Is the mainstream left a mirror image of the alt-right?

In Instapundit, Ed Driscol wonders if the mainstream left is the mirror image of the alt-right.

Commenter Larry does not agree.

The mainstream left is not the mirror image of the alt-right. The former wants to tell everyone what to do. The alt-right just wants to be left alone.

Commenter Jane Reed points out how the mainstream left

So for example with pious love in their vote counting hearts they declaim that "no one is 'illegal'" in defense of immigrants that they believe will bring more Democrats votes to the ballot eventually. But anyone can be "toxic" for qualities that are purely physical traits such as being male or having a light completion.

Commenter Bill Wolf writes in part,

Among those who did and do identify as "alt-right," nobody wants hordes of non-whites for whites to rule over, which is what "supremacy" would mean. The alt-right wants white survival in the face of mass non-white immigration and forced assimilation, and to be left alone.

rBeccah commented,

Years ago my office sent me to a diversity training seminar. It turned out to be nothing but an exercise in white bashing. I think things have gotten even worse in the intervening years and I lay a lot of the blame on the Obama administration.

Read more here.

The "respectable left-wing mirror image of the alt-right

Rod Dreher writes at The American Conservative,

The thing that is clear to many of us on the right is that many (not all) on the left, at least in the Cathedral, have no intention of trying to see the complex and difficult humanity of all of us, and that they’re engaged in tribalism, and building tribal solidarity through hatred, as much as the figures on the right that they hate. (And let’s not fool ourselves: there are figures on the right who do this very thing.)

The language of fairness and respect, when deployed by many on the left (especially in the Cathedral), is not about fairness and respect at all, but is a cover for a naked power grab, in classic Marxist-Leninist “Who, Whom?” style. In the case of race, the Cathedral and its favorite sermonizers demand that white people behave more humanly, while simultaneously denying their capacity to do so. And it holds academic and media elites like Michael Eric Dyson up as oppressed, simply because of the color of his skin, while framing poor and dispossessed whites as oppressors, solely because of the color of their skin.

(This, by the way, is why Meryl Streep’s speech got on my nerves: the way she began it by flattering herself and her audience as “vilified”; it takes real nerve to tell a room full of Hollywood millionaires that they are in league with the oppressed.)

I don’t believe the alt-right’s view of the world any more than I believe the Cathedral’s. If the alt-right’s racist ideas are going to gain ground in American politics, they aren’t going to do it through my agency. But here’s what the Cathedral left needs to know: you aren’t going to be able to count on conservative people like me to help you oppose the alt-right, because you are their “respectable” left-wing mirror image.

Counter-offensive

Return of the Kings writes,

the Cultural Marxists, SJW’s, and their globalist overlords have no intention of coming to terms or engaging in meaningful self-reflection anytime soon. Instead, they’re doubling down on everything that voters resoundingly rejected on November 8th.

...Learning nothing, the regressive leftists taking to the streets, complete with their Year Zero pathology, think themselves morally justified in blocking streets and attacking people, because they’re on a mission to purify society. Anything that stands in the way of that mission can be justly eliminated.

...Because the term “alt-right” is relatively fresh, it’s vulnerable to being defined with the most ominous, dark terms possible, which is why the media is trying furiously to create as much connective tissue between it and “white nationalism” as possible. Remember, with word-thinking, nuance and context are lost.

And now that this first step has been achieved where it was meant to, the self-anointed moral cover for the more alarming stage of the counteroffensive is underway. Now that the ambiguous and ominous-sounding “alt-right” has been attempted to be extensively defined, the solution is obviously to crack down on it and anyone having to do with it (even if they really don’t). Given this pretext, the purges and censorship have begun, with numerous prominent Twitter accounts being suspended. Agree with these accounts or not (I often don’t), it should give you pause that this kind of blanket censorship is being implemented. If you’re just a little bit politically unorthodox, you’re now at heightened risk of being slapped with the “alt-right” label (even if you’re on record as not identifying with it) and banned from outlets of communication that are both vital for pushing your ideas forward and for promoting any business you have.

But banning individuals is only stage one. Stage two is the recent drive by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others to censor what they call “fake news.” The media has been on a blitz against these “fake news” articles, completely unironically given that this is the same crowd that uncritically signal boosted the Rolling Stone rape hoax to the ends of the world, “fact checks” Donald Trump’s comment that Hillary Clinton “acid washed” her private email server, selectively edits clips to promote the narrative that their pets in “Black Lives Matter” are entirely peaceful when they aren’t, and fails to disclose contacts and relationships with officials of the Democratic National Committee while writing about the campaign.

"Under heavier surveillance than you can imagine"

Is the Alt-Right under heavy surveillance? A commenter at Chateau Heartiste alleges,

And it is the Alt-Right—-and not ISIS, Al-Qaeda, BLM, Black Panthers, immigrants, or dirty politicians—who are the targets. And that is truly frightening.

This slow-moving purge is just the start, especially if President Trump’s coronation is shut down by a coup or an assassination. Hillary foolishly named the Alt-Right as her enemy to the national public; she was hoping to polarize us into an enemy, but she gave us a head start.

Even if President Trump gets into office, this Deep State will hammer him in a way that will make Nixon’s takedown seem positively pleasant. And even if President Trump is successful at curbing immigration and clamping down a bit, the apparatus (as Snowden has shown) is still in place and will outlast him.

To which Chateau Heartiste responds in part,

I predicted a crackdown of thought criminals by the social media companies would intensify one month before the election, and that is what appears to be happening. Trump is a threat to the global world order, but more importantly Trump’s rise and victory would be an utter invalidation of the leftoid HiveEgo. The human ego is the strongest force in the universe and to think it would cede mental territory without a fight to the metadeath is the height of naivete.

Read more here.

Alt-Right

Chief Instructor at Accept the Challenge decides to look into what is this thing called Alt-Right. He/she found these criteria, and elaborated,

People Are Different

Our World Is Tribal

Our (the white) Tribe Is Being Suppressed.

Men Are Not Women and Women Are Not Men

Freedom Is A Responsibility And Not A Right

If We Must Be A Democratic Society, The Franchise Should Be Limited.

But it was this last criterion that Accept the Challenge could not accept: Jewish elites are opposed to our entire program.

Read more here.
The criteria were found here.

"I guess I'm over here as a warning from Europe!"

The alt-right

Jonah Goldberg, Hugh Hewitt, and Ed Morrisey have been discussing what "alt-right" means. I think Goldberg is correct when he tells Hewitt,

So what does the “core alt-right” represent? “The one thing they all agree on,” Jonah says, “is what they call racial realism, or racialism, which is just a social science sounding term for racism. … the one thing they all agree on is that we need to organize this society on the assumption that white people are genetically superior, or that white culture is inherently superior, and that we should have either state-imposed or culturally-imposed segregation between the races, no race mixing with the lower brown people.”

All three agree there is no place in the Republican Party for people who hold these views. Read more here.

What do you think?

Progressive denigration of men

Spandrell writes at Bloody Shovel,

...What is now known as the “alt-right” is a composite of many different movements. I once wrote about a very diverse bunch of how Christian traditionalists, outright fascists, libertarians aware of human biodiversity, futurists and pick-up artists all started to become friends in the internet, and nobody really understood why. The only common is the realization that modernity is a bad deal for men. Progressive honchos have started to understand that, and now openly attack men as “brutes”, and blame Islamic terrorism on “toxic masculinity”.

They have a point. The basic thing that keeps Muslims attached to Islam is their toxic masculinity. Because they realize that Islam is a better deal for men. It’s not a good deal in general; Muslim countries are in general basket cases, and Islam itself is in some part to blame for it. But at any rate, for the average men there’s absolute no good reason to abandon Islam, even nominally. Becoming progressive will only get you called a “brute” and openly discriminated against, likely killing your chances of reproducing and much social status. Of course second and third generation Muslims are more religious than their parents.

...The more hostile Muslims are against Europeans, the more progressive can get away with, the farther left the leftist singularity can advance, as White men close ranks around the only thing they’re allowed to close ranks around: progressive denigration of men. Which again drives Muslim men into further hostility, as they see what assimilation would require of them. This means the Left has absolutely no incentive to crack down on Islamic extremism. Until it gets out of hand. If it ever does.

Read more here.