Brett Stevens asks whether Alt Right people should remain underground. The general idea is that the best potential leaders are probably still keeping a low profile, but perhaps it's time they came out of the closet to energize the movement, especially as it appears to be fracturing. We have this notion of critical mass, that if we can just get enough people out in the open about their beliefs then the movement will snowball its way to success. However, that is not necessarily a winning proposition. A strong, unabashed right-wing/nationalist movement is just what the progs fear most and, since the prog cult is the religion of the land, it's what the nation as a whole fears most. The reaction will be visceral, and the left controls most of the establishment's more potent weapons, especially the national media.
A commenter made reference to the border wall. That's an excellent example. For those on the right, the primary concern of unlimited immigration is the demographics change. America will cease to be America. The alt-righter thinks if we could just get enough people talking about the looming demographics crisis, then the pendulum will swing our way and we'll get that wall built. But that is flawed logic. Talking race realism, or whatever you want to call it, will only prove to the crucial "moderate" segment of our prog society that the wall is racist. (We don't care what the far left thinks, as they will oppose anything we do.) The alt-right should not take a public stance on the wall at all. It's like when David Duke endorses a candidate: it tends to hurt the person he's supporting. This battle needs to be fought by proxy. The message needs to be all about protecting the underclass, keeping drugs out of schools, stopping gang violence, etc. That's the way the left fights it. Their arguments are never of the form we need to have unlimited immigration to destroy western society so we can install global communism. That is their goal, but they never say that, because they know that their ideology will be destroyed by exposure. (For those who really even understand what the ideology is.)
You know it wasn't that long ago that many on the left supported strong border control. They were aligned with the lower class and with labor, both of which are threatened by immigration. The right was more friendly to business and corporatism, thus supported the immigration (while pretending not to). As the right has become more nationalist and anti-immigration, the left has responded with staunch opposition to any border control at all. A year ago I wrote The Left is Unprincipled because it seemed that they just oppose whatever the right does. However, this is starting to make a lot of sense. The stated goal of the leftist intelligentsia is to destroy western society. So how do they do that? They'd have to start with deciding what western society is, a tedious process where there is no certain correct answer. It's much more efficient to use a heuristic: western society is whatever conservatives are fighting for. Thus all they have to do is destroy whatever the right tries to defend, then they can build Utopia! You know, I'm starting to get a bit of respect for how the left operates. These people are dangerous and you should never underestimate your adversary. They certainly are clever and cheeky, like a good movie villain. It's like in Batman, where Jack Nicholson portrayed a delightful rendition of The Joker, but you were still glad to see him fall from that helicopter to his death.
One motto of the alt-right is never punch right. There is reasoning behind it. It is in response to O'Sullivan's first law:
Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.If we let people who dilute the ideology (say, the alt lite) start punching at the purists, then the whole movement will be neutered by the leftist religion, like the Buckley conservatives today. It's a valid problem and a reasonable solution, but it doesn't hold up in the context of resolution of ideology. Not punching right implies that the publicly promoted image of the alt right must be the purest full-spectrum ideological signal possible. But that is the road to ruin. Not punching right, but still punching left, destroys the multi-layered, fragmented signal that must be presented to the public. People like Milo and Cernovich are not alt-right purists, but they are doing more to pull people in our direction, and to push forward the conservative front in the culture war, than anyone out there. If the alt-right had an equivalent to George Soros, he would be building and funding the Milos and Cernoviches. Entryism and a recruiting pipeline are important, and fighting our battles through proxy and maintaining plausible deniability is essential.
Even if we agree to all this, some alt-right purists will screw things up. They will, for example, try to make the wall about race realism (which the media will pounce on in a heartbeat), and suddenly the proxy war is a hot war in which we're massively outgunned. The only solution to this problem is to punch right. Even if we don't mean it, to maintain plausible deniability. And especially our allied warriors, like Milo, should be punching right as needed. Don't take it personally. It might not even be sincere, but it is absolutely essential to the preservation of the movement. We must punch right whenever someone risks making an unacceptable public exposure of the full-spectrum signal.
What is important is not that we present a united public front, but that we operate from a united core. The left has an intellectual core and everything stems from that. Most foot soldiers for the left aren't ideological purists and don't even know what the core ideology is. The liberal elites make use of them the best they can. By my own definition, the drive for purity is the fundamental characteristic of a cult. Cults are not political movements, and they are not sustainable. The intellectual core of the alt-right need not have its goal be to convert the world to its ideology. The goal should be to see our objectives mechanized in reality and to help our allies push the front in the culture war. Refusing to punch right for fear of losing the superficial and self-defeating image of unity with the full-spectrum alt-right signal is ultimately not a productive strategy.
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