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The Dissident Right is bigger now than the alt-right ever was in its heyday in terms of engagement with ideas and content and influence. Matt Walsh is only the most recent of a long list of big-C Conservative influencers who now essentially adopt 2017 alt-right talking points on race and increasingly, maybe Israel even.
The irony of those like Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray trying to spread moral panic over the platforming of "Woke Right" is that it actually describes themselves better than it does the DR. Peterson, Murray and Woke alike are in alignment over high values like anti-racism and individualism, they just have different criteria for how those values are achieved. But both the Woke and Peterson will be scandalized by the DR critique of those values and the DR's rejection of this Boomer moral paradigm which they all pretend is centuries old but only goes back to, like the 60s at the earliest.
The Boomer consensus is essentially an anti-fascist dialectic- fascism is the most evil thing in the world and whether Right or Left, the operative question is how do we optimize to prevent Fascism, and both Conservatives including Peterson and Douglas Murray and the Woke are playing their part. What neither of them can stand is the Dissident Right which openly flaunts the anti-fascist norms enforced by both the Conservatives and Woke. The DR is a rejection of the Boomer Consensus and a rejection of the entire "Conservative v Woke" dialectic.
There's no going backwards. The "Conservative v Woke" dialectic that Peterson desperately wants to save is going by the wayside thanks to an Avant-garde Right wing which is terrifying to both Conservatives and Woke.
Edit: Just a few days ago, Matt Walsh reposted a crypto-Swastika on X (if you don't see it at first, try squinting). I believe he knew what he was doing. Not to say Walsh is a Nazi or anything, it's the flirtation with the edgy right-wing humor and symbolism that is novel compared to the Conservative puritans who call the DR "woke".
Saying he "reposted" a swastika seems like a bit of a bait-and-switch. Matt replied to a guy's tweet. (The guy could have been a troll, whatever).
Arguments over if Matt noticed the swastika; and if not, should he apologize; are all assuming that the swastika imagery has some sacred evilness that means Matt needs to drop whatever he's doing and point it out and condemn it. He doesn't. You know those silly Facebook engagement bait posts that say, "children of the Devil will scroll past this" and its a picture of Jesus or whatever?
This whole swastika discourse is just the libtard version of that. Matt scrolled past a picture of Jesus and people are hounding him over it. I guess you're right that he is flaunting the norms. I wish he'd make a Shiloh-tier video about this instead of just putting out the one tweet.
Yes, literally says he was trolling.
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I doubt it. It's not at all easy to notice unless someone tells you it's there, and the guy Wash is replying to (the one who posted the picture, I assume) is making a leftist argument, which Matt is rebutting. There's no tongue in cheek winking or anything like that.
In what world is that a leftist argument? Is it even an argument at all?
What would you call it? It seems to be a statement made to make a point of some sort, based on Walsh's reply I would assume it is coming from the political left.
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Yes, but the Dissident Right is a broader category than the Alt Right. I have the feeling you're implying that the Boomer Consensus is anti-fascist, therefore the Dissident Right is fascist or fashy, whereas I would say it's merely anti- or non- liberal.
My post already got way too long, but I was considering a whole section comparing and contrasting the recent Triggernometry interviews with Deborah Frances and Lily Phillips, with a conversation between Konstantin Kissin and Benjamin Boyce. The first one is a bit stand-offish but Kisin and Foster are defensive if not apologetic, quick to assure that "we certainly don't hold that [insert right-wing opinion]". The second one is friendly and the tone is nearly giddy. Sure they ask some critical questions, but it's hardly what I'd call confrontational. This is in stark contrast to the conversation with Boyce, which is agrressive with a constant tone of moral outrage, for the high crime of thinking that maybe Churchill wasn't a good guy. Call me crazy, but I think people believing Deborah Frances' brand of feminism, and Philipsesque OnlyFans prostitutes have done far more damage to society than people with an axe to grind against Churchill, but it's the latter that get the moral outrage.
Well, I certainly hope you're wrong. If you want to argue for nazism, argue for nazism, don't hide behind this "hee hee, I'm just a silly edgelord" bullshit. This sort of behavior is about the only thing that would justify the anti-"woke right" freak out, in my mind.
The problem here is that the definition of Fascism is functionally non-liberal, Right Wing. You can argue that shouldn't be the operative definition of fascism, but the DR is fashy by nature of being Right-Wing and post-liberal.
But the point is that poking the eye of the Boomer Consensus with edgy stuff like does not mean Walsh is arguing for Nazism. It's just flaunting a disrespect for norms enforced by Conservatives and Woke alike. In fact that would be my criticism of Walsh, he's trying to have a foot in both camps. He's trying to synthesize the Daily Wire Conservatism with some of the Race stuff from the DR + some edgy flaunting of political norms. Where does his actual thinking lie? I don't know.
In the broad popular imagination, it might be, but fascism is a distinctly modernist/progressive ideology, and vast swathes of the Dissident Right have no love for modernity.
A distinctly shortsighted tactic, that ruins the discourse for anyone trying to take things seriously, including those on the DR.
Why not just make jokes about cheddar cheese like other normies?
I'd imagine that someone as high up on the influencer ladder as he is, would know it's not a game that you can play sustainably.
My view of the Dissident Right is that it's an evolutionary memetic algorithm generating a post-postmodern Right Wing. But it will be regarded as Fascist by conservatives and Woke alike, whether or not that is the proper academic use of the term.
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Matt Walsh’s dislike of Candace Owens(for being a schizo) will prevent him from being an early adopter of anti-Zionism or anything else JQ related.
I also really don’t think the swastika was intentional on his part- very probable someone trolled him. I certainly didn’t look at it and see ‘swastika’.
If it was unintentional he would at minimum delete the tweet, and probably send another tweet apologizing and insisting it was a mistake. Leaving it on the timeline, where it has 3.5 million views now despite the fact he is no doubt well aware of the nature of the image, points to him being intentionally provocative.
https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1923128567996780750
It's pretty clever, on my computer I wouldn't have seen it if someone hadn't said something. I could tell it was AI though. When the image is small it's clear as day. He didn't tweet it, he didn't even retweet it, he replied disagreeing with the person who posted the picture and statement.
DESPITE... usually being a Noticer, I couldn't see the swastika either upon opening the image, but the squinting trick worked for (on?) me. Kind of a small mindfuck. Maybe I am a normie (marvel_vision.jpg).
I'm unfamiliar with Walsh beyond the vague baseline awareness he's some sort of right-coded influencer, but this makes me like him—instead of bending the knee—going with the McGregor "I'd like to take this chance to apologize... to absolutely nobody" and also (possibly) calling out mainstream conservatives for being progressives driving the speed limit, although the quotes around conservatives could be in reference to progressives posing in a "hello, fellow conservatives" kind of way.
I saw the image that Walsh replied to on 4chan several days ago. The swastika is much more noticeable in a 4chan thumbnail before you open the full size image.
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That makes no sense. Why would he do that if it was unintentional?
"Matt Walsh posts Swastika on Timeline" is not a controversy that someone generally wants to be involved in. Like the Sewer Ben Shapiro telling him he can't post that, along with pats on the back from others in the reply. This stuff just isn't on the timeline of people who aren't being intentionally provocative.
On the other hand, if the sharks smell blood, they'll rip you to shreds. "Never apologize" has been the standard advice by people who observed these controversies with any amount of care, right-wing or otherwise.
Vox Day's books also come to mind (SJWs Always Lie, and SJWs Always Double Down).
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