I won’t make excuses for actual anti-Semitic memes, particularly when they come from genuine Neo-Nazis. These sad specimens, consigned to a few irrelevant blogs like Daily Stormer, declared a “holy crusade” against me in late 2016. Unlike the ADL, I find this laughable rather than threatening. I don’t have anything to fear from these people, especially not from Stormer’s editor, Andrew Anglin, who I am told stands a mere 5’2” tall. He’s a little short for a stormtrooper, isn’t he? There’s a great picture that does the rounds now and again of Anglin in Thailand with lady-boy hookers. I also hear he’s actually Jewish. This is the leader of white power online, folks!
I will, however, defend anyone’s right to speak and post freely on the internet, without the threat of being banned. The best antidote to pathetic hatred is to defeat it publicly, not push it into the shadows where it will fester and grow. This is something that leftists, and a worrying number of establishment conservatives, simply don’t understand. They worry that the more people see Neo-Nazis, the more they’ll be persuaded. I have a sunnier view of human nature, and human reason.
I have no argument with those who want to condemn the Stormer’s and their ilk. But I do have an argument with those who lump everyone who uses offensive memes in with them, as part of the same “basket of deplorables.” As Allum Bokhari and I highlighted in our article on the alt-right, many of the people using offensive memes aren’t genuine Nazis at all, but rather provocateurs and trolls. They don’t want to destroy multicultural societies or restore racial hierarchies. They just want to raise hell and smash taboos. From our article:
Just as the kids of the 60s shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair and rock ’n’ roll, so too do the alt-right’s young meme brigades shock older generations with outrageous caricatures, from the Jewish “Shlomo Shekelburg” to “Remove Kebab,” an internet in-joke about the Bosnian genocide. These caricatures are often spliced together with Millennial pop culture references, from old 4chan memes like Pepe the frog, to anime and My Little Pony references.
Are they actually bigots? No more than death metal devotees in the 80s were actually Satanists. For them, it’s simply a means to fluster their grandparents. Currently, the Grandfather-in-Chief is Republican consultant Rick Wilson, who attracted the attention of this group on Twitter after attacking them as “childless single men who jerk off to anime.”
Responding in kind, they proceeded to unleash all the weapons of mass trolling that anonymous subcultures are notorious for—and brilliant at. From digging up the most embarrassing parts of his family’s internet history to ordering unwanted pizzas to his house and bombarding his feed with anime and Nazi propaganda, the alt-right’s meme team, in typically juvenile but undeniably hysterical fashion, revealed their true motivations: not racism, the restoration of monarchy or traditional gender roles, but lulz.
Even I will admit these kids sometimes go too far, and that not all the taboos they want to break are in need of breaking. There is a reason why anti-Semitism and racism are not acceptable, and never should be. But the response of the establishment Right, unnervingly familiar in tone to the career-destroying mobs of SJWs, is worse. These are kids—they don’t deserve to have their lives and careers destroyed because they posted dangerous memes or flirted with dangerous ideas on the internet.
It doesn’t do these young people justice to simply rebut the establishment’s misguided allegations of retrograde racism. These people aren’t just not-racists, they’re among the best and brightest of their generation; talented, creative, and funny. No one’s life is ruined by bitchy messages on a computer screen. Get a grip, snowflakes. It’s words on a screen.
You can’t deliberately ignore context. You can’t treat a harmless hellraiser from 4chan as no different from a Daily Stormer Nazi, without pausing to examine the motives and values of the individual. Like the Left’s political correctness, the Right’s political correctness is collectivist and reductive in its logic. It will destroy the lives of innocent people if it goes unchecked. We must fight against it until it dies.
The cause of Israel is not helped by hysterical conservatives and mainstream media outlets comparing the slogan “America First” to Charles Lindbergh-style isolationism.156 Nor is the fight against anti-Semitism helped by people like Bill Kristol playing into Daily Stormer talking points by suggesting that America’s white working class should be replaced by immigrants (“I hope this thing isn’t being videotaped or ever shown anywhere,” said Kristol after he made the comment, which was of course videotaped157). I’m a staunch defender of Israel and an opponent of anti-Semitism. I have no doubt Kristol is too. But unlike him, I’m not making things worse.
DEBATE CLUB CONSERVATIVES
“Donald Trump isn’t a gentleman.”
“He’s so vulgar.”
“I have to cover my kid’s ears.”
There’s something… noble about trying to preserve the standards of decorum that existed prior to the 1960s, when a single swear word on TV could lead to a boycott campaign. That worldview is completely understandable for conservatives (and even most liberals) over 65.
If you’re under 40, however, it’s likely that you fall into the unfortunate, slightly laughable group I call Debate Club Conservatives. And it’s time to snap out of it.
If you don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to win, chances are you’re going to lose. And that’s exactly what Debate Club Conservatives did when faced with Donald Trump. Again and again, the Republican candidates tried to convince their base that they shouldn’t vote for Trump because, well, he was just so unkind. And again and again, voters didn’t listen.
“The man is a pathological liar … a bully … a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen,” said Ted Cruz in May. Republicans voted for Trump.
“Seriously, what’s this guy’s problem?” Jeb Bush allegedly told a donor in August. “He’s a buffoon…. a clown… an asshole.” Republicans voted for the asshole.
“I will not vote for a nominee that has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country,” said John Kasich, long after his inevitable primary defeat. “Our country deserves better.” Republican voters didn’t think so.
The American Conservative’s lament that the “graceful, dignified” Jeb Bush had been beaten by the tactics of a man who “lacks character” sums up the attitude of DCCs to elections, and to contests in general: it’s better to lose with dignity than to win without it. In the Republican primaries, they mostly got their wish, although Jeb Bush’s entreaties for audiences to “please clap” for him were anything but dignified.
The conservative sense of fair play is disastrous when it comes to fighting Democrats. Elections are not college debates, no matter how much Ted Cruz might wish it so. They are not fought with facts and opinions, but with sloganeering, media spin, opposition research, and other cloak-and-dagger tactics. In politics, victory goes to those with cunning, mettle and deviousness, not those who have facts and principles on their side. It helps to have facts and principles on your side (as conservatives usually do), but they aren’t enough to win.