Summary: The Left has reached new peaks of power as it pushes the Right and alt-Right out of public spaces. This battle of extremists damages America and sows the seeds of the Left’s destruction.
The Left, empowered by its supporters in the news and social media corporations, has a new tactic that is bringing it to a new peak of influence. Opponents are branded (in the marketing sense) as extremists, racists, or white nationalists – just like Nazis! – and ejected from the public spaces. It began at colleges, with their events at universities suppressed by force or drowned out by hecklers. Then speech codes, formal or informal, worked like Newspeak in Orwell’s 1984
Now the Left has gone big-time. The Left casts its net widely, seeking dominance not just in the general media but also in the sciences and arts – and n all speaces where people work and play. Those on the Right are “deplatformed” in the electronic media and blocked by electronic payment systems. They are marginalized or fired at work for violations of PC in speech or outside work. It is an effective tactic, but with unseen risks and the danger of decisive blowback.
First, the emotional power of these labels becomes diluted when they are too broadly applied. Labels become blasée when applied to beliefs held by a quarter or third of the population. “You’re a racist!” Isn’t everybody? “You’re a Nazi!” Isn’t everybody? This is mocked by the 4Chan meme “#TheEmpireDidNothingWrong” (Star Wars reference).
Second, the process of exiling conservatives engages the Darwinian Ratchet. It’s an old concept in biology, first developed by Herman Muller (“Muller’s Rachet“, see the articles below). In 2003 I said this would make victory impossible for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. Briefly, a Darwinian Ratchet results when a powerful group culls the pack of insurgents, eliminating the slow and stupid – allowing more fit insurgents to rise in authority. This creates a rising sine wave of revolutionary activity: success by the establishment, a pause in opposition, followed by another wave of insurgent activity – but larger and more effective. Which the establishment oppresses, again leaving only the fittest. Repeat.
A similar process of misusing antibiotics creates “superbugs.” For more detail, see this explanation of the Ratchet and its effects.
Third, the Left’s tactics push opposition underground where they invisibly mutate and spread. The alt-right does not disintegrate when kicked off Twitter and Facebook. Or when WordPress deplatforms Chateau Heartiste, Reddit quarantines “The Red Pill.“, Instagram deplatforms Roosh, and payment processors kick off a wide range of right-wing (but few Left-wing) activists. Pushing conservatives “beyond the pale” tends to radicalize people. There are no moderates among outcasts. What more can be done to them after banning and excommunication? Pushing them underground means we no longer can gauge their appeal or reach.
Conclusions
Our elites chortle as they suppress the alt-Right and mock its many absurdities. But extremist movements always look irrational to outsiders, and are easily suppressed at first. The Brits thought the Boston Tea Party was an act of madmen: dressing up as Indians to destroy a shipment of tea because it was inexpensive! They then showed who was boss by closing the port of Boston and passing the “Intolerable Acts.” But, in Emperor Hirohito’s immortal words on 15 August 1945, the war situation developed not necessarily to Britain’s advantage.
Trump’s election should warn our elites that much of the American public no longer trusts them. History shows that the penalty for arrogant folly can be high. The elites of France’s ancien regime were triumphant at 9 am on 20 June 1789, when the delegates of the National Assembly discovered that they had been deplatformed. In response, the delegates swore the Tennis Court Oath – the pivotal moment sparking the French Revolution.
This triumph of Leftist extremists and radicalization of the Right is another step by which America becomes Weimerica.
See part two: The Left crushes the alt-Right, but Darwin might bring them to power.
A note about the Right
This refers to the Right as a broad social movement in America (these labels have different meanings in each society, and change over time). This is best described as the “alt-Right.” It does not refer to the Corporate Right, interested only increasing the extractive power of the 1%: breaking unions, ending Obamacare, cutting taxes for the rich, encouraging monopolies, supporting Wall Street’s plundering, lavish spending on the military (fueled by foreign wars), deregulation, etc. These policies have little broad appeal and succeed only because of the almost limitless power of money in America.
About the FM website
The articles here look at things on the edge of the known. A series of posts begins with speculation (aka guessing), then shifts to analysis as more information available. If the theme is pay dirt, eventually it appears in the major news media and front pages of opinion journals. As it becomes respectable and experts forge a cutting edge for exploration of this issue, we move on to new subjects.
That has been the pattern followed since my first posts in 2003, when I said that the US military was wrong: we were not winning in Iraq and Afghanistan (see here, here, and here). As with most of my most prescient themes, the reaction to these obvious facts was screams of outrage. That emotional reaction has proven to be the most reliable indicator that a new theme is pay dirt.
America is sliding down a slippery slope, ever faster, to an unknowable future. All we know is that it will be different than the America-that-once-was. This post is one of a series of sketches that speculate about these events. Other posts marshal data to guide us (these are the ones that spark the most rage). Together they attempt to illuminate what lies on the edge of the known.
“The Second Coming” by Yeats.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. …
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
See Herman Mueller’s seminal articles about the ratchet: “Some genetic aspects of sex” (1932, open copy) and – more explicitly – “The relation of recombination to mutational advance” (1964, open copy).
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the right-wing, the alt-right, and especially these about the revolution…
- On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let the GOP remember its great betrayal.
- 2016 revealed the true nature of America’s left & right. It’s bad news.
- Our Right & Left have lost their way. Saul Alinsky points to a better politics.
- About a cause of America’s rising tide of hatred. We can still stop it.
- The photo that made Nathan Damigo leader of the alt-Right.
- Left and Right use race as a way to divide America.
- DEFCON 2: both Left and Right have turned against us.
- Red Robin recruits for the alt-Right (unintentionally).
- A morality tale of a 13-year-old boy joining the alt-right!
- The middle in American politics has died. Now extremists rule.
Learning about the alt-Right
The Left’s sexism and racism are respectable, featured in the major news media. The Left works to suppress the expression of the Right’s equivalent (my fav: running an interview with Vox Day sparked regime change plus abject apology at a comics website). It is futile.
Theodore Robert Beale (born 1968, Wikipedia), AKA Vox Day, is an American writer, editor, video game designer, blogger, and alt-right activist. Here is a summary of his views: “The #MilRight is inevitable.”
“The answer isn’t white supremacy because white supremacy simply isn’t true. Whites are not superior, but whites are the only tribe willing and able to maintain Western civilization because they are the only tribe that truly values it. The answer for those who support Western civilization, regardless of sex, color, or religion, is to embrace white tribalism, white separatism, and especially white Christian masculine rule.”
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police
SJWs Always Double Down: Anticipating the Thought Police
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Good post.
Quick question: is the corporate left any different than the corporate right, besides spastic displays of wokeness?
Also, since social media corporations are so huge, do you think that they could now be considered utilities, or are they monopolies to be broken up ? I myself lean towards the latter, mostly out of revulsion for social media in general.
Isaac,
“Is the corporate left any different than the corporate right, besides spastic displays of wokeness?”
The Left – Right spectrum is a one-dimensional representation of politics. It is simple and easily understood, which is why we’re still using it 200+ years later. But it is high abstraction of complex social dynamics. It works best, imo, looking at the real things: people. Corporations (and other organizations) are aggregates of people, and hence more complex phenomena. I don’t believe they usually fit well on the L-R spectrum, except for explicity political activist groups (and even then, the fit isn’t too good).
“Also, since social media corporations are so huge, do you think that they could now be considered utilities, or are they monopolies to be broken up?”
The fiasco of telecom shows the limits of lawyers designing tech systems. Many are natural oligopolies, and hence should be regulated — as we have done since the late 1800s, with moderate success – in their natural form. Common carriers, utilities, etc.
Forgive my ignorance, please, but what are you referring to with “Telecom”? If a book or three would be needed for a real answer feel free to recommend.
The American Muse,
“what are you referring to with “Telecom”?”
In the Bell System, we had a world-class phone system that provided great service at a low cost. In 1982 lawyers broke it up into 9 segments (plus MCIC), which experts said would be both dysfunctional and expensive. The break-up was expensive, providing a windfall to lawyers. In the next 25 years, it was partially reassembled – at great cost – into 5 parts, plus a host of smaller companies. This process provided multiple windfalls to lawyers and investment bankers.
Now we no longer have world class communications services, no longer cheap (among the developed nations).
The US cell phone and internet systems are esp inferior compared with those of other developed nations.
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Excellent post.
Perhaps the most astounding example of this has been the pejorative “TERFs” {trans-exclusionary radical feminist}. This would seem like a pejorative that self professing radical feminists could laugh off, but from what I can see they are terrified of the label. If even radical feminists can’t safely say that men and women are different without being labeled NAZIs, who can?
There is an interesting corollary to this where people who fight the demand for conformity bizarrely conform in their non-conformity. They accept the fact that if you don’t toe the latest social justice party line you must be a NAZI, and embark on a bromance with Hitler. That is, they don’t merely mock the stupidity of calling them NAZIs (or deplorables, etc), but they then conform with what the social justice warriors have informed them disagreement must mean. Obviously not everyone does this, but it tempts more than I would expect.
The example that comes to mind is pointing out that the Duluth model isn’t really about abuse at all, but about creating a legal and social framework for women to dominate men. The weak-minded are tempted to accept the Duluth frame even while rejecting Duluth and assert that since Duluth is really about preventing abuse, in order to oppose Duluth they support husbands beating their wives, or even murdering them. This is, of course, a brilliant troll, but I’m not convinced that all of this is intentional trolling.
A perhaps more relatable example is the difficulty conservatives have with even imagining rejecting chivalry. What would that even look like? They are truly stumped, and more than one has asked me if this means slamming doors in women’s faces.
Outstanding point.
Dalrock,
Thank you for your, as usual, incisive observations!
For other readers, I recommend visiting Dalrock’s website for insights about modern American culture.
To bounce off of what Dalrock said about radical feminists.
I am not a feminist, due to the fact that I think that, since men and women are distinctly different, they should be treated differently. Chivalry, one might say. However, I have more respect for the remedial feminists due to their rejection of porn and prostitution, as they believe, potentially accurately, that they are intrinsically harmful to women.
Also, said radical feminists tend to, on average, be more apt to advocate for freedom of speech, ala Julie bindel.
Isaac,
“I am not a feminist, due to the fact that I think that, since men and women are distinctly different, they should be treated differently.”
Few political terms have fixed definitions over time. First and second wave feminists would agree with that statement. Most would consider it just common sense.
“Chivalry, one might say.”
The meaning and origin of Chivalry has been lost, probably deliberately. It’s not what you think it is, and is to a large extent responsible for the current mess. See Dalrock’s incisive posts about chivalry.
“the remedial feminists”
What are “remedial feminists”?
“the remedial feminists due to their rejection of porn and prostitution”
Very few feminists today reject prostitution. Many reject heterosexual porn, but embrace lesbian porn (the reasons for this illuminate their thinking; their scary thinking).
“radical feminists tend to, on average, be more apt to advocate for freedom of speech”
Almost all the radical feminists I see are adamant opponents of free speech.
Sorry. Perhaps I spoke too soon. Perhaps what I should have said is gender critical feminists are more supportive of free speech.
I appreciate your critique though.
This article jogged my memory and made me recall last Thanksgiving. My Brother In Law made an off hand comment about something being gay. His adult daughter, who I have long considered to be a pleasant young lady, suddenly transformed into an SJW and and admonished her father to not say that.
I have also heard younger people who I thought were middle of the road and not Antifa recruits get hot under the collar about the old movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, because the protagonists used the word “fag” to insult each other once or twice.
The left’s influence and control are breathtaking, to the point where you now have to watch what you say in your own home. It makes me think of the children in Orwell’s 1984, who fink out their own parents, sending them to reeducation camps. I wonder how long until we have our Two Minute Hate, attendance being mandatory, enforced by Antifa? It’s getting to the point where nothing will surprise me anymore.
Frank,
That’s a great example of how these terms get overused. I often hear kids among themselves use “gay” as a derogatory. As in “that’s so gay” and “don’t be gay.” They do it frequently in “South Park.” Our Mandarins have mostly ignored this, but there has been occasional notice taken (e.g., “Ugly meaning of ‘that’s so gay’ became popular in Australia because of South Park“).
The adults can rant and rave, but language on the Street is the real thing, and can’t be controlled.
It also crosses my mind that popular devices like Alexa or Google Home or maybe Windows or Mac could report “bad speak” to Amazon, Google, Microsoft or Apple and who knows what they might do with that information? Compose a social rating score like the Chinese do? I can see trying to book an airfare on Expedia, only to find out that you’re on the AmazonGoogleMicrosoftApple bad person list and it’s with great regret that they can’t book your flight. We aren’t there yet, but as I mentioned above, nothing surprises me anymore.
I was also under the impression that kids were still using “gay” as a derogatory, but am told that it’s no longer considered acceptable by the kids, probably because it’s been hammered into them at school. That said, I’m sure that many still do, but they have to be careful where they say it. I seem to recall a news story about some boys who were expelled from their school for making a private list where they rank their female classmates by “hotness”
One reason this is happening now is the national nervous breakdown brought on by the election of Trump. In some ways, it’s a bit like the nervous breakdown this country had over Communism when Mao won his war in China. we had some pretty ugly witch hunts, and eventually there was a reaction to the witch hunts. And although there were Communists and actual Soviet agents running around loose in the 50s, the fact is that we had largely brought the problem under control by the time that the public became aware of it because we had broken the Soviet codes.
The point is that the Establishment was pretty secure in the 50s, and the Reds weren’t really about to take over, but the people in charge didn’t feel secure in their power, and the hunt for enemies, real or imagined got underway, and the reaction to that had consequences that the people in charge in the 50s didn’t, and probably couldn’t, imagine.
And by the same token the Establishment is pretty secure right now. They might not be as popular as they once imagined, but they were able to sabotage Trump’s first term easily enough. The swamp isn’t getting drained anytime soon. But they’re panicked over Trump, they’re lashing out at their enemies, and in the process teaching at least some of their enemies to assume formlessness.
The Man,
“One reason this is happening now is the national nervous breakdown brought on by the election of Trump.”
I know it is fashionable to blame everything on Trump. But I think that is malarky. Trump has governed as any standard GOP president would (if he had a clown assistant tweeting). Like Obama, historians will look back at this hysteria and wonder what it was all about. Something in the water?
“but they were able to sabotage Trump’s first term easily enough.”
What is this “sabatoge”? The only thing they stopped was Trump’s “wall.” Slowing immigration was never a priority for Trump, and he did not work hard to do so.
“The swamp isn’t getting drained anytime soon.”
You are listening to Trump’s words. That’s a waste of time. It was obvious 2 weeks after the election, when we saw Trump’s appointees, that Trump would be a standard GOP president appoint from the usual list of suspects. See my post on 16 Nov 2016: “Here’s the news about Team Trump. See the promises fade away.” That proved right on target.
“What is this “sabatoge”? The only thing they stopped was Trump’s “wall.” Slowing immigration was never a priority for Trump, and he did not work hard to do so.”
Well, if he was serious about building the wall then he was serious about slowing immigration. If sabotage of the wall was necessary, then he intended to reduce the flow of immigration. If he was never serious about immigration, then no sabotage would have been needed ever. Boy, that pink elephant sure looks white.
Trump has been ineffective on immigration, but it’s not clear to me that anyone else, given the uniform opposition of both parties in Congress and the Federal courts could have accomplished more. He’s an elected President, not a dictator. It’s been claimed that he could call out the military to deal with the border crisis. Maybe, although that might be the thing that actually gets him impeached, given the attitude of Congress. (It’s also been claimed, the New York Times that the military or someone is putting cyberweapons in the Russian power grid without asking Trump’s permission because they might not get it. To what degree Trump has operational control over the military is an open question, at least to me.)
I don’t blame Trump for the nervous breakdown that resulted from his election any more than I blame Mao for the Red scare in the 50s. Neither Mao nor Trump were responsible for the derangements of the American ruling class of their respective times.
That quote from Theodore Robert Beale is truly weird. Its about as weird as some of the ‘woke’ utterances one comes across from time to time from the wilder fringes of contemporary feminism or politically correct social justice proponents. I mean, who is this ‘white tribe’? Really!
Its a valuable quote however to have featured. America is undergoing a very serious cultural nervous breakdown, or perhaps its reached the point of a cultural civil war. I have to agree with Larry’s frequent comments that its getting harder and harder to see how this ends, but increasingly one fears that it cannot end well.
The place I would have a difference of emphasis, if I understand Larry’s view correctly, is that I don’t see the aetiology as being primarily due to the cultural left, and if these guys would only give over, things would improve and we could go back to something that worked well, culturally.
The old cultural regime was deeply flawed. The reaction against elements of it that started in the sixties did have valid objectives initially. It then went totally off the rails as it progressed, and the counter-revolution, if Beale is a typical example, has also gone totally off the rails.
I have found, in reading about the initial period and its progression, David Horowitz’ books to be most illuminating. Radicals, and Destructive Generation. The roots of the insanity were there and visible from the start, but no-one was looking. They were concealed by wishful and selective blindness. If you talk to people who lived through that (and they are decreasing in number with the years, so do it soon) they mostly now see events very differently from how they did at the time.
All the same, Vietnam was stupid and wrong and self destructive. And the segregationist Old South was also wrong and self destructive. And there really were many idiotic and narrow minded and restricting cultural taboos which deserved to go. There was an oppressive culture of conformity on campus, though not so extreme as now, nor perhaps so wrong headed, but it did need challenging.
Alas however, what replaced a rocky kind of consensus was an out and out cultural civil war, so the last state was probably worse than the first. Or at least as bad. It is very difficult indeed for cultures to recover. The British appear to have managed major cultural changes somewhat better historically. Though they too are moving into the abyss now over Brexit and gender and anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Henrik,
“The old cultural regime was deeply flawed. …and there really were many idiotic and narrow minded and restricting cultural taboos which deserved to go.”
What society, now or ever – anywhere – is not “deeply flawed” etc? Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be saying the same thing. You are confusing normal social evolution with the Left’s program to burn society down and build on the ruins.
“The reaction against elements of it that started in the sixties did have valid objectives initially.”
The “reaction” against elements of it began in the 1950s. Especially the cultural revolution and the civil rights movement. Like anything big, they took time to take root and grow.
“It then went totally off the rails as it progressed”
We can be more precise. The goals shifted from reform to revolution. Activists on the Left were quite explicit about that back then, just as they are today.
“the counter-revolution, if Beale is a typical example, has also gone totally off the rails.”
Again, we can be more specific. As usual, many on the Right are mirroring what’s happening on the Left. Ethnic and racial tribalism on the Left produces the same on the Right, as night follows day. Why is that “off the rails”? Once fragmentation has reached a critical point, organizing in self-defense. The only other role is victim. From another perspective, game theory shows that tit for tat is the most effective strategy.
What do you suggest is the appropriate response to the Left’s successful programs to fragment America, once it appears successful?
“Vietnam was stupid and wrong and self destructive.”
The worst phase of Vietnam was 5 years. A society that can’t withstand such mistakes isn’t gonna last long.
“And the segregationist Old South was also wrong and self destructive.”
That was broken by 1965. The Left became revolutionaries several years after that triumph, and was unrelated to it. Look at how they turned on Martin Luther King Jr.
“There was an oppressive culture of conformity on campus, though not so extreme as now, nor perhaps so wrong headed, but it did need challenging.”
Total malarky. You are just making stuff up.
“so the last state was probably worse than the first. Or at least as bad.”
Now we get to the core, and why we’re sliding to Weimerica. I’ll bet in a few years we will look back to people such as yourself as a key element in the decline, as you said “the Left’s programs” were “just as bad” as what was before. That’s why we sliding so fast. Time will shatter your illusions, lessons provided at great cost to America.
I think the cultural civil war which replaced the cultural consensus of the late fifties and early sixties was in fact worse than that consensus. Despite the issues with that prior state of affairs, on the whole, and looking back, it was better than what the left achieved by their attempted revolution, which has resulted after the usual grace period, in the increasingly disastrous culture wars.
I don’t know why thinking this makes me, or people who share my view, key elements in the decline. I am (or maybe we are) looking back with some regret and reflecting that, in the words of the song, you never know what you had till its gone. If seeing things more clearly in retrospect makes us the problem? I don’t see why. Seeing things clearly is the first step.
We lost a world which, for all its imperfections, was on balance better than the results of trying to replace it, at least in the way that the left chose to go about it.
Perhaps we will be able to use our understanding as the thing unravels further to make more sensible choices this time around. I hope so.
Henrik,
“I don’t know why thinking this makes me, or people who share my view, key elements in the decline”
This is why I respond to direct quotes. You said (in summary):
The first is obviously false (the 1950s and 1960s were a time of intellectual diversity on universities – far more so than today’s leftist monoculture. But that belief, although false, lends some justification to your second sentence comparing then and now. I agree with the summary in your second comment, but it is not consistent (so far as I can see) with the sentences to which I was replying.
That’s not uncommon in comments. We all say things in this breezy format that, on reflection, don’t accurately reflect our views. When I do that (too often), I just say “whoops” and explain.
Larry,
Thanks for your reply. What I meant about conformity (and I did not express it clearly at all) was my own experience. There was a culture of conformity on the campus, but it was quite different from today’s in both content and in how it was generated and enforced. I recall there being a canon in the liberal arts which you did not question – if you wanted to pass the courses. In psychology, a particular view of gender roles. In literature, no questioning the merits of the canon. Express the view that Drieser, for instance, did not merit any kind of serious study, other than as a shining example of mediocrity, and you were screwed. Do not question the merits of the later James. In philosophy Quine was supposed to be a leading thinker – the obvious absurdities in the account of the so called Paradoxes of Implication or the even madder doctrine of Indeterminacy of Meaning were not to have attention drawn to them.
It was not what seems to be happening today, when there appears from all accounts to be a climate of intolerance enforced by activist student body members, supported by left leaning faculty. This was intellectual orthodoxy enforced from the top by grading.
To anyone with experience of a British university environment, it was striking and rather bemusing. One felt, if we are not there to think for ourselves, what exactly are we there for? And the answers that suggested themselves were quite uncomfortable.
There seems to be no natural endpoint to this trend of Leftist dominance, no identifiable goal. It’s purely tactical. As in, whatever the Right says, oppose it, no matter how sensible. If it violates the Utopian Doctrine, it is to be suppressed.
Which makes it rather like a natural cycle. There cannot be an enduring equilibrium under this model. The Left is having it’s boom, but a bust is coming. But what form will the the bust take?
TIghten your seatbelts, folks; it’s likely to get rough.
Scott,
“There seems to be no natural endpoint to this trend of Leftist dominance, no identifiable goal.”
I disagree. Both the Left and the Libertarian Right are revolutionary movements. Both have utopian goals. Their tactical goals, what to do next, evolve as the situation changes.
“whatever the Right says, oppose it, no matter how sensible. If it violates the Utopian Doctrine, it is to be suppressed.”
Almost all political movements are like that. It helps maintain group identity: we are “not-them.”
“Left is having it’s boom, but a bust is coming. But what form will the the bust take?”
Boom-bush cycles do not mean that there is no a long-term trend. The bust can be a complete fallback, or a cycle of two steps forward – one step back. The long-term results are quite different from these two patterns!
“it’s likely to get rough.”
I agree. Prepare for lots of breakage.
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