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Did the alt-right ever even exist? I remember when Trump first came on the scene and people were freaking out, there were articles everywhere and people making tons of YouTube videos about the alt-right and how they were recruiting people. Nobody ever asked the question recruiting them to what? Could you even join the alt-right?
Seriously, from what I can gather, the alt-right was basically some podcast networks (TRS) and then Richard Spencer's tiny organization. His NPI conferences had maybe 500 people. Other so called members of the alt-right like Jared Taylor had already been around for decades with American Renaissance. Even when they got together at their biggest event with Unite the Right in Charlottesville, there were barely 1,000 of them and they were vastly outnumbered by counter-protesters. And a bunch of these were old school white nationalists like David Duke who came on the scene over 30 years before that.
As far as I can tell, nobody has ever seen or heard of a gathering of more than 1,000 of them together at one time. There is no alt-right to join or be recruited to and is not an organization. It has no leader or leaders. It basically doesn't exist. The mainstream media and Democrats basically made it up either as a psyop or just convinced themselves that it exists. It's probably a mix of both. This wasn't like recruiters online targeting vulnerable Muslim kids to go fight for ISIS where you could go literally join ISIS which was an organization that actually controlled land and had an army. You join the alt-right and do what exactly? Shitpost on 4chan and post edgy memes on Twitter?
Their strongest argument probably is that there were some lone wold terrorist attacks. But there were already lone wolf white nationalist attacks before Trump like the OKC bombing. And none of the closest things to leaders of the alt-right had ever committed and violence as far as I can tell. And I would argue that the mainstream media's reporting on this issue did much more to create lone wolf shooters who they gaslit into thinking we were on the cusp of a race war and gassing the Jews than any alt-right "recruiters" did.
Am I crazy here? My theory is that the Hillary Clinton campaign saw they were a good boogeyman to scare people about Trump and then the media ran with it and people convinced themselves of something on a societal level that never even existed. It's actually insane if you really think about it.
Hradzka has a good bit on what he expected Richard Spencer was trying to do with the term to start with, and what a lot of progressives were doing as well. Or see this New York Times piece (by Singal, of course) that separated the 'alt-right' from the 'alt-light' -- and contrast, even contemporaneously, other pieces.
There's a lot of if-by-whiskey, where sometimes the alt-right was just the nutty white nationalists when defining their ideology, others where it was people who hadn't denounced them heavily enough, and then other times the alt-right was pretty much everyone to the right of Mitt Romney. And to a lot of the progressive and leftist movements, the difference was kinda marginal : if you think Mitt Romney was a white supremacist, you're worried about all of them.
That mitt romney article reminds me of one from the bush campaign where they claimed that the John Kerry kids were awful and rude and used slurs and a bunch of other bullshit.
His kids at the time were two-four years old. People will write literally anything during campaign years, so long as it makes the other side look bad.
This is what mystifies me about how large the supposedly beyond the pale attacks on Romney during the 2012 campaign are such a huge theme on this forum, popping up time after time after time.
My understanding of American presidential elections is that they have always pretty much been a no-holds-barred cage match, behind the scenes, with both parties (not their ticket headers but lower figures) continuously accusing the other party's candidate of everything under the sun and negative campaign galore being the theme of the day.
However, there's now a suggestion that in this particular election, with this particular candidate, the Dems should have refrained from all this and, in effect, fought with one hand behind the back, that there was something particularly ungentlemanly about going after Romney in the typical way. And the people claiming this don't even really like Romney all that much!
So, despite what the other people are saying, I think what upsets the sort of anti-anti-Trump person that talks about 2012 the most isn't the just-so story about Romney being this honorable man the evil Democrat's attacks, that were so wrong and beyond the pale.
It's that 2012 was the first time the Democratic Party realized they had a national majority and acted that way in a national campaign. The reality is for the previous 30+ years, from Carter on, the Democrat's basically agreed with the Republican prescription of things, they just wanted a slightly kinder way of doing it - yes, crime is out of control. Yes, welfare is bad. Yes, government is too big, but the GOP are run by crazies who won't cut the right things. That was basically the Dukakis/Bill Clinton/Al Gore/even John Kerry argument.
Obama shifted that, but 2008 wasn't much of a nasty election because McCain liked Obama and vice versa, and people realized the GOP were doomed. But, in 2012, the Democrat's did thing they hadn't did in deciades - talked about how maybe, very rich people weren't perfect ideals of greatness who deserved all the credit for everything.
It helped that Mitt Romney said he liked to fire people, had shut down companies to get rich, and attacked half the population as well, basically 'deplorables' (unlike Hillary, who only attacked half of the Trump voters, so about 25%). People also forget in the post-2012 election, he basically blamed his loss on people (specifically minorities) wanting free stuff before he calmed down.
Now, I know the pushback will be "well, liberals love him now," and as the resident left-wing partisan Democrat, we don't love Mitt Romney, we just accept a right-wing neoliberal is better than a wannabee fascist, and Romney's one of the last Republican's who have actual ideas. Plus, 2012 Republican Nominee Mitt Romney wasn't really what Mitt Romney wanted to be, and he'd admit that to you today. He just couldn't run and win a primary as either 2006 MA Governor Mitt or current day pro-BLM pro-child tax credit anti-insurrection Mitt. I still don't think he's a good guy, I think his wealth should be taxed, and in a perfect world, his many, many children would not get much inheritance from him.
As for the rest, the petty BS people get hung up on happens in every Presidential election - Carter almost lost because he was slightly honest in a Playboy interview, the supposed liberal NYT turned Gore into some serial liar, and peopel already went over the Swift Boating of Kerry.
I also don't regret stopping him from massively cutting people's taxes, passing right-wing social policy, and so on. Be better than the petty wannabe fascist doesn't make you good. Respecting the will of the people isn't a high bar to clear, so I don't need to give him cookies.
But yes, to a certain brand of conservative who was used to the Democrat's being the Washington Generals, where they got most of their policies passed even when the Democrat's won, 2012 was the first time in their political memory the Democrat's actually punched back, and they've never forgiven Obama for doing so, which is why they'll talk themselves into supporting Trump, again.
Your chauvinism is showing. What makes an idea "actual", besides it "actually" being a Dem policy position?
No, like JD Vance & Josh Hawley have ideas, too. They're dumb ones, but they do.
But, folks like Tuberville, MTG, Boebert, and the rest of the newly arriving Trumpian Senators and Representatives just don't. Like, at the top of each party, the knowlesge level is similar, bu even the most down the line hacky Democratic politician could tell you a decent amount about their pet policy, whether it's ya' know, health care or child care or taxes or whatever.
Ah, so plenty of Republicans have "actual" ideas. You just think there are some loonies on the fringe. And of course, you can't find any loonies on the fringe of your own party. Yeah, that's not the same perspective that's been expressed by partisans on both sides since, well, forever. Yawn.
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