The big news this weekend seems to have been the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. The major story is an incident that a right-wing activist ran his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. The narrative, of course, is that this was a deliberate attack. If so, there is not much to say about the media's rampant hypocrisy, as they've already been expertly skewered by Ann Coulter. However, this case isn't even equivalent to the incidents of Islamic attacks she compares to because it appears that the driver was under attack first (there is a video showing his car hit with a baseball bat before he accelerates into the crowd). It seems that the driver is likely to be convicted of involuntary manslaughter at worst, a far cry from the pre-meditated mass murders carried out by "Allahu Ackbar" chanting Islamists.
The rest of the rally is somewhat as predicted. Right-wing marchers were forced to get permits; Antifa and their ilk did not need permits to counter protest. Police did not protect the permitted activists from lefty violence, yet the right-wingers took 100% of the blame when they returned the violence or acted in self-defense. Any moral infraction by a right-winger was broadcast at full signal strength and decreed as representative of the whole group. Any moral infraction by a lefty was ignored as much as possible and characterized as an isolated incident committed by someone not really affiliated with the larger group. In short, street activism is a domain that fully and completely favors the left.
Which brings up the obvious question: why even bother with it? What exactly is the goal here? I nearly wrote against the Unite the Right March last week, because I didn't see the point. But it seemed harmless, at least, so I left it alone. Well, it's not harmless. Every other time these people organize, the alt-right spends weeks in damage control. Unite the Right as a public demonstration theme was doomed to failure. Because, guess what, there are Nazis on the right. Maybe they're not real Nazis, maybe they're just being edgy carrying a swastika flag, but in either case, those are some of the people we are supposed to be uniting with. If you have 10,000 right-wing demonstrators and one of them has a Nazi flag, what do you have? 10,000 Nazi militants, at least in the eyes of the public. Any why shouldn't that be the case? If the alt-right is okay with marching with a Nazi flag, or kids throwing out "Roman" salutes, then they will be identified with that symbolism.
The unwanted symbolism is being associated with the alt-right because no one is following the advice given in To Save the Alt Right, Punch Right. What is the point of having Richard Spencer or Baked Alaska on board if all they do is cause us trouble? We'd be better off without them. Punch right. What is the point of having supporters so dedicated they'll risk personal injury to march in the streets of Charlottesville Virginia, but they only serve to give the left a concrete instantiation on which to focus their abundant hate? We'd be better off without them. Punch right. This is the reason why Milo refused to be designated as a leader of the alt-right. (Well one of several). Giving them something concrete gives them an attack surface. It violates the principle of assume formlessness. And it violates the principles recommended on this blog in The Resolution of Ideology. These people think that if they take the full-spectrum ideological signal and make it public enough, they will win the war of ideas. They are seriously misguided, and leaders of the alt-right are not doing enough to keep these amateurs in check.
Marchers do nothing to advance our interests. Perhaps they fuel energy within the movement, but are these really the people we want to be highly energized? What moderate ever realized the failures of progressivism because they saw some flag-waving white trash walking through the streets? They are not helping us at all. In fact, the people who are helping us are mostly mainstream persuaders. Rush Limbaugh does more for us than these marchers could ever do. Having conservatism associated with Nazi salutes and vehicular manslaughter makes it impossible for them to continue their work. Everyone is now playing defense, instead of what we have been doing, slowly turning the tide in the marketplace of ideas and reclaiming the cultural institutions.
Worst of all, these activities feel like the things the lefties do, which means they must be wrong somehow since liberals are always wrong about everything. Liberals organize protests and complain in the streets. Conservatives go to work and raise families. Marches are shows of force. They are the democratic equivalent of military processions. In more autocratic regimes, the military is marched through town to say look how strong your rulers are; don't even think about rebelling. Similarly, political movements put on marches to show how strong they are, how many votes they command. A march makes sense from a position of strength.
The alt-right does not operate from a position of strength. It is an upstart political movement, even if conservatism is nothing new. It is an insurgency. It needs to start thinking like one. Successful insurgencies do not parade through town when they are outgunned. They would get demolished in the war of bullets, just as the Unite the Right marchers are now being trounced in the war of propaganda. I may start a series on successful insurgencies and how they might correlate to the arena of public opinion, as that seems to be a discussion that is either not being had or is being ignored.
In the meantime, the major takeaway should be this. One of the core principles of the alt-right is the existence of a natural human hierarchy, in opposition to the left's notion of "equity" (i.e. communism). If the alt-right practiced what it preached, none of this would have ever been an issue. No one affiliated with the march would have been permitted to don Nazi garb or flash Roman salutes, at the direction of wiser leaders-in-charge. Actually, the march would have been nixed altogether, because it was stupid in principle. If the alt-right can't even implement a functional hierarchy in its own ranks, how can it ever hope to do so in a largely hostile society? They need to get their house in order and very quick-like. The movement has nearly been destroyed for failing to practice what it preaches.
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