There is no Alt-Right

There is no Alt-Right

No, I really mean it. There is no Alt-Right. That’s not just a provocative title (the Alt-Right--which we just finished saying does not exist--believes in being provocative).

In writing this, I am reminded of something Chesterton wrote: "Thus when Mr. H. G. Wells says (as he did somewhere), 'All chairs are quite different', he utters not merely a misstatement, but a contradiction in terms. If all chairs were quite different, you could not call them 'all chairs'."  

But this philosophical quibbling has been discussed by the ancients, and will, without a doubt, be discussed for generations to come. I do not wish then to sophistic and say that there is no canon-based dogma that can be said to represent, without dispute, the movement. For the same can be said for any major substantive and substantial movement or ideology (capitalism, communism, conservatism, liberalism). Because once you put in the caveat “without dispute” you are per-force, creating a straw-man. What is free of dispute? Nothing that is interesting and important, and the Alt-Right is interesting and important.

Rather, it is hard, and I say further, impossible, to determine, what one must believe, at the very core, to be part of the Alt-Right. How does one gain membership (and how does one lose membership)? What are the fundamental points? Generally, in religion and politics, there is some sort of holy, or otherwise significant, book or set of books. The book may set down in stone (literally sometimes) the core beliefs, or it may be some vague guideline, but it is a place to start. The Alt-Right records most of its writing on the internet, and, generally, without such formal arrangements. Religion and politics then has leaders who interpret and apply the stuff in the book. The Catholic Church had councils to determine, regarding various matters, what was orthodoxy and what was heresy. Until today, certain pronouncements of the Pope are considered infallible, and are theologically binding on the whole flock. These mechanisms too do not exist in the Alt-Right. There are various meetings, but nothing formal that would establish, de-jure, the orthodoxy of the movement. Neither is there a pope-like individual to issue authoritative pronouncements.   

How then to proceed? By process of elimination, we are left with looking at the influential figures that are said to be Alt-Right. While there are no elected representatives or anything like that, one could point to various high-profile (high-profile in real life and/or Twitter) personalities that are part of the movement. It was at this point that it dawned upon me that there is no Alt-Right. Obviously, there is an Alt-Right, in the sense that: (A) a lot of people claim to be of the Alt-Right; (B) people talking about ideas that are not, or have never been, part of the Right, and in fact are at odds with the right-wingers, or at the very least, their spokesmen; (C) many of these ideas have metastasized into coherent philosophies about politics, in the narrower sense, or life, in the broader sense; (D) and, as a result, various personalities on the Alt-Right can and do point to coherent ideological frameworks that have been constructed to house the Alt-Right. But therein lies the rub: it would only be slight hyperbole to state that every major personality on the Alt-Right has developed, with intellectual vigor and fulsome thought, his own Alt-Right. And, while they are all alternatives to the current Right (the neo-conservatives or the social conservatives or the fiscal conservatives etc.) they are each a different alternative.

Therefore there is daylight on matters such as: White Nationalism versus Nationalism; the supremacy of Nationalism versus Western Civilization (when the two are in conflict--such as the Polish question); Israel versus Palestine (does Palestine constitute a nation, and if it does, must the Alt-Right then be in the unhappy position of being aligned with the Radical Left); the belief in conspiracy of the Global Jewish Hegemony versus disbelief; criticizing versus praising our (so described) genocidal, militaristic, racist Founding Fathers (and other erstwhile American heroes); support of the Confederates or simply being Neo-Confederates. Etc.

Part of it seems to be the question how closely entangled the Alt-Right ought to be with Fascism. Or at least with a cleaner, less odious Fascism whose brand-name is not so badly tarnished.     

The more daylight that exist on the key issues, the vaguer and less substantial become the core-beliefs (such as the appellation itself: being Alternative to the Right--big tent that makes, huh?). Could you, with some difficulty, write a platform that would unite the fundamentals points of Spenser, Vox Day, VDare, Jared Taylor, and John Derbyshire? (To name but a few. This list is missing Milo and Cernovich. They have both claimed not to be members .Their precise role in all this is subject to debate.) Yes, yes you can. But will be it unspecific and fluffy of the sort that regular politicians love to employ, and the the masses of the Alt-Right would hate. I would posit that such would be the case.

But, in the event that a council was established that would write a constitution and planks for the Alt-Right, that would be said to represent the Alt-Right, whatever the prior, or even current, disagreements that would exist. There would be, undoubtedly, dissension at, and surrounding, the council, and various elements would have to be purged. The solidified results would be increasingly accepted by the rank and file. A pope-like figure with ideological authority can be appointed. This is, more or less, how the Catholic Church did it, and the Alt-Right can do the same. Hopefully this consolidation will be less bloody than the Church's. Plus, it might happen with greater speed. But until then, there is no agreement on what constitutes the Alt-Right. Except that the left has chosen it as their latest Boogeyman. But that is the subject of a different article.