioral health professionals, more social workers, etc.

There’s no need, and no excuse, for perpetuating the privilege of white guys by extending a special olive branch to alt-right dumbasses and their potential converts.

guess who ends up suffering if that effort isn't made

Tombot otm tbh

I also keep thinking we should just start terrorisming them

cool answer

I’m also angry and white

I keep hoping one of these socialist organizers I hear about will organize me into a militia but nobody has come a knockin

Have you tried Antifa?

I'd like to hear more about what yr antifa ppl do Fred, ime most antifa ppl I encounter are anarchists not socialists

i think there's a way that the majority of alt-righters could end up "outgrowing" it while the movement as a whole still grows in power. even if the the majority of them end up dropping out of it fairly soon, if the rate of new arrivals outpaces the rate of exits, the group continues to get larger.

I can’t be an anarchist bc I love rules so much

I'd like to hear more about what yr antifa ppl do Fred, ime most antifa ppl I encounter are anarchists not socialists

― Simon H., 12. februar 2018 17:42 (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The ones I know are from the Redox program, they do research into far righters who try to stay anonymous, figure out who is organizing, who is a member of which group and which other groups they are collaborating with. I've met them since I've written about MRAs and alt-righters in the Danish film industry. They pretty routinely support the Unity List, the far-left party that got 18% of the vote in the municipal election in Copenhagen last fall. The existence of that coalition means a lot of far-left distinctions doesn't mean as much as I guess it does in other countries.

I think we're slowly seeing that elsewhere too, I mean DSA is openly trying to be "multi tendency"

alt-righters could end up "outgrowing" it while the movement as a whole still grows in power.

yep. they'll stop posting wacky little frog cartoons on the internet and start running for office. and yes, a lot of these guys are disaffected and have no economic agency. but LOTS of them are just middle and upper middle class fratty bros who just like to troll. they'll "grow up" and get with jobs in finance or GOP politics.

That makes them no different than their forebears

I mean if the problem here is that alt-right boys grow up to be garden variety Republican men, uh

https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people

Kill ‘em back

I mean, not really, maybe, but goddamn

100 victims over 4 years is less worrisome than stinging insects

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/16/chart-the-animals-that-are-most-likely-to-kill-you-this-summer/

idk if I would describe them as "fratty bros" -- part of their whole thing (the "alt" part) is defining themselves in part as opposition to fratty bros, "chads" if you will

I mean if the problem here is that alt-right boys grow up to be garden variety Republican men, uh

Like all those Young Tories in the 80s and 90s with their Hang Mandela badges and t-shirts who turned into Old Tories who'd rather not talk about when they were Young Tories.

Whites still have quite a ways to catch up, 7000+ dead by Islamic terrorists in the same time period (if this is how we're choosing to look at things) (obviously I find silbys post reprehensible)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks

in an American context, the majority of mass shootings are done by white folks and right-wing nationalist goons.

Yeah I wouldn't really go down that road SB. But I'll see your Wikipedia (sigh) link and raise you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States

Mass shootings are just one of the dangers of far right ideology. For every one mass shooter there are probably 10,000 me who share that kind of extremely antisocial, grievance driven way of looking at the world. And now the alt right is giving these tendencies in American life — this disease — a more political shape, and the shape is an ideology of white supremacy and male supremacy. It’s poisonous to the whole society. Of course it’s *their* moral failure for turning to hate but the costs of are borne by all of us, especially the most vulnerable groups.

*10,000 men

I don’t have the answers to this but I find it really troubling.

Meanwhile, Kent State TPUSA organizer quits publicly:

http://libertyhangout.org/2018/02/im-turning-point-usas-top-activist-in-the-country-im-quitting-this-shitty-organization/

.@charliekirk11 you should’ve been the one in the diaper

— TPUSA at Kent State (@TPUSAatKent) February 12, 2018

sadly we are all the ones in the diaper now

The answer to mass shootings in the USA is strong gun control, which will require work on GOTV and enfranchisement efforts to win elections. The answer to depressed, angry, disaffected populations is a strong commitment to investing in domestic mental health and social work programs at every level of government, which requires the same thing.

But let’s keep wringing our hands over where these asshole saddos are coming from like this shit is in any way new or unique.

the sort of lost mb resentful young ppl chaos sex dragon man is appealing to exist in all manner of societies including ones which are much more socialist than the US cld conceivably get in our lifetimes so I'm not convinced leftist groups have much to offer them. saying its 'capitalism' is the source of their ills is as useless as saying it's society, or america, or the patriarchy. the psychological lens (& mythic dragons) gives ppl a sense of individual control which is not really what the left deals in

The ravages of late capitalism as a totalising lens through which to read the grievances of angry young men is an unsurprisingly short-sighted way of looking at it. A yearning for community and social recognition in response to slights real and/or perceived, a desire to enter the proving grounds and emerge a seemingly capable, strong male adult, strike me as the driving forces behind aspirant Jordan Petersons and their ilk. The question of masculinity is the fulcrum here imho. As a side note, I highly doubt public shaming is the proper corrective, barring a few cases.

a desire to enter the proving grounds and emerge a seemingly capable, strong male adult

I wonder what could be helping convince young men they won't grow up to be capable adults? definitely not their (and everyone else's) dwindling career prospects

A yearning for community

sorry to sound reductionist again but yknow our economic system is *fantastic* at creating a hyper-atomized and alienated population