There’s a civil war raging within the American right. On one side, we find a trio of more-or-less mainstream conservatives: Republican strategist Rick Wilson; Daily Caller writer Matt Lewis, and the National Review’s Jamie Kirchick. On the other, Alexander Hart, a regular contributor to the white supremacist site VDare.com.
At issue: whether or not Alt Right dudes are a bunch of loser weirdos who can’t get laid.
Wilson started this conflict by declaring, in a now infamous appearance on MSNBC this January, that Donald Trump’s fans in the Alt-Right were basically a bunch of “childless single men who masturbate to anime,” not the sort of people “who matter in the overall course of humanity.”
Kirchick reignited the controversy by declaring, in a recent episode of Lewis’ podcast, that he didn’t know just “how successful these guys are with women,” adding that, as far as he could tell, none of the budding white supremacists who attended the genteel racist shindig that was the National Policy Institute’s conference last month “had any women attached to them.”
He noted that these guys were quick to resort to “homophobic insults,” which — wink wink nudge nudge — “is usually a manifestation of someone who has a problem with their own sexual identity.”
Lewis said that it sounded as though Alt-Right dudes were the kind of person who can pass for normal online but “when you meet them face to face you can tell that they’re weird.”
In other words, they were a bunch of losers. Possibly even a bunch of la-hoo-sa-hers.
On VDare, Hart is having none of it.
After quoting the terrible accusations of loserhood leveled at Alt-Right dudes by Kirchick and Lewis, Hart replies with a vehement nuh-uh.
“When I first attended an Alt Right meet up,” Hart writes,
I would not have been surprised to find a bunch of socially awkward program-coders. But while there were quite a few people who worked in IT (though they weren’t socially awkward), most worked in politics, law, finance and other high status professions, many with degrees from elite institutions.
Totally not a bunch of losers and weirdos!
Also they are very handsome fellows. And the ladies love them!
On average, they were better looking and in much better physical shape than the stereotypically fat and/or weak conservative functionaries … Their age ranged from the early 20s to late 30s, and the majority of those over 30 were married … .
MARRIED. To WOMEN, presumably. So obviously they totally CAN get laid.
Not only that, but Hart recently had dinner with a guy he knew in high school, and who now considers himself Alt-Right. Turns out the guy works at a top law firm and has “an attractive wife and three kids.”
ATTRACTIVE WIFE!
Hart doesn’t spell it out but the existence of these three kids means that his friend has actually had sex with his attractive wife three times or more.
Unless she had triplets or something. But even then he at least had sex with her once!
Alas, Hart does not provide any photographic evidence to prove the existence of handsome Alt-Righters and their hot wives. But the reason he can’t isn’t that they aren’t handsome. It’s that if you come out as a nasty little racist who spends most of his free time posting Holocaust jokes on 4chan, your neighbors, and co-workers, and perhaps your employer as well, are likely to think a bit less of you.
Or, as Hart puts it:
The Alt Right is not anonymous because we’re “losers”—but because we (and our families) have so much to lose.
Of course, there are downsides of an anonymous movement. It’s easy for people like Rick Wilson and Matt Lewis to claim we are all “weirdos” when few can show their faces to defend themselves. They could easily claim I’m just another anonymous loser who is creating a false persona for myself and fellow basement dwellers.
Dude, here’s the thing. I don’t actually care if you and your comrades on the far right are super handsome ladies men or a bunch of grotesque trolls literally living in mom’s basement. Because what makes you guys ugly losers isn’t the way you look. It’s the horrible things you believe.
“Expressing homophobia is bad… because it just proves you’re a bunch of GAYS! LOL.” Does Kirchick’s own homophobic insult here count? Is he, by his own estimation, lashing out because he’s struggling with internalized homophobia? Or does he think he’s exempt because he didn’t straight out use the f-slur?
(This, by the way, is why I don’t usually appreciate it when people speculate about the sexual orientation of homophobes. There are plenty of straight homophobic people.)
They’re all very eager to conform to a narrow ideal. They have to have a certain kind of job, certain hobbies and certain relationships in order to be accepted. Being white, straight, cis and male isn’t enough. They must be conventionally attractive and of a certain class. No wonder they’re all so insecure. I can’t believe this is serious. “You’re ugly!” “Nuh-uh!”
So what if you are awkward, single or fat? Those things do not make you wrong. So you’re weird and you like anime? Ok. Those things don’t make you a bad person. Being a racist asshat makes you both wrong and a bad person.
Amen Viscaria! I’ve never liked the whole “he must be a closet homosexual!” angle. There is enough raw hate in the world to make honest homophobes.
Oh my, the images THAT calls up. Superglue? Handcuffs? Badly done surgical stitching? Ugh.
Yeah, well, two can play at that game of projection, eh? Seems that Old Right and “Alt”-Right have more in common than meets the eye, or at least THEIR eyes…
Oh, trust me, you don’t have to meet them anywhere to know that. All you have to do is read their spew.
Like Liberty University! Or Bob Jones! Take THAT, Old Right weenie!
Pix or it didn’t happen. But please leave your dicks in your pants, fellas.
Yeah, well, if you’re big on mail-order brides, in theory that’s possible. But these guys are damn near impossible for anyone to love. And aren’t these the same guys who moan about arranged marriages no longer being a thing in Europe, or wherever it is that white people congregate?
Yeah…like your shitty jobs, and what little respect anyone’s giving you as is.
Yeah, well…if the shoe fits, Cinderella…but the clock struck midnight on you guys long ago. Who BUT a bunch of losers and wankers goes on trolling raids against anyone they call an SJW?
Oh yeah, I forgot…losers and wankers who care about “ethics in gaming journalism, actually”.
http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm309/LCARS24/godzilla_facepalm_zps23ba4d02.jpg
So many things…
So, “socially awkward program-coders” (we’re called Software Engineers) are the expected makeup of alt-right groups? He was surprised to learn that the people who worked in IT (which is a different set of people than “program-coders”, even if there’s some overlap) were not socially awkward? Has he never met any IT people in real life before, and so he assumes it’s all like The IT Crowd? Does he think that socially awkward people don’t also get degrees from elite institutions? Also, does he think socially awkward people don’t manage to carry on a normal conversation when at a meetup, even if it takes a lot more energy for them to do so? Finally, wtf is wrong with being “socially awkward” anyway? To me, it’s just that different people handle social situations differently. Expecting everyone to behave the same in social situations is what makes things awkward.
Proposal: all job titles should be amended to reflect some stereotypical aspect of the position, like “program-coder.”
I am an AA no more! These days I answer only to the title “minute-taking travel-arranger.”
Edit: Ooh ooh and everyone I work with will be a “hand-shaking quote-emailer.” And teachers will be… teachers.
I’m sort of uncomfortable with parroting the idea that alt-right white supremacists “can’t get hot babes”.
(not pointing fingers or anything! It just feels wrong to me).
Women are perfectly capable of being racist, xenophobic jerkbutts who would be very happy to hook up with a proto-Nazi and try to engender a new generation of wholesome caucasian babies. Even the conventionally good looking ones.
@Viscaria
Before I was a “program-coder” I was a “procedure-documenter” and before that I was a “phone-answerer” and before that I was a “pizza-transporter”.
@Viscaria
That sounds like a great idea! Let’s see, in that case I’d be a…”writer of things that are in one language into another language in a way that makes sense”. That’s much more “convenient” than “translator”. /s
I’d also like to join in the condemnation of the insinuations that all homophobes must be closeted gay people themselves.
There’s the flip side of “look at that unattractive feminist. No husband and no kids! What a loser! Let’s not pay attention to anything she says!” Hope they enjoy being on the receiving end of that for once.
I don’t understand this thing of “having a partner automatically validates you as a human being”, and its unspoken inverse, “singleness = less than”. Lots and lots of terrible human beings have been able to persuade, coerce, or terrorize someone into marrying them. Being married doesn’t magically grant your opinion more authority. Alt-right white supremacists are horrible whether they’re single or attached. In fact, attached alt-right white supremacists are probably more horrible, because then there’s a partner and/or kids that have to put up with their awful, awful beliefs and rigid authoritarian discipline, if not outright abuse.
Of all the logical fallacies, “argumentam ad mywifeishotter” is one of the strangest, weakest, and most revealing of its proponents’ insecurities.
Job descriptions according to a task breakdown…
Ah, ohgod, we are starting to distribute into the semantic network. So how long is the walk path we are going for? Depth of 3 is standard, but that’s not very deep for connectivity purposes. Maybe fuzzy iterative with a connection-size best first heuristic? What kind of cycle protection are we using? We’re just using the Stanford NLP library, right? Or are we doing, like, Cyc or something?
I can do this, I *can* do this…
http://media.giphy.com/media/kNrxGZ5ch8dbi/giphy.gif
Can I be “speaker-to-machines”? It has a kinda shamanic sound to it.
Bina, I assumed that having women attached to you was a static electricity thing. You know, like when you rub a balloon?
@ Scildfreja
I know someone whose entire job is to extract semen from prize bulls. I suspect he may prefer sticking with “Large animal vet”.
[Someone else can provide the image from Roald Dahl’s The Twits about ugly thoughts making an ugly person.]
My job title actually is materials handler so I’m all set for this new job description program.
Considering how often I need to describe my job as “Dinosaur bone science guy, you know, like Jurassic Park… Yes, it’s a real job… No, I haven’t cloned any T rexes”… =P
Our local farrier describes himself as a “horse cobbler” which is kind of cute.
An excellent point.
There’s one aspect of this I disagree with:
And let’s face it–the alt-right is basically composed of the hounds who responded to the Old Right’s dog-whistles. Pretending there’s an actual distinction with a difference between them is giving the Old Right a pass for everything about Republican politics since the Southern Strategy.
Oooh, Moggie, I agree, let’s get all metaphysical on this. I am a machine-spirit conjurer!
Not for nothing, but calling alt-right guys “losers” when the New Left is made up of a group of mentally ill drug addicts, degenerates, and people who can’t even figure out their own gender, and need safe spaces, trigger warnings, and government handouts is pretty rich. Just sayin’…,
And… my last post was garbled in its meaning. The ‘this’ I was disagreeing with was David’s post describing this as a fracture among the conservatives, and was not addressing Scildfreja. Sorry for any confusion.
I am a database-whisperer.
when few can show their faces to defend themselves
“We’re anonymous, so you’re a coward for attacking us!”
That’s a new one.
Can I be “Bastard Operator From Hell”?
(Well, I’m literally “bastard”, using the older definition of the word, since my mom never married my biological father, and actually never married anyone at all…)
Just a random aside about bastard children, they’re basically a tradition in my family. We love our bastards <3
I don't think I actually know what my real job title is, since my job's changed a lot since I started here.
I could go with Ambiguous-Stuff-Doer.