The Alt-Right is Good at being Annoying, but is Otherwise Extremely Stupid

[MatthewG.]

Last edited Thu Nov 30, 2017, 10:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Has anyone here ever interacted with actual alt-righties? I know one or two, and while they’re good at targeting memes for maximal annoyance, they’re generally very stupid.

One was telling me today that he “redpilled” a foreign national by sending her pro-Trump propaganda memes.

I said to him that “you do know that redpilling someone, as used in the film ‘The Matrix ‘ - which is where the expression came from - to the extent it described anything political meant teaching people to see through what the filmmakers considered the illusory lies of conservatism. This is why the one character in the film who refuses the red pill is named “Reagan”, and why Zion, which is heavily populated by African-Americans, is led by a character played by a Cornell West, a Democratic Socialist.”

He was flabbergasted.

He then admitted that he didn’t know much about “The Matrix” from whence “red-pilling” is derived, but started going on about how the alt-right really caresabout “sculpting reality.”

I told him that the alt-right wasn’t sculpting jack, that he could talk to me about sculpting reality when Republicans carved out a white ethno-state, and they were largely barely tolerated as court jesters providing youth appeal for a GOP which, like Reagan, will pretend to ally with anyone or anything to procure debt-financed tax cuts benefiting the wealthy.

“And that’s the real agenda of the elites, dude.” I said. “Not pedophile pizza rings or “globalist” plots. It’s keeping their taxes low even when everyone else’s share of the pie shrinks. Pretty much everything else you hear from or about spokespersons of conservatism is in practice just a distraction to obfuscate that.”

At least it got him thinking for a bit. Doubt it changed his mind on much.

[DonCoquixote]

1. Despite the sequels

The Matrix on it's own is a great analogy for our age, a world where most of humanity is happily enslaved and exploited while a few (mostly white) figures maintain the whole illusion. Don;t these fools wonder why most of the heroes are women/poc and most of the bad guys are all pale white men?

[MatthewG.]

5. I bet not one in ten alt-righties gets what red pill actually was

I doubt one in ten alt-right dummies - and most of them really are dummies, the kind of people who think racism is authentic folk wisdom and mis-using “esoteric” references makes them smarter than people with educations - actually understand the (rather simplistic and obvious) symbolism of the Matrix, a film I don’t even especially like but was clearly meant as politically progressive (as well as Gnostic in its spiritual worldview).

It takes a certain kind of really dedicated stupidity to imagine the alt-right worldview is “championing the average guy against secretive globalist elites” when in practice it’s the wealthy elites that loosely tolerate the alt-right, much as they tolerated their spiritual kin, the religious right, as useful jesters in their search for grabbing ever-larger slices of the economic pie.

[KT2000]

2. sculpting reality

for the benefit of the ultra-rich. What damn fools. Good for you for even trying.
I want to encourage these idiots to visit African towns and South American towns to see the reality they are no sculpting.

[MatthewG.]

7. Youve got to be really dedicated to being stupid...

You’ve got to be really dedicated to being stupid to imagine that promoting Trump - who’s sole legislative accomplishment may well be slashing corporate tax rates and increasing middle class taxes - is somehow striking a blow for the proletariat.

[NastyRiffraff]

3. They are stupid, but

it's possible to be stupid AND dangerous, which they are when they're in a group of people like them, and sometimes even when they're alone.

[MatthewG.]

8. I agree.

They are somewhat dangerous in the sense that they know how to be outrageous - to “troll” - in ways which appeal to the young and immature, and also in that they support an atrocious agenda, one which will never be enacted (a white ethno-state isn’t happening) but which masks the atrocious and genuinely achievable agenda of the mainstream conservative movement.

[DangerousUrNot]

4. Ive never actually met an alt-righter before.

A lot of them get that IQ bullshit from Sam Harris. Since he gave Charles Murray validation
And you nailed it, the GOP are just using them. “Barely tolerated as court jesters”

[MatthewG.]

9. You arent missing much. LOL.

You aren’t missing much.

As a youth counterculture they’re somewhat interesting, I suppose, in the way a large mound of dung spotted in the middle of the road might be eye-catching, but that’s about all one can say for them.

[msongs]

6. the "extremely stupid control congress and are stacking the courts for the next 40 yrs nt

[MatthewG.]

10. Ill grant that.

They are somewhat dangerous in the sense that they give some youth appeal to the atrocious agenda of the mainstream conservative movement.

[VOX]

11. Like cancer, I do not take them lightly.

Some cancers are very slow growing, while some take off at a gallop. Sometimes it’s difficult to ascertain the speed with which a tumor will grow and possibly metastasize. Which is why it’s often preferable to hit the disease hard, when it’s in its early stage. (I speak from personal experience.)

The alt-right is symptomatic of a deeper pathology that, if allowed to flourish, will kill its host country, like it did Italy and Germany in 1943-45.

The alt-right is fueled by testosterone and a feeling of not connecting to the world at large. It feeds off of groupthink, ignorance, and isolation. The sunlight needs to be directed at these people without surcease. They cannot be allowed so much as a toehold in the American consciousness.

[MatthewG.]

16. Theyre awful, to be sure...

They’re awful, to be sure. Hard for me to imagine they could take over the country - it’s a little too diverse for me to see a White ethno-state ever being hacked out in the future, and they can’t really recruit anyone with multicultural loved ones - but they can do a lot of damage in their sheer capacity for meanness and misinformation, and in gettig sizable numbers of youth to think it’s cool to vote for policies which ironically mostly hurt them.

[VOX]

21. They have a radical right-wing booster in the White House right now.

And it has emboldened the alt-right no end.

These people envision a white empire stretching from North America, across Europe and reaching to Russia. They view this as THE way to wage their war on Islam, and to simultaneously marginalize refugees/immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.

Fascists can kill without death camps. The methods would include dressing their motives up as something “acceptable,” cloaking authoritarian rule in nationalistic dressing. We’ve already seen Trump in action— his bromance/worship of Putin, claiming voter fraud to enable voter suppression, cutting healthcare and other essential funding, demonizing Latinos, demonizing a free press/media— and the alt-right loves Trump for all these nihilistic moves.

[crazycatlady]

12. I've met a few counter protesting anti Trump rallies/marches

And for the most part, my experience with them is that they're rich white frat boys.

[MatthewG.]

15. White boys lacking empathy

They mostly strike me as lost White boys lacking empathy. (And the benefits of a humanities education.)

There’s also something strangely autistic about the whole movement, which revels in its insensitivity.

[meow2u3]

13. The "alt-right" is a highly virulent parasite on constitutional democracy

The nation this parasite infects with its hatred, violent extremism, and stupidity is the host. You have to take a parasite like the far right fringe seriously or else we'll end up dead from their sheer virulence.
The US is just the parasite's current host and will kill it unless and until the country finds an antidote, namely heroes who will show them up as the stupid idiots they are.

[MatthewG.]

17. They do have to be taken seriously.

The alt-right does have to be taken seriously, because of their capacity to recruit disaffected and immature youth through outrageousness - “trolling.” Their agenda will never pass, but they can give mainstream conservative politics some youth appeal, even as they claim to provide an “alternative” to that.

Like a lot of political movements, they’ll likely fall apart fighting each other -apparently that’s been happening a lot recently - with some of the remnants absorbed by the mainstream GOP.

[Kirk Lover]

14. The alt reich has got a 'think tank' that is downright dangerous. Agreed the followers are

stupid on steroids. It's painful reading the comments on the alt reich sites. It makes for easy pickin trollin and that's about it. No meeting of the minds ova there.

[Oneironaut]

18. Since I already hate memes, pretentious Matrix references, and people who write like 5-year-olds,

my tolerance of the alt-right is already nil. I can't take their bullshit. Normally I would at least look (if not just for laughs), but their use of memes (Pepe the Frog, etc.), 4chan-like inside jokes, and "college know-it-all" attitudes make them too insufferable to even poke fun at. They're basically all of the worst elements of 4chan's /b/ mixed with political activism.

I like reading Free Republic sometimes to see their perspective on current events (as much as I disagree with them), but places like Reddit's The_Donald sub are cesspools of idiocy, memes, edge lords, and text-vomit written at a 1st grade level. You can visit posts with 100+ replies and not find a single comment worth reading. I seriously think 99% of The_Donald users are still in High School.

[MatthewG.]

19. Regrettably...

Regrettably, they make Free Republic, bad as it gets, look like an outpost of sophistication. (Freepers don’t generally openly endorse virulent racism or conflate South Park with sophistication.)

They’re toilet scum, basically, although they’re good at being deliberately annoying. Those among their leaders who can speak coherently and avoid the worst KKK style rhetoric - like Milo or Gavin Mcinnes - have a future as GOP court jesters who’s role will be to appeal to disaffected youth. The rest will largely spent the future feuding with each other.

[Oneironaut]

20. Oh yes - You actually reminded me what I hate most about the alt-right.

It's not the rhetoric, the racism, memes, etc.

What I really hate the most is the smug "real-life trolling" that every one of their punchable-faced "leaders" does. They're professional assholes followed by other assholes who are jumping for joy that being a jackass is now mainstream. The "I'm a troll! Haha! Look how provocative I'm being!" shtick wasn't funny when Ann Coulter did it, and it's even worse now. The alt-right really is a bunch of 5-year-olds begging for attention by competing with each other on who can upset the most people.

The reason why alt-right leaders keep fighting with each other is because they're attention-craving man-children. They get jealous when they aren't getting attention, which causes them to become more extreme and act out more.

[Gothmog]

22. Trump supporters are idiots and racists