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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35419 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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I am curious, because I saw it written many times here, but had no chance to investigate more.

What happened to the Alt-Right movement, and what makes it very different from the dissident right of now?

I first remember hearing the term to refer to a variety of Right Wing thought that rejected the more staid conservatism of a Romney or a Bush II, and particularly that did not center either Libertarianism or Evangelical Christianity (as most of the more extreme right-wing movements to that point tended to do). So "Right wing" in whatever sense, without being married to either Pat Robertson or Ayn Rand philosophically, and with an aesthetic that was more rude mix of 4chan and "punk rock" than suit-and-tie George Will.

During/After the 2016 Trump campaign the term came into popular use in the media, and self application by supposed adherents, to mean something more like what other posters have talked about. Too nebulous to ever really be a useful descriptor, it has fallen out of favor. But in many ways, Alt-Right is more like asking where Hipsters went: we're all hipsters now, and the whole right is Alt-Right now. The idea of a Republican politician doing what Desantis does in terms of both tone and content was unimaginable in the Bush years.

the whole right is Alt-Right now. The idea of a Republican politician doing what Desantis does in terms of both tone and content was unimaginable in the Bush years.

As I've touched upon before, I think that this has far more to do with the Patrician wing of the GOP having been soundly defeated, than it does any sort of success or influence on the part of the NrX and Taki's Mag crowd

I agree with your point more generally, but I'm talking more about tone (which I think is the essence of Alt-Right as a label) than about ideology or class or politics; these can't necessarily be conflated. It's not really a Social Conservatives vs Wall Street conservatives thing, the Social Conservatives of my youth were unfailingly polite. They aren't anymore, they cuss. It's not really a tax rates vs white pride thing, or an Ayn Rand vs Julius Evola thing; it's a Veggie Tales vs The Boys thing or an Oral Roberts vs Joe Rogan thing.

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