(2017-01-17) The Altright Comes To Washington

The Alt-Right Comes to Washington

Known until recently as the “alt-right,” it is a dispersed movement that encompasses a range of Right-Wing figures who are mostly young, mostly addicted to provocation and mostly have made their names on the internet

Jared Taylor, 65, who is publisher of the white nationalist web outlet American Renaissance and has been called the “intellectual godfather of the alt-right”

Taylor, who was born in Japan to Christian missionaries, can’t precisely be classified a white supremacist: He believes Asians are superior to whites.

Many figures in the movement now disdain the term “alt-right,” refuse to consider themselves “alt-light” and wish Spencer would just go away. “Not interested in appearing in any piece alongside Spencer et al.,” wrote Milo Yiannopoulos in a text message rebuffing an interview request. “We have nothing in common.”

“The small contingent of distasteful people in the alt-right became so territorial about the expression that they scared off moderate right-wingers,” Yiannopoulos says.

Yiannopoulos is a different creature, a sort of 21st-century Islamophobic Oscar Wilde. His events are well-attended and entertaining. He believes he has the formula to turn the cultural tide of the West away from progressivism, a mix of erudition, flamboyance and charisma that puts an amusing, unthreatening front on a worldview that feeds the America-first, Christian-capitalist prejudices of his largely young male college audiences

He disavowed any interest in Washington past the inaugural festivities. “Everybody in politics is a cunt,” he said. “They’re boring, untalented, unattractive people.” The real fight, he thinks, is the culture war he’s waging on college campuses.

Blogger Mike Cernovich has no such misgivings about D.C.

He advocates IQ-testing all immigrants and ending federal funding of universities, and describes himself as an economic nationalist primarily concerned with the welfare of average Americans

Cernovich now uses the label “new right” to describe himself.

primary challenges to establishment Republicans, a scheme he has dubbed #Revolution2018

Cernovich does not view himself as a “troll” per se, because he views trolling as amoral, but instead refers to himself as a “rhetorician”—a provocateur who doesn’t literally mean what he says

He was a chief pusher of the #pizzagate hashtag on Twitter

If there’s a real alt-right conspiracy in American politics, Charles C. Johnson is an integral part of it.

Spencer has become the poster boy of the alt-right

Now, as its members move on Washington, an already fragmented movement is further split between those who embrace Spencer’s racial politics and those who, for reasons of pragmatism or principle, reject the “alt-right” label for its associations

attendees erupted in Nazi salutes, indelibly associating the alt-right with jackbooted white supremacy and provoking an instant schism in the movement

But the new young nationalists also have a problem: They need to re-brand, urgently

Disdaining the traditional Washington think tanks as passé, they’re taking aim straight at America’s sense of its own identity, with plans for “culture tanks” to produce movies that make anti-immigrant conservatism look cool, and advocacy arms that resemble BuzzFeed more than The Heritage Foundation

When they look at Washington—a besuited city that moves to the rhythm of lobbying and legislative calendars and carefully worded statements—they see an opportunity for total disruption, the kind of overthrow the movement already takes credit for visiting on American politics.

Among his fellow travelers, Johnson is known as a direct line to the donor class.

Johnson said he would like to use his connections to the incoming administration to push for the invocation of antitrust laws to regulate Twitter and Facebook as utilities, in order to prevent what he sees as their unfair treatment of conservatives.

Mostly, he said, he is interested in making money. So he will want a friendly ear at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission when he launches a predictions-market business

The patron behind both events is a figure already in D.C.: Jeff Giesea, a little-known entrepreneur

Giesea says, he has become less of a libertarian and more concerned with the fortunes of Middle America.