Alt-Right

yakov_a_jerkov — 16.11.2016

Sean Illing: There’s a lot of confusion about what the alt-right is and who it represents. It’s become an umbrella term for marginal right-wing positions. But it does refer to something specific, right?

Ben Shapiro: The alt-right are people like Richard Spencer who think that Western civilization and Western culture are inseparable from ethnicity. In other words, European ethnicity is the dominant force behind Western culture and Western civilization biologically. So it's a racist and anti-Semitic movement.

They truly believe that multiethnic democracies cannot succeed. This is essentially a white nationalist movement that claims to have intellectual backing for its cause.

Sean Illing: Are there any concrete political goals on the alt-right, apart from restoring a kind of cultural hegemony?

Ben Shapiro: They want to destroy the Republican Party from within and take it over. They want the constitutional right destroyed. They actually hate the constitutional right more than they hate the left. They don't actually hate the left. They think the left is wrong about racism but they don't object to big government that takes care of people; rather, they think you should have special privileges if you're of European descent. They want what they call "Christendom" protected from foreign bodies.

Sean Illing: Are they in the process of destroying the GOP?

Ben Shapiro: In order for the alt-right to achieve its goals, it has to do a few things. The first thing they have to do is make connections with people in power — clearly they've done that. The next thing they have to do is obfuscate what the alt-right actually is, so a lot of people think they're alt-right when they're not.

Rather than say the alt-right is an explicitly white nationalist movement, they say, well, if you're pissed off at the establishment, you're probably alt-right. If you're somebody who lurks online, you're probably alt-right. If you don't like Paul Ryan, if you think he's soft, you're probably alt-right. And they trap a lot of people in this way.

They also need what I call fellow travelers, people who are willing to nod and look the other way about the alt-right's racism because they think the alt-right is essentially correct about Western civilization being under assault. Someone like Pat Buchanan, for example, falls under this category.

[...]

Sean Illing: There’s an obvious tension between small-government conservatism of traditional Republicans and the economic populism of the alt-right — how do you see that tension playing out?

Ben Shapiro: There's two issues here: the policies and the ideology. I think the ideological tension is interesting, because the goal of the alt-right is never to expose their true ideological commitments until it's too late. They need to entrench their power before revealing their explicitly racist aims.

As far as the policy conflict, I think the economic populism of the alt-right is very similar to Bernie Sanders's policy on trade. It's just that Sanders wants to shut down trade because he thinks it will help poor people, and the alt-right wants to shut down trade because they think that it's hurting white people.

[...]

Sean Illing: I’d say it goes well beyond winking and nodding. On Monday, you published a piece detailing in brief who Steve Bannon is and what you think his ascension means. What does Trump’s decision to appoint him as “Chief Strategist” signal to you?

Ben Shapiro: It signals that [Trump]'s not going to throw the alt-right overboard now that he's in the White House. It doesn't necessarily mean that this will be the motivating ideology behind his presidency, but it does mean that he's happy to fellow-travel with them to get where he wants to go.

Sean Illing: Do you think Trump gives a damn about any of the principles animating the alt-right? Or do you see him more as an opportunist who knows a good bet when he sees one?

Ben Shapiro: I think he's an opportunist who's taking an advantage of the climate he's confronting. I'm not a mind-reader, so I can't say anything definitive, but I do think the way he talks suggests that he's perfectly happy to live with the tacit approval of the alt-right, and that says something about the man.

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