Should we stop using the term "alt-right"?

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I'd just call them hyper-xenophobic fascists, because that's basically what they are. It seems like it's more of a personality defect than a political ideology because their political opinions are usually incoherent at best. They form opinions on a gut level based on their primal lizard brain - dominated by fear, violence, and extreme testosterone worship. It's funny they are so worried about being overrun by supposedly more primitive brown people from "third world s**tholes", when nothing could be more primitive then them.

This.

I don't know. I often like to call the alt right out for what they really are; neonazis. That being said, when someone uses the term alt right I immediately know what they mean, and what kind of people the alt right actually are (either those that are transparently racist or those that like to use the ever popular phrase, "I'm not racist, but...").

The German term National Socialism has absolutely nothing to do with the political philosophy of socialism. It's just an accident of history. Nazis used socialism to mean society, as they pretended to be the people's party. So please don't confuse the two, it's a basic error.

I never understood why the Left didn't just drop the name "socialism" there and then, much like they did later with communism. Inventing the term Nazi to conceal an unpleasant relation (National Socialist German Workers' Party) was clever, but surely they should have realised it would come back to burn them sooner or later. To say it has absolutely nothing to do with it other Socialisms is stretching the truth a little bit. Even the Bolsheviks (or do you think they have nothing to do with the political philosophy of socialism) recognised the Socialist class warfare aspects of Nazi ideology, they called it "the Socialism of fools" meaning "the Jews aren't the problem, it's this other class of humans (bankers/capitalists/bourgeoisie/kulaks) that we have to deprive, imprison or exterminate if need be and then all our problems go away."

Ignoring all of the socialists throughout history that didn't advocate for a state controlled economy.

No, nazism isn't related to socialism at all. It refers to social Darwinism. If it referred to socialism as it is today, why would nazis be on the very opposite side of the spectrum to communists?

No. I quote now from Julia Boyd's Travellers in the Third Reich. I'm cherry picking for the purposes of this discussion, but I recommend the whole book, which has a whole lot more from all sides.I can't find a copy on the internet to copy-paste from so I'm typing it, typos are mine:

In October 1935 the Swiss literary and cultural philosopher Denis de Rougemont took up a post at Frankfurt University teaching literature. His academic friends in Paris were astonished but, as he explained, he believed that it was important to study Hitler in his own setting through the eyes of both his followers and his victims. Possessing a cooler head than Thomas Wolfe, de Rougemont set about dissecting Hitler's Germany with admirable objectivity. The result is a forensic examination of how the regime affected ordinary people in their daily lives, meticulously catalogued in Journal d'Allemagne. Wanting to be sure that his observations would stand the test of time, de Rougemont waited two years before publishing his journal in 1938.
Although he arrived in Germany convinced that 'Hitlerism' was a right-wing movement, the more he talked to people from different backgrounds, the more confused he became. After a few weeks in Frankfurt, he found himself wondering, 'le régime est-il de gauche ou de droit? [Is the regime on the left or the right?].
What unsettled him was the fact that those who stood most naturally on the right - lawyers, doctors, industrialists and so on - were the very ones who most bitterly denounced National Socialism. Far from being a bulwark against communism, they complained it was communism in disguise. They pointed out that only workers and peasants benefited from Nazi reforms, while their own values were being systematically destroyed by devious methods, They were taxed disproportionately, their family life had been irreparably harmed, parental authority sapped, religion stripped and education eliminated.
De Rougemont, a federalist who had little time for totalitarianism of any colour, was unimpressed by these cries of woe. He blamed the middle classes for not having faced up to the social problems during the Weimar period. Now they were equally supine in the face of Hitler's excesses.

...

De Rougemont was not alone in questioning the distinction between National Socialism and communism. Many foreigners wondered how it was possible that two such violently opposed political movements could share so much common ground. Kay Smith, who prided herself on calling a spade a space, listened intently to a lengthy exposition on National Socialist theory before asking, 'But Rochus, what then is the difference between National Socialism and Communism? The German threw up his hands in horror. "Psst Katie, das darf man nicht sagen [Hush, one must not say that.]"' Seventeen-year-old Joan Wakefield (whose family motto was 'Be Just and Fear Not') was even bolder. Fresh out of an English boarding school, she was studying German at Berlin University. Sitting one afternoon in a crowded hall listening to a lengthy Nazi harangue, she rose to her feet and with her very English accent asked the speaker if he would be so good as to explain to her the difference between National Socialism and communism. There was a shocked silence. When, with some pride, Joan later recounted this episode to her landlady, the Baronin turned white, terrified that her young lodger's faux pas might rebound on her. In a letter to her sister Debo several years later, Nancy Mitford wrote, 'Actually I have always said that there wasn't a pin to put between Bolshies & Nazis except that the latter, being better organised, are probably more dangerous.'
This then was a question often raised by foreigners but, as de Rougemont discovered, one that rarely received a satisfactory response. A former militant communist offered him partial insight when he explained why, at the age of fifty, he had decided to swap sides:

We want work and our cup of café au lait in the morning ... that is enough. Politics don't interest the workers when they have food and work. Hitler? Now that he has won, he has only to implement his programme. It was almost the same as ours! But he has been more cunning, he reassured the bourgeois by not immediately attacking religion .. I will tell you one thing: If they abandon him, all these fat pigs who are around him .. I will go and fight for him! He at least is a sincere man; he is the only one.

As for where exactly National Socialism stood on the political spectrum, de Rougemont concluded that, although the regime was a good deal further to the left than had been appreciated in France, it was much less so than the German bourgeoisie tried to make out.

Laissez-faire capitalism is so healthy for you. It's a salad filled with greens, beans and pulses for protein, washed down with a healthy coffee. I want that. I can work to buy it off someone.

It's really unsensible limits on market freedom that are the real problem.

Capitalism works.

Yes, a salad perhaps tainted by heavy doses of hydrocarbons and God knows what else. Governments need to regulate on corporations, we outright cannot trust them to act responsibly by themselves, period. We don't know how many microplastics end up in the oceans, how many harmful gases end up in the atmosphere, how many workers are taken advantage of, how many handicapped people aren't given a chance due to their disabilities, etc., I will never not ever trust big corporations to do what is right themselves especially with the idea floating around that most CEO's are benign sociopaths. Imagine giving Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg 100% freedom with 0% intervention. That's bordering on dystopian.

You are dead wrong. The ugliness of of 19th century style Laissez-faire capitalism is what made Marxist-style socialism gain popularity in the early 20th century. Antipathy towards capitalism wasn't just a thing that randomly popped out of Marx's ass one day. It happened for a reason. Everything in history happens for a reason. If laissez-faire capitalism was so awesome that everyone loved it, communism would never have happened. People would just naturally love it. There wouldn't be billions of dollars worth of corporate money flowing into propaganda/cheer-leading think tanks and political organizations. That s**t is only needed because people need to be constantly lied to in order to be convinced that something that sucks is actually awesome.

I'm not saying Marxist-style socialism is better than capitalism. It has even bigger flaws, but the supreme shittiness of Laissez-faire capitalism and the corporate feudalism it leads to will make lots of people desperate for any alternative. Pushing your nonsense bears the risk of destabilizing society. Too much inequality is dangerous, especially in these times when people are less autonomous and more dependent on technology for their survival than any time in the past.

If it's regulated to make sure there are no harmful chemicals in your salad, do you complain?



You might be interested to know that libertarians don't actually love massive corporations all that much!

The best way is that products are regulated so that they don't kill anyone. If they don't kill anyone and they are not unfairly dominating the market, let them prosper.

The e-cigarette movement fascinated me as a libertarian. Minimal regulation. Then the EU got involved and the Government started clamping down on this sort of thing. When Britain has left they can relax the rules again. It makes it a joy to be alive. I'm not a smoker but I tried an e-cigarette once, and my mother is an e-cigarette user. It gladdens my heart.



Those are being banned.



You have quite an enightened attitude. Handicapped?! I thought that died out in the 1980s. Still, political correctness and all that.

Last edited by Tequila on 18 Aug 2018, 12:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

I also think alt-right is a pointless term, used as a tool of rhetoric by the left to lump together people of differing ideologies that they do not like. This also includes leftist ideologues that they do not like.

I'm a libertarian, and I've been called alt-right, though I'd argue I'm of the original right but whatever.

Alt-right is a term meant to sanitize white supremacy, neo-Nazism, neo-Confederacy, etc. and make it more acceptable to the masses.

I've never supported the use of the euphemism. Call a Nazi a Nazi. If they feel uncomfortable being called that... well, perhaps they should have a good hard think about their life choices.

This is why I keep saying alt reich. When people think of alt right they need to intrinsically think alt reich as way of not letting these scum try to sanitize their vileness.

The problem is that libertarians and anti-establishment right-wingers got pooled in with the neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates. I have never considered myself an alt-righter, mainly because the movement is full of people I have never heard of.