From God And Man At Yale to Racists, Cucks and Jail/The Trumpening: Two Essays on the Reactionary Mind
From God and Man at Yale to Racists, Cucks, and Jail: American Conservatism and the Alt-right
To compile information for this segment, the first place that seemed to make sense was reddit. Scrolling past r/funny, r/pics, and r/fullcommunism, the destination appeared — r/altright. The very first link reads, “75-Year-Old White Male, who started “Stumping for Trump” bus tour in Alabama, Murdered by Black Male in ‘Robbery Gone Wrong.” Now, of course, this is editorialized from the local news station that reported it, “Well-known businessman killed at work remembered by many in River Region,” yet somehow similar to a post on community-maintained video site Liveleak: “TRUMP SUPPORTER MURDERED BY NEGRO IN ALABAMA SURPRISE SURPRISE [sic]”. Naturally, this is not surprising for the alt-right, a group known for its open hostility towards African-Americans. Yet, interestingly, they may have more traits in common than they realize with their sworn enemy, the Black Lives Matter movement. Both are decentralized and largely autonomous with noted spokespeople but no leadership hierarchy, both are critical of the establishment (though for considerably different reasons), and are seen by members of the establishment on both sides as extremist. Both groups pride themselves on making statements viewed by the establishment as extremist, or at the very least unpleasant.
However, this segment will not focus on a scrutiny of the alt-right’s makeup and behavior, but rather an at-large examination of American conservatism since 1945 and the ways that it has morphed, evolved (and devolved), guiding the country’s conservatives to where they are today. Naturally then, we must first discuss William F. Buckley, Jr, who laid the groundwork for what defined 20th century American conservatism. Buckley, the son of a lawyer/oil developer, was a Yale-educated, devoutly Catholic Army veteran who founded the nation’s most influential conservative publication, the National Review, in 1955. Together with his team of editors, they began to draw the boundaries of mainstream conservatism. Throughout the 1950s, they decided what was and was not acceptable in their conservative society.
Among those shunned: Libertarian/Objectivist author Ayn Rand, Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace (an interesting notation, as Buckley had opined against the Civil Rights movement, stating that whites were the “advanced race,” a position he later recanted), white supremacists, anti-Semites, and the radically anti-Communist John Birch Society. In a strange way, Buckley’s definitions of American conservatism also laid the framework for the American Right’s longest ideological infighting — libertarians versus social conservatives.
Of course, there needed to exist channels for these ideologies to flow and contest each other. As mentioned above in the case of William J. Buckley and his National Review, ideas largely changed hands in that time through the medium of print — National Review was a periodical, libertarian sacred text Atlas Shrugged, a novel, and Barry Goldwater’s ideological framework(in reality L. Brent Bozell’s) Conscience of a Conservative were published around the same time, between 1957 and 1960.
The far-right John Birch Society focused its efforts on organizing through distribution of pamphlets and presences at community meetings. Though conservatives did not attain a stranglehold in America until the late 1970s and early 1980s, they built their considerable institutional power through the 1960s and 1970s through formation of advocacy groups and think tanks, as well as capitalizing on the widely unregulated American airwaves, that allowed anyone with enough money to broadcast. The major shift in American households from radio to television further enhanced conservative groups’ ability to disseminate their messages.
From those silver-screened pulpits emerged the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. To completely factor in how these well-groomed hucksters impacted the future distribution of ideas, we must bring in memetics. The term memetics is derived from the word meme, coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. The denotative meaning of the word meme (something obfuscated by the Internet) is a unit of culture, whether that be an idea, belief or pattern of behavior. Memetics is concerned with the theory of a meme as a constantly evolving way to represent the transfer of information within a culture. Aharon Kantorovich makes an observation in his 2013 publication “An Evolutionary View of Science: Imitation and Memetics” that is useful to us. Kantorovich asserts that memetics are “notable for sidestepping the traditional concern with the truth of ideas and beliefs. Instead, [memetics] are interested in their success.” Take, for example, this screen capture of a pinned tweet for the account @AltRightMemes.
Clearly, truth is not the key in this screengrab of a screengrab of a post generated on tumblr (ironic, since the website is viewed as a haven for “SJWs,” or social justice warriors, the sworn enemy of alt-rightists). This is especially clear with the first assertion about healthcare, as the PPACA only mandates that persons have health care coverage, and does not (in most cases) prevent an individual from choosing whichever healthcare plan they like. And of course, there is the inherent truth that all people to the left of an alt-rightist do not think like the crude caricature printed in the picture, but Kantorovich’s assertion holds true: They are not concerned with the inherent truth, only the success of transmitting their idea from brain to brain, with the critique of radical leftist SJW-dom evolving throughout the process.
To further cite this as an evolution of memetics, we must first look back to mainstream movement conservatism. While the alt-right heavily populates websites like Twitter and Reddit, platforms generally committed to free exercise of opinions and allow users to operate under practical anonymity if desired, mainstream (see: older) conservatives tend to stick to Facebook, a website equal parts sharing information and personal blog. Right-wing meme pages are a dime a dozen on Facebook, and come to a user from a multitude of sources. Their racist aunt, Confederate-flag wielding high school classmate, or covertly white supremacist neighbor. As far as memetics are concerned, the alt-right is lightyears ahead of mainstream conservatism — a visit to Right Wing News, the most highly-populated right-wing meme page on Facebook, proves this. Boasting 3.5 million views as of this revision, Right Wing News has a massive reach.
A cursory examination of the site’s photos (they seem to post articles with higher frequency, likely to generate revenue) seem to indicate that mainstream conservatism jumped off the proverbial meme train in 2007. The first ten pictures, in order:
- Anti-abortion image macro
- Anti-Hillary and anti-leftist image macro
- Anti-Clinton image macro
- Image macro suggesting Clinton and Obama should be arrested for treason
- Anti-DNC image macro suggesting political system is rigged
- Image macro decrying “double standard” about free speech and hate and intolerance
- Batman-slapping-Robin meme about Supreme Court justices at stake (Liberals could easily use this as well)
- Anti-Sharia Law image macro
- Anti-Hillary image macro
- Pro-Trump(?) image macro
How must this appear to a young conservative, whose experience with the preferred methods of culture transfer seemingly stopped in 2007? The answer lies in the observation of memetics in that it, like conservatism, is constantly evolving and changing. Perhaps those young conservatives on the alt-right add the fact the meme “freshness,” as it were, of their elders is severely lacking to their list of complaints in their growing discontentment with the conservative establishment.
Along another line of evolution, alt-rightists routinely cross lines that mainstream conservative would never dare to cross, especially regarding racism and anti-Semitism. While the philosophy of conservatism is by nature racist (or at least racialist), American conservatives have largely steered away from the crude racism of the Jim Crow and pre-Jim Crow eras, instead relying on coded language and institutional prejudice. Yet the alt-right fearlessly treads into this territory, representing an evolution and eventual endgame of conservative thought. Taking a visit back to r/AltRight, more of this schmuckery (so to say) in action:
William F. Buckley did not allow anti-Semites in his blue-blooded conservative society, yet anti-Semitism bubbled outside of his watchful eye. An interesting question to consider with the alt-right — do they represent a wing of conservatism simply run amok (as the American media would put it) or do they represent the raw ideals of modern conservative thought?
Noted establishment magazine The Economist begrudgingly analyzed the new movement and its effect on political discourse, ideology, and the 2016 Election, and interestingly notes that Jared Taylor, who serves as the head of SPLC-designated hate group American Renaissance, called the movement “youthful antics.” It is highly ironic that Taylor would espouse that criticism on the movement, as his own AmRen group has the honor of having a Google annotation that reads “Promotes a variety of white racial positions,” not to mention that Taylor sits on the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group formed from the ashes of segregationist Citizen’s Councils, and the group whose racial politics inspired Dylann Roof to murder several African-American churchgoers in Charleston, SC in 2015. The Economist seems to also follow the line of thought that the alt-right is nothing new. Indeed, the article refers to the usage of the term “Alternative” (referring to Alternative Right) as “misleading.” It cites Taylor saying that the alt-right movement represents an alternative to “egalitarian orthodoxy and neutered ‘conservatives.’” The article further asserts that:
That characterisation elevates a racist fixation into a coherent platform. And, if the Alt-Right is not a viable political right, nor, in the scope of American history, is it really an alternative. Rather it is the latest iteration in an old, poisonous strain of American thought, albeit with new enemies, such as Muslims, enlisted alongside the old ones. “Fifty years ago these people were burning crosses,” says Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, a venerable anti-racist group. “Today they’re burning up Twitter.”
Indeed, an important point of thought raised by the Economist article is the degree of legitimacy that the alt-right feels they have as a legitimate political movement. Their ideas find a home in Breitbart News, a reactionary news website with headlines such as “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy,” “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”, “Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield,” and “Hoist It High And Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.” Breitbart has effectively positioned itself to be Trump’s Völkischer Beobachter (Breitbart has also been referred to as Trump’s Pravda, but let’s keep newspapers with their correct ideologies), and is the stomping ground for young, edgy conservative writers like Milo Yiannopoulos, the self-described “most fabulous supervillain on the internet,” who has positioned himself as one of the mouthpieces of the alt-right movement through his crusades against what he deems to be SJWs and PC culture run amok on college campuses. Yiannopoulos also touts his homosexuality openly, seemingly to spite mainstream conservatism, which has always been somewhat lacking in its treatment of homosexuals.
The second window of legitimacy that opened for the alt-right was when Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton mentioned them by name in a speech. Clinton had railed upon Donald Trump’s social and racial views at length in this address given in Reno, NV, but took special time out to harangue the alt-right. Unfortunately, this turned into a lot of free media attention for a movement that had once thrived on image boards and in the dark corners of the internet, and they loved it. Quoth proto-fascist Timothy Bryce: “Thanks for the free PR [sic] Hillary. The #AltRight will long remember the day you helped make us into the real right.” Of course, rejecting the alt-right made sense in Clinton’s eyes, as the Democratic Party has fallen in love with identity politics. In Clinton’s words,
This is not conservatism as we have known it. This is not Republicanism as we have known it. These are race-baiting ideas, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas, anti-woman — all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’
How can Clinton opine that the alt-right is not “conservatism as we have known it”? After all, when Governor George Wallace proclaimed “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”, that was conservatism hard at work. When Phyllis Schlafly effectively single-handedly caused the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment, that was conservatism at work. When Richard Nixon believed that a “cabal of Jews” were plotting against him in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, again, that was conservatism running about below the surface.
Presented with these historical examples, we can infer that despite the tireless efforts by establishment politicians, media figures, and members of the movement to frame it as a breakaway from the establishment, the alt-right is nothing more than the memetic of mainstream conservatism. It represents all the reprehensible beliefs of mainstream conservatism, but somehow more viscerally and terribly. Examining the alt-right as the undercurrent of mainstream conservatism, stewing beneath the surface, as its memetic evolution, allows us to see what conservatism truly advocates for.
The Trumpening: What It Means for Our Society, Politics, and Culture — A Follow-Up
1/16/2017
Well, it happened. Defying analysts, gamblers, wonks, researchers, and common sense, Donald J. Trump heads to the presidency on January 20th, the second president in the last twenty years to gain the office despite losing the popular vote (instead relying on an antiquated system designed to shift the balance of power towards slave-holding states). Excuse-making, blaming, and rationalizing followed the election. First, it was the fault of third party voters, clinging to their crystals and copies of Atlas Shrugged. Second, liberals put on their rose-tinted class glasses and blamed “dumb, racist, sexist, hicks.” Third, socialists and other radical leftists arrived at the conversation declaring that Trump won because the establishments of both parties serve wealthy interests, as opposed to the working class.
The leftist diagnosis appears to, at this point, be the most rational (and least finger-pointing) conclusion: Trump prevailed because both the purported “left” and “right” mainstream political parties do not have the interests of the common individual at heart. Furthermore, in addition to this abandonment of the working class, each party committee made crucial mistakes. The DNC backed and uplifted a vastly unpopular, scandal-ridden candidate in lieu of one whose populist messaging demonstrated a deep connection with working class voters. The RNC almost had an opposite problem, in that they were wholly unable to control their candidate, nor run any sort of viable alternative to Mr. Trump’s eclectic blend of populism, racialism, and nationalism.
Hearing post-apocalyptic rhetoric from both sides of the aisle has become commonplace since the election, some of it for good reason. While it is rather unlikely that the world is going to come to an end in a nuclear holocaust during Mr. Trump’s presidency, the rhetoric employed in his campaign has, in a sense, turned over a rock and allowed reactionary voices that once stayed on the fringes to enter semi-mainstream discourse. As of November 18th,The Southern Poverty Law Center tracked over 700 reported bias incidents and hate crimes committed since the election. While the SPLC concedes that many of the incidents in their account remain anecdotal, they strove to verify each incident. According to their data, these incidents largely take place in K-12 schools, businesses, and universities, and are overwhelmingly anti-immigrant in nature, followed closely by anti-black and anti-LGBT.
The New York Times provides a more concrete view of the Trumpening in New York City, reporting that hate crimes in the city around the election had doubled since last November, for an overall 35% increase. Afaf Nasher, the director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in an email to the times that “Mr. Trump’s rhetoric normalized hate, racism and xenophobia. These attacks are the unavoidable byproduct.” Despite Mr. Trump’s post-election repudiation of the rebranded white nationalist movement formerly known as the alt-right, the movement remains in the spotlight, due in part to reactionary rhetoric spouted from the de facto leader of white nationalists in America, notable crypto-Nazi Richard Spencer. Some may balk at his description, but only need to read a summary of his remarks given at a Washington, D.C. dinner a week or so after the election. While the outstretched arm salutes and cries of “Hail victory!” and “Hail Trump!” came later, the dinner started with anti-immigrant activist Peter Brimelow wondering why minorities got to have advocacy groups like the ADL and National Council of La Raza, and white people didn’t get to play along. Spencer took over shortly after and swan-dove into an anti-Semitic tirade, reviving the Nazi propaganda term lugenpresse (which the audience purportedly shouted back all too familiarly), before asserting that the poor light cast on Trump by the media was, instead of a reflection of his puffery, an attempt to protect Jewish interests.
Spencer came full circle (or full swastika as it might well be) shortly before leading the raised-arm salute with a few bombshells about white identity, including: “America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity, it is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us,” “[the white race is]…a race that travels forever on an upward path,” “To be white is to be a creator, an explorer, a conqueror,” and “We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.” While the direct connections between the Rebranded White Nationalist Movement and Mr. Trump’s office are unclear, the group certainly has peripheral connections through Mr. Trump’s hiring of former Breitbart director Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. Bannon, who openly holds anti-Semitic and neo-Confederate views, represents the ultimate reactionary memetic along with Spencer. Spencer’s dimwitted theories about race and control are entirely false, as is Bannon’s news — yet they are ultimately interested in their success over their truth.
In my previous essay, I argued that the Rebranded White Nationalism Movement was the memetic of mainstream conservatism, a darker undercurrent tolerated by the establishment. Now that Mr. Trump heads to the White House, I feel even more safe in making that assertion. As Aesop once said, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” Since the election, both Republicans and Democrats have fallen in line, urging us to give the president-elect a fair chance, and effectively turned a blind eye to the dangerous views legitimized by Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Ostensibly, no sane politician would want to have their party line or profession dragged down by a handful of boisterous reactionaries, but all that has been offered is catchy slogans and safety pins (the latter seeming to have already faded, a fad for the times). To quote denizens of the internet, Trump was memed into the White House. As a nation, working class citizens were uninterested with the inherent truthfulness of the campaign promises Mr. Trump made, but rather in his success. That lack of attention to truth is the facet of the Trumpening that should cause the most trepidation. These working class voters will find themselves duped, beginning with the likely repeal of the PPACA, and will thusly show the dangers of a society interested in success rather than truth.
Works Cited
Greenberg, David. 2002. “Nixon’s and the Jews. Again.” March 12. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2002/03/nixon_and_the_jews_again.2.html.
Kantorovich, Aharon. 2013. “An Evolutionary View of Science: Imitation and Memetics.” Social Science Information. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9912/.
Lenhart, Amanda, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickuhr. 2010. Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED525056.pdf.
Ohlheiser, Abby, and Caitlin Dewey. 2016. “Hillary Clinton’s alt-right speech, annotated.” The Washington Post, August 25. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/25/hillary-clintons-alt-right-speech-annotated/.
The Economist. 2016. “Pepe and the stormtroopers.” September 17.
