I spend a LOT of time hunting and destroying the feelings of the Alt-Right. A few thoughts on what I’ve learned about them:
1) They’re weak. Oh, how they are WEAK. They’re DEATHLY scared… of sex, mostly, and all the ways they can’t control it for themselves or others.
2) They are complicit in Russia’s attacks on the West. It’s not that they don’t KNOW Putin is behind so much of their propaganda. It’s that they welcome him. They see him as an ally in overturning the governments and cultures they detest.
3) It’s no accident that we see a massive overlap between racism & sexism. The Alt-Right essentially want to control access to white women, & they couch their hatred of foreigners largely in terms of the danger posed to ‘their’ white women.
4) They will never abandon Donald Trump because, essentially, he is their avatar. He’s as immature, ignorant, racist, sexist, & incompetent as they are. They glory in the way others react to Trump’s “power” because THEY have felt so POWERLESS.
5) The Alt-Right is always guilty of whatever it is they accuse those they hate of. Always. They have no imagination, but assume that the left is just like themselves. They lack the maturity to understand that other humans are actually healthy.
6) The Alt-Right’s railing against ‘globalism’ is hypocritical, considering that the Alt-Right itself is an international movement largely funded and nourished by Russian Military Intelligence. It’s essentially the ComIntern of the 21st Century.
7) The Alt-Right has an odd relationship with postmodernism. They viscerally hate that western culture is malleable (i.e. ‘white genocide’), but glory in the fabrication of complete untruths & the destruction of objective reality (i.e. ‘fake news’).
8) The Alt-Right make poor trolls, because they largely telegraph their own insecurities in their attacks. They’ll tell you, outright, how to hurt them, by calling you the names that they themselves are afraid to be called. They’re easy to defeat.
9) The Alt-Right isn’t new. The crippling feelings that motivate them are older than the United States. Anti-federalists, Know-Nothings, Confederates, and other groups throughout American history have also hated our government and our diversity.
10) They’re stuck in the past. Yes, they want to return to an idealized past of white power that never existed, but they’re also stuck in 2016. They don’t HAVE a plan for 2018 or 2020. They just want to relive Trump’s election victory endlessly.
11) They WILL try to undermine democracy again in 2018 and 2020. Remember, they don’t see liberal or minority votes as legitimate. They DON’T love democracy or America. They love TRIBALISM. Be vigilant about turning out and protecting the vote!
12) The Alt-Right loves to make fun of the ‘safe space,’ but, essentially, that’s what Ethno-Nationalism IS: a giant safe-space for racist white people. Even their preferred media is all a giant safe-space echo chamber to validate their feelings.
13) The Alt-Right isn’t as iconoclastic as they claim to be. Their media personalities, largely on fringe networks, websites, podcasts, & YouTube, want to REPLACE national media, not abolish it. They’re JEALOUS of the ability to influence culture.
14) They don’t have a pragmatic grasp of Realpolitik. Their feelings and vague goals do not take into account the fact that they are complicit in the weakening of the Western democracies, which, of course, is Putin’s real objective in all of this.
15) The Alt-Right’s influence is largely based on the unwillingness of social media platforms, like Twitter, to refuse to be used as tools of Russian espionage. If Twitter wanted to actually be patriotic, it could cripple the Alt-Right overnight.
16) The wailing of Right Wing figures about the First Amendment is disingenuous. The Alt-Right does not care about free speech. What they want is THEIR speech first made legitimate, and secondly, made the SOLE acceptable speech. #Propagandists
17) Never forget that the Alt-Right are, at heart, authoritarians. The fact that they don’t cringe at colluding with a murderous dictator like Putin tells you that they are not defenders of democracy at all, but its enemies. They are DANGEROUS.
18) While Alt-Right figures are easily triggered by the supposed distinctions they see among themselves, essentially their Supremacists would, given free rein, enslave people of color, while their Nationalists would merely violently deport all PoC.
19) We are right to call them traitors. The Alt-Right view liberals and racial/religious minorities as THE existential threat to their hegemony; greater than any geopolitical threat posed by Russia. They have chosen Putin over the US Constitution.
20) They hate that they’re ignorant. It’s why they invent words like ‘libtard’: to deflect their self-consciousness about their lack of education/economic power. They’ll cite YouTube and fringe blogs. They don’t understand or value peer review.
21) Alt-Right media personalities, like those that work at InfoWars and Breitbart, are con artists. They are in this to make money. Watch how often RW twitter accounts ask followers for money/book sales/GoFundMe support/YouTube video likes, etc.
22) Because Alt-Righters are weak and scared, they thrive on outraging those they fear. They like ‘shitposting’ and enjoy watching Trump do the same. Don’t be outraged by them. Mock them. Prey on their fears. Proactively hunt and diminish them.
, 25) The very concept of #MAGA is antithetical to the American self-image of the City on a Hill, or The Land of the Free & The Home of the Brave. Instead, the Alt-Right is convinced of our imminent decay: which they make a self-fulfilling prophesy.
27) It’s not that the Alt-Right wants to start a ‘race war.’ They think it’s already happening. They view as the big ‘victories’ of their movement those things that are the most racist: a border wall, attacking NFL players, banning Muslims, etc.
30) Because the Alt-Right’s goals are racial and sexual dominance, they HAVE to pretend that they’re not. One of their favorite tactics is to play victim when they obviously are the oppressors: Hence things like the #ItsOkayToBeWhite bullshit.
32) The Alt-Right’s visceral hatred of Islam is not about doctrine. The Alt-Right & ISIS are remarkably similar, in fact. Their opposition to Muslims is seen as a cultural bulwark against a rival (inferior) culture that they fear will co-opt them.
33) Because the Alt-Right is a movement for white tribal dominance, it actively undermines the 1st and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, among others. The Alt-Right does not believe in Equal Protection under the Law or Freedom of Religion.
35) The Alt-Right has both atheistic and ‘Christian’ members, but the primary distinction between them isn’t a variance of their socio-cultural goals, but on whether they support Israel as a theological policy, or are just viscerally anti-Semitic.
36) The Alt-Right thinks everything they hate is funded by George Soros. To some, Soros is a representation of the ‘elite’ that they despise. More accurately, though, the word ‘George Soros’ could be replaced by ‘Dirty Jew’ in their diatribes.
37) Yes, the Alt-Right is fundamentally White Supremacist; but they find the few PoC who align with them incredibly useful. People like @SheriffClarke, @michellemalkin, & @irmahinojosa_ function as ‘token’ evidence of the right’s faux ‘diversity.’
39) Yes, as many have pointed out, loud-mouthed Brexiters are the same as Trump’s cult: There’s no actual long-term Brexit plan. The Alt-Right just wants to FEEL good about themselves. They don’t actually have any idea how to govern anything.
40) Alt-Right trolls will want to ‘debate facts’ with you that aren’t facts. Don’t bother. They aren’t Nazis because of logos, but pathos. That’s why they scream about liberal feelings all the time. They are motivated by their fragile FEELINGS.
41) Cowardice is at the core of the Alt-Right. These people could not figure out how to ‘win’ at life; but instead of buckling down and growing like the rest of us do, they’d rather upend the game board and blame their personal failures on others.
42) The Alt-Right genuinely believes ‘whiteness’ should guarantee social, sexual, & economic hegemony. Meritocracy deathly scares them. They’re like the baseball players who tormented Jackie Robinson: they KNOW they can’t compete on a level field.
43) Just as the Alt-Right has no idea how to govern, it also has no idea how to win the long-term sociopolitical wars it’s trying to wage. They ignore a long-term strategy of ‘winning hearts & minds’ for a short-term cathartic ‘owning of shitlibs.’
44) The Alt-Right is past redemption. There is no way to reconcile them to the Western mainstream. They should be isolated & ostracized. Make association with them & their awful ideas a social & political taboo: the way we used to treat fascism.
45) It is often difficult to determine the degree of ‘true belief’ in the Alt-Right media, as they use their platform to both sow hate and to push snake oils onto their gullible followers. I.E.: see @PrisonPlanet & the whole sad @Infowars team.
46) I was asked how to combat the Alt-Right online. First: Dictate the terms of engagement, regardless of how a Nazi whines about ‘the rules.’ They’ll complain about Ad Homs. Insult them anyway. There’s no invisible twitter referee in the sky.
47) How to win twitter fights with the Alt-Right – Second: Alt-Right trolls are hideously insecure. The longer they talk, the more they’ll telegraph what they, themselves, are actually afraid of. Use that against them often and mercilessly.
48) How to win twitter fights with the Alt-Right – Third: They need to mock; they hate being mocked. They’ll play the ‘You haven’t really hurt me’ gambit as soon as you’ve landed a good hit on them. Laugh when they pretend they’re not hurt.
49) How to win twitter fights with the Alt-Right – Fourth: The “Prove To Me That I’m A Bigot, And I’ll Be The Judge Of That” Game is Twitter’s stupidest game. Don’t play it. Mock them incessantly for even trying.
50) How to win twitter fights with the Alt-Right – Fifth: They’ll often fall back on Meme Vomit. A) Laugh at them when they do. B) Go ahead. Play the Bullsh*t Meme Game with them. Post an obscene meme about Trump for every dumb meme they post.
51) How to win twitter fights with the Alt-Right – Sixth: They will try to be as inflammatory and insulting as they can. They’ll look for something to rile you up. Don’t get riled up. Nothing pisses them off faster than not being able to hurt you.
Original Twitter thread by
EdgarOfTheMoors
You can read the replies here.