Is Donald Trump, wittingly or not, raising the profile and influence of the so-called alt-Right?
In Trump disavows Nazis, saves them a seat at the table, the New Jersey Star-Ledger chastised president-elect Donald Trump for not disavowing the so-called “alt-Right” movement strongly enough. Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as his chief strategist and senior advisor, the Star-Ledger believes, gives legitimacy to the alt-Right and its racist views.
I only recently heard about the alt-Right. From what I know about it, the alt-Right—which is not really on the Right, properly understood as standing for individualism—is racist, as well as nationalistic and collectivistic.
I don’t yet know much about Bannon, so I can’t comment on his alleged ties to the alt-Right. I can, however, point the reader to an excellent column by PJ Media's Walter Hudson, who wrote,
The problem with Steve Bannon is not his personal views, for which there seems to be little evidence of anything egregious. The problem with Steve Bannon is the role he has played in proliferating the abhorrent views of others. While in charge of Breitbart News, Bannon transformed it into a haven for the alt-right.
Hudson believes that “Trump should go out of his way to condemn the alt-right,” and that “That declaration should be echoed by a repentant Bannon, or Bannon should be fired.”
In any event, the alt-Right seems largely a reaction to the more subtle and more insidious racism of the Left—more insidious because the Left's racism is more highbrow, and being smuggled in under cover of “good intentions.” The Star-Ledger writes;
Our president-elect seems vague about such approbation, as he is unaware that he has empowered white nationalists, emboldened neo-Nazis, and inspired the KKK to reemerge from beneath its rock: "I want to look into it and find out why," he said.
He can skip the inquiry. It's happening because his incendiary rhetoric still echoes. It's happening because he has conveyed his approval by appointing Steve Bannon as his chief strategist – the same Bannon who calls Breitbart "the platform for the alt-right." It's happening because they have tacit permission to express their retrograde impulses.
The Star-Ledger writes here that “It's happening because they have tacit permission to express their retrograde impulses.” But the fuller unabridged statement in the print edition reads “Its happening because diversity is a dirty word to these ‘patriots,’ and they have tacit permission to express their retrograde impulses.”
The Left’s concept of “diversity” is racial identity politics, not diversity in the only way it matters, in the content of individual character. In other words, race—not ideas, choices, values, moral character, and the like—is the defining characteristic.
When you identify people by race, and then divide people by that standard, what do you expect to happen—especially when you go out of your way to marginalize one of the races, white people? You encourage racism and other forms of group identity politics; e.g., the alt-Right’s white separatism. The alt-Right is the New Left’s chickens coming home to roost, and all decent people suffer for it.
For the rise of the alt-Right, we have the New Left and their “diversity” crusaders to thank. When you “set the table” for racist tribalism, you get racist tribalism. The alt-Right and the New Left are not opposites. They are two sides of the same coin. The New Left divides people by race, based on the premise that different races are genetically predisposed to their own unique ideas and perspectives. The alt-Right also divides people by race, based on things such as genetically informed average racial group intelligence, as measured by things like IQ testing. The two are blood brothers: Both are collectivist and anti-individualist; both are hostile to free markets and capitalism; both in essence reject free will; both are hostile to American culture.
Racism is a specie of collectivism. The Left is fundamentally collectivist, an ideology that, not surprisingly, it also shares with the alt-Right. Collectivism holds the group as the standard of moral value and judgement—and the easiest group to identify the individual with is his racial group or heritage. The only alternative to racism, both Left and alt-Right, is individualism, the antipode of collectivism and the heart and soul of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Individualism is the defining characteristic of American culture—a culture that both the New Left and the alt-Right stand in fundamental opposition to.
Related Reading:
Political “Left” and “Right” Properly Defined—Craig Biddle
5 comments:
All the decent people who suffer the bigotry of both left and right, of which racism is maybe the most notable form, must gain total control of law and government, and deny all of it to the bigots. The bigots and any of their 'inputs', their IDEAS, must be bared at the gates of law and government. Outside law and government, they can, by right, speak and write their trash, but the cops can't let them do anything about it within law and government. That state of affairs is a legitimate goal of all the decent people.
I don't believe the alt right holds the group or the collective as its highest standard. Rather it acknowledges that groups differ and there is almost certainly a biological component. So a diverse society is likely to be not as successful and prosperous as a homogeneous society. There is a fair amount of evidence for this. And just look around. Mexico is a mixed race society (MesoAmerican, Spanish, and Mestizo). With 120 million people it has produced all of one Nobel prize winner in science. The least diverse Latin American country (Argentina) is the most prosperous.
No one, not even open immigration Objectivists, supports an immigration policy that would turn Israel into an Arab state. The results of that would be obvious. Why should people become a minority in their own countries? I'm not Icelandic, but this is a unique country with a unique language and culture. With a population of 330,000 under a regime of open immigration it would cease to exist.
If it's not collectivist to want Israel to remain Israel, Iceland to remain Iceland, why is it wrong to want the USA to remain a European country? We Europeans have only given the world Aristotle, Aquinas, Newton, Leibniz, Shakesepare, Euler, Mendel, etc. etc. Our contributions dwarf all other races combined.
People like to be around those of their own kind.
Steve Jackson
Steve;
“. . . this is a unique country with a unique language and culture.”
True. Our culture’s uniqueness is in the fact that it is individualist-based, not race—i.e., collectivist—-based. This is something most Americans of European descent seemingly have lost sight of. Remember that Europeans also gave us Plato and Hegel and Marx. It was the white race that brought us communism and Nazism and fascism.
The battle is within us, not between us and them. If 330,000,000 Americans re-embrace individualism and the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, immigration won’t harm us. If not, slamming the door shut to immigration won’t save us.
Thanks.
“. . . this is a unique country with a unique language and culture.”
My reference here it to Iceland.
Do you support Iceland having open immigration even if it becomes swamped by Somalis? What about Israel?
Why don't you answer that question.
“Why don't you answer that question.”
Maybe I haven’t been clear enough.
Open immigration, better understood as freedom of migration, does not mean open borders or anything goes. While all human beings possess the same rights, and every government should respect that, a government’s primary job is to protect the security and rights of its own country's citizens. Each country's policies should reflect both principles. Every country has to control its borders. Second, open immigration does not and should not have to mean a so-called "automatic path to citizenship." Citizenship is a different matter.
We can debate the conditions and procedures that regulate America’s migration policies. My view is that racial group averages are meaningless and should not be considered in assessing which individuals may come in to work or live. National origin and ability to be self-supporting are two standards I would insist on, among others. Beyond that, there should be no numerical limitations to migration between nations at peace with one another any more than there should be limitations between states.
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