Milo Yiannopoulos: The Alt Right’s Most Friendly Enemy

Red hats clustered throughout the audience swaying with the familiar volume of side conversations that one finds in a concert hall just before the opening act — which is most always underwhelming and this night proved no exception. Smushed between a tatted, head-shaven, woman and a cargo-shorts-wearing aggie, my wife and I awaited the performance.

Earlier, in the dull late weeks of August, I stumbled across a free event. Milo Yiannopoulos, the famed “Provocateur” of Breitbart.com, was coming to Houston. Realizing that parking would probably be cheaper than the 20 bucks it costs us to go see a movie, I figured this might serve as entertainment for an evening in September.

I say “performance” for that, ultimately, is what this is. Mirroring (somewhat) a comedy show with political tropes, Milo’s tour is about entertaining folks of a certain persuasion. That persuasion seems to include people who laugh heartily at Pepe Hitler Memes and jokes comparing Leslie Jones to Harambe the Gorilla.

The speech, broken up with random interruptions from the audience regarding jokes and references that an outsider to this “Troll” culture would surely miss, was titled, “How to Destroy the Alt Right.” Part of the problem with this speech is in the Alt Right’s standing principles, in that, it has none. From his speech, one can piece together that this Alternative Right is not a political movement but a cultural one, focused on mocking anyone they disagree with (whether it is Third Wave Feminists, those who claim to be against “Hate Speech,” and so on). The movement, which seems to me a generous word, has no philosophy that guides them but rather, they know only what they are against. In short, the Alt Right wants to see the death of PC culture, and along that vein, Milo provided 12 rules to follow in order to get rid of the Alt-Right:

1. Identity Politics for everyone or nobody at all
2. Get a Sense of Humor (stop ruining peoples’ lives because they made a joke)
3. F*** your Feelings
4. No More Immigration (from Islamic countries that are against U.S. principles)
5. Stop demonizing patriotism
6. No Illegal Immigration
7. Purge Anime Nerds
8. Stop denying the differences between men and women
9. No More Pointless Fighting
10. Criminalize Black Lives Matter
11. Build the F****** Wall
12. Praise Kek

With exception of numbers 11, 4, and 6 (which all have to do with the same genre of policy) these points have only to do with the culture (I’m honestly not sure what he means by number 10).

Milo claimed no allegiance to the Alt-Right but simply wants to give them a fair hearing and explain who they are to others. The problem being, the Alt Right doesn’t know what they are so why should Milo? This was made clear by one gentleman asking, “What do you think of The Daily Shoah?” (a self-identified Alt Right show, whose name translates to, “The Daily Holocaust”) to which Yiannopoulos replied by saying that he didn’t think those people represented the Alt Right even though they claim to be a part of it. From this, it can be assumed that Milo believes he knows better about a movement he claims not to be a part of than those that do. He further separated himself by pointing out the differences between him and this supposed movement by saying he supported Israel and thought U.S. involvement in foreign affairs was a good thing.

Beyond this Milo didn’t discuss politics much and perhaps that’s why, when he asked earlier in the show how many of the audience members read National Review, he counted only five hands (mine included). One could criticize National Review for many things, but among that list will hardly ever be “Not enough Meat” (a complaint more fitting for the current Breitbart writers). Milo mocked this low number by stating that NR had lost touch with Millennials, then commented on his sold out (free) event. This argument rests on one thing, that this audience represents all Millennials, which I can assure you, it did not. I would argue, that, unlike Breitbart readers, Milo fans, and the Alt Right, NR’s readership are a bunch of political nerds, policy wonks, and people who care about the philosophy of conservatism, not the most recent gaff, SJW owning compilations, and so on. If you disagree, purchase a National Review magazine (digital or physical) and compare for yourself. Milo’s biggest complaint about NR, while claiming he does like some of their writings, was that they devoted the cover and a few pages to “The Case Against Trump” a few months ago. I doubt he even read their arguments.

Unlike Milo’s fans, I care more about what a movement is for than what it is against (which is why I do not support Donald Trump). Were Jesus’ only claim that he was against the devil I wouldn’t follow him. The Alt Right can be against Third Wave Feminism, BLM, and so on all it wants, that does not tell me what it is for. In this way, Milo is the Alt Right’s enemy, revealing the emptiness of the pseudo-movement. He claims that The West is the Best because and solely because of the ideas and philosophies on which it has been built and refined. The Alt Right is nothing but a cultural snail of a movement, dragging along, propelled by what it hates and can mock, not by strong ideas but memes and jokes. He has begun to expose them as nothing more than trolls that roar on the fringe sites of the internet. As Scooby-Doo and his gang pull off the sheet and expose the old, angry man who would have gotten away with it so too does Milo point out the weakness, lack of ideology and formation of the Alt-Right. William F. Buckley spent most of his life formulating and explaining American Conservatism, the Alt Right spends their time making memes and hailing Trump as their Daddy.