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We'll see how the trend moves going forward, but even after capturing (by rhetoric if not act) the white house, the alt-right continues to be a radical fringe,

We'll see how the trend moves going forward, but even after capturing (by rhetoric if not act) the white house, the alt-right continues to be a radical fringe, and suffers from serious internal contradictions that make any serious movement building doomed. The movement has attracted the attention of a lot of white nationalists, anti-semites and hardline fascists (amren, natall, kss), while also attracting a new wave of online-prominent trolls and shit-stirrers. But what happens when the 4chan poster with the anime pillow who denies the holocaust just to get a rise out of the libcucks crosses paths with an actual hardline anti-semite who is interested in building an even-more-final solution? To use a colloquialism, what happens when the rubber meets the road? Do the fascists tolerate what they would consider to be total degeneracy for the sake of finally building a mass movement? Does the online troll recognize that what was an ironic joke for him is a hard reality for others, and move to push their real-life activism away from those types of groups? This is what I mean by internal contradictions, the kind that can kill a mass movement before it even starts. So while there is a common refrain of "this is why Trump won, and the movement of contrarians, devils advocates, trolls, anti-pc crusaders, people who tweet about white genocide, stormfront regulars and conspiracy theorists is only going to grow if you being offensive towards them", the reality is much, much more complicated. Trust in Trump has plummeted, even amongst his core. The vote is very quickly slipping out of the grasp of the Right, and was always a race against time demographically to begin with. And if you're in a position where you can't win through democratic means, you have to use other means (boycotts, protests, organizing, etc). And the alt-right is utterly lamed by it's own hand before that race has even started.

Const-me 9y ago
Very likely you’re right about the current state of alt right movement (I live in Europe and haven’t been monitoring the subject). But GP only mentioned alt-rights as an example of where might the voters turn their preferences. Even at Google where James worked, many employees agree with his memo (36%), and the majority, 54% of them think the memo is harmless and was OK to share: https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-james-damore-the-only-set-of-balls-left-at-google/ https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-ja... After Google fired him, these 54% will inevitably think about what other ideas they think are harmless might cause them to be fired. Not exactly comforting thoughts.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  For the life of me, I cannot find a legitimate source for that poll. I see the image popping up on a lot of less-than-reputable websites (wordpress blogs, tweets, businessinsider, etc) but no actual source for it, let alone any idea of its methodology.
  - panda88888 9y ago
    Since it's allegedly Google internal poll, you probably won't find more information on it beyond screenshot. After what happened to Damore and calls for his supporters to be fired as well, most people are probably clamming up now.
    - michaelchisari 9y ago
      I can't say that inspires confidence that the poll is even legitimate. Do we at least have proof that it actually was an internal Google poll and not someone's 15 minutes in photoshop?
      - Const-me 9y ago
        No, we don’t have that proof. However, the design matches the defaults of google forms, exact colors and their sequence, too: http://imgur.com/WPC0ogZ http://imgur.com/WPC0ogZ Also the header says "gd-jpeg v1.0", it’s a cross platform open source C library with bindings for all modern programming languages including Go and Python: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD_Graphics_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD_Graphics_Library Even if that’s a fake, it’s a good one.
        michaelchisari 9y ago
        I mean, GD has been around for over 20 years. It's not obscure. It's extremely popular. Most coders have used it at some point. I could whip upa similar graph without breaking a sweat that says whatever I'd like, and it would have all the same hallmarks of this one. I could even do it in PHP using ImageMagick (if I felt masochistic) and fake the file header to say it was created using GD. Or build it in photoshop, and pull it into a binary editor. So I think unless there's someone who can point to greater evidence that this is an internal graph, there's just no reason to believe it is.
rufus_2 9y ago
> Trust in Trump has plummeted, even amongst his core. The vote is very quickly slipping out of the grasp of the Right This is certainly the message being broadcast into every home on the planet for the last 6 moths. In reality it seems a bit optimistic when we consider the Democrats are coming from a decade-long losing streak (http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-democrats-lost-900-seats-state-legislatures-o/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/...), a monumentally embarrassing, record cost $1.2B failed 2016 Presidential campaign (http://nypost.com/2016/12/09/hillary-clintons-losing-campaign-cost-a-record-1-2b/ http://nypost.com/2016/12/09/hillary-clintons-losing-campaig...), and following these up by going 0-6 in federal elections (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/21/georgia-special-election-gop-boasts-democrats-are-0-5-in-special-house-races.html http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/21/georgia-special-e...) leaving them with their lowest representation in American government since the 1920's (http://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469052020/the-democratic-party-got-crushed-during-the-obama-presidency-heres-why http://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469052020/the-democratic-party...). I think it's pretty safe to say that the American leftist revolution is _not_ right around the corner.
- mathw 9y ago
  Indeed but I think a lot of leftists would be very happy just to get rid of Trump. A right-wing government with a President who displays any kind of understanding of diplomacy, international politics and everyday reality would be an improvement.
  - rufus_2 9y ago
    I fear what Trump would be replaced with if the establishment GOP and Democrats actually managed to oust him. The environment that catalyzed Trump's rise to power has not changed - if anything, it has intensified.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  Right now, we have two indicators: The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans, even if Republicans end up winning, it's barely by single digits in double digit districts. And the polling, which in aggregate, across all demographics, has been continually moving more and more negative each passing month. Even polls like Rasmussen, which have a traditional right-wing bias, have shown a consistent drop in support. Metrics like the ones you mentioned aren't useful as predictors. Yes, the Democrats spent a lot of money. So did the Republicans. Big money elections are the norm now, and each election has a loser. Your reference to losing special elections only tells half the story. These are races that should have been as safe as safe can be. That's why they're special elections, because when Presidents make appointments, they only tend to choose people from their party who are in such safe districts that they can easily be replaced. Often-times, the national party doesn't even send monetary support to these special elections, because they're re-won so handily. Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points in a district that went for Trump by 19 points. Moreover, the Republicans were required to spend $25 million in order to defend a seat that they had most likely budgeted around $0 for. That's what's called a weathervane. Or a canary in a coal mine. Even further down this rabbit hole, the 0-6 loss article is from June. Since then, we've had Phil Miller win by 9 points in a district that Trump won by 21 points, which means that's a 30 point swing! We also have Kevin Cavanaugh winning by 23.4 points in a district that Clinton only won by 0.1 points. There's also been sweeps of state legislatures in traditionally VERY deep red states such as Oklahoma. Every single trend points to a very difficult 2018 for the Republicans, and an especially difficult 2020.
cm2187 9y ago
I am not sure I get your objection. It's like saying that Clinton couldn't win the election because she had far-left/communist sympathisers. I am sure she did. And I am also sure these were a marginal portion of her electoral base. I don't see how these extremists would stand in the way of a broader movement. I am not bullish on Trump long term, but not because some extremists also support him, but because of his own randomness and inability to get things done in Washington.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  It might be important I clarify that I'm not talking about the right, I'm talking about the far right (re-branded as the "alt-right"). This does not include most people who vote Republican or consider themselves traditional conservatives. The traditional conservative movement is dying out. Quite literally, it has a demographic problem that it is not sure how to resolve. In it's place, you have the alt-right, which does tend to be more youthful, but which acts as an umbrella for a wide variety of extremist viewpoints, everything from extreme libertarianism to conspiracy theorists to white nationalism to single-issue anti-islamic advocates and a whole host of others. And within that milieu, a large proportion of people are not singularly committed to those hard-right ideologies as much as they define themselves solely in their rejection of liberalism, the left, or social justice. The result is a whole host of confusion. The alt-right is constantly infighting about cultural issues such as traditional masculinity or gay rights, to the difference between opposition to illegal immigration (a viewpoint which can claim to be more centrist) or opposing immigration altogether, including legal (which is held by the nationalist wing of the movement). As the voting base disappears, these groups will have to figure out how to grow their movement, make political demands, maintain a presence without burning out, etc. Just like all movements do. But that's exactly where those intense internal divisions come in and wreak havoc.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    Ok, but agreeing with the infamous memo doesn't make someone a far right extremist. The parent comment suggested it will push them to vote for a harder-line movement but there is a big margin between being opposed to affirmative action and white supremacists.
Chris2048 9y ago
> But what happens when the 4chan poster with the anime pillow who denies the holocaust just to get a rise out of the libcucks crosses paths with an actual hardline anti-semite who is interested in building an even-more-final solution? Sounds like an amazing sit-com. Stay tuned, folks!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Const-me 9y ago

Very likely you’re right about the current state of alt right movement (I live in Europe and haven’t been monitoring the subject). But GP only mentioned alt-rights as an example of where might the voters turn their preferences. Even at Google where James worked, many employees agree with his memo (36%), and the majority, 54% of them think the memo is harmless and was OK to share: https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-james-damore-the-only-set-of-balls-left-at-google/ https://basicgestalt.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/press-f-for-ja... After Google fired him, these 54% will inevitably think about what other ideas they think are harmless might cause them to be fired. Not exactly comforting thoughts.

michaelchisari 9y ago
For the life of me, I cannot find a legitimate source for that poll. I see the image popping up on a lot of less-than-reputable websites (wordpress blogs, tweets, businessinsider, etc) but no actual source for it, let alone any idea of its methodology.
- panda88888 9y ago
  Since it's allegedly Google internal poll, you probably won't find more information on it beyond screenshot. After what happened to Damore and calls for his supporters to be fired as well, most people are probably clamming up now.
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    I can't say that inspires confidence that the poll is even legitimate. Do we at least have proof that it actually was an internal Google poll and not someone's 15 minutes in photoshop?
    - Const-me 9y ago
      No, we don’t have that proof. However, the design matches the defaults of google forms, exact colors and their sequence, too: http://imgur.com/WPC0ogZ http://imgur.com/WPC0ogZ Also the header says "gd-jpeg v1.0", it’s a cross platform open source C library with bindings for all modern programming languages including Go and Python: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD_Graphics_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD_Graphics_Library Even if that’s a fake, it’s a good one.
      - michaelchisari 9y ago
        I mean, GD has been around for over 20 years. It's not obscure. It's extremely popular. Most coders have used it at some point. I could whip upa similar graph without breaking a sweat that says whatever I'd like, and it would have all the same hallmarks of this one. I could even do it in PHP using ImageMagick (if I felt masochistic) and fake the file header to say it was created using GD. Or build it in photoshop, and pull it into a binary editor. So I think unless there's someone who can point to greater evidence that this is an internal graph, there's just no reason to believe it is.

rufus_2 9y ago

> Trust in Trump has plummeted, even amongst his core. The vote is very quickly slipping out of the grasp of the Right This is certainly the message being broadcast into every home on the planet for the last 6 moths. In reality it seems a bit optimistic when we consider the Democrats are coming from a decade-long losing streak (http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-democrats-lost-900-seats-state-legislatures-o/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/...), a monumentally embarrassing, record cost $1.2B failed 2016 Presidential campaign (http://nypost.com/2016/12/09/hillary-clintons-losing-campaign-cost-a-record-1-2b/ http://nypost.com/2016/12/09/hillary-clintons-losing-campaig...), and following these up by going 0-6 in federal elections (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/21/georgia-special-election-gop-boasts-democrats-are-0-5-in-special-house-races.html http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/21/georgia-special-e...) leaving them with their lowest representation in American government since the 1920's (http://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469052020/the-democratic-party-got-crushed-during-the-obama-presidency-heres-why http://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469052020/the-democratic-party...). I think it's pretty safe to say that the American leftist revolution is _not_ right around the corner.

mathw 9y ago
Indeed but I think a lot of leftists would be very happy just to get rid of Trump. A right-wing government with a President who displays any kind of understanding of diplomacy, international politics and everyday reality would be an improvement.
- rufus_2 9y ago
  I fear what Trump would be replaced with if the establishment GOP and Democrats actually managed to oust him. The environment that catalyzed Trump's rise to power has not changed - if anything, it has intensified.
michaelchisari 9y ago
Right now, we have two indicators: The way the swings on the special elections are going, which are all violently swinging away from the Republicans, even if Republicans end up winning, it's barely by single digits in double digit districts. And the polling, which in aggregate, across all demographics, has been continually moving more and more negative each passing month. Even polls like Rasmussen, which have a traditional right-wing bias, have shown a consistent drop in support. Metrics like the ones you mentioned aren't useful as predictors. Yes, the Democrats spent a lot of money. So did the Republicans. Big money elections are the norm now, and each election has a loser. Your reference to losing special elections only tells half the story. These are races that should have been as safe as safe can be. That's why they're special elections, because when Presidents make appointments, they only tend to choose people from their party who are in such safe districts that they can easily be replaced. Often-times, the national party doesn't even send monetary support to these special elections, because they're re-won so handily. Take Ossoff's challenge in Georgia. He lost by 4 points in a district that went for Trump by 19 points. Moreover, the Republicans were required to spend $25 million in order to defend a seat that they had most likely budgeted around $0 for. That's what's called a weathervane. Or a canary in a coal mine. Even further down this rabbit hole, the 0-6 loss article is from June. Since then, we've had Phil Miller win by 9 points in a district that Trump won by 21 points, which means that's a 30 point swing! We also have Kevin Cavanaugh winning by 23.4 points in a district that Clinton only won by 0.1 points. There's also been sweeps of state legislatures in traditionally VERY deep red states such as Oklahoma. Every single trend points to a very difficult 2018 for the Republicans, and an especially difficult 2020.

cm2187 9y ago

I am not sure I get your objection. It's like saying that Clinton couldn't win the election because she had far-left/communist sympathisers. I am sure she did. And I am also sure these were a marginal portion of her electoral base. I don't see how these extremists would stand in the way of a broader movement. I am not bullish on Trump long term, but not because some extremists also support him, but because of his own randomness and inability to get things done in Washington.

michaelchisari 9y ago
It might be important I clarify that I'm not talking about the right, I'm talking about the far right (re-branded as the "alt-right"). This does not include most people who vote Republican or consider themselves traditional conservatives. The traditional conservative movement is dying out. Quite literally, it has a demographic problem that it is not sure how to resolve. In it's place, you have the alt-right, which does tend to be more youthful, but which acts as an umbrella for a wide variety of extremist viewpoints, everything from extreme libertarianism to conspiracy theorists to white nationalism to single-issue anti-islamic advocates and a whole host of others. And within that milieu, a large proportion of people are not singularly committed to those hard-right ideologies as much as they define themselves solely in their rejection of liberalism, the left, or social justice. The result is a whole host of confusion. The alt-right is constantly infighting about cultural issues such as traditional masculinity or gay rights, to the difference between opposition to illegal immigration (a viewpoint which can claim to be more centrist) or opposing immigration altogether, including legal (which is held by the nationalist wing of the movement). As the voting base disappears, these groups will have to figure out how to grow their movement, make political demands, maintain a presence without burning out, etc. Just like all movements do. But that's exactly where those intense internal divisions come in and wreak havoc.
- cm2187 9y ago
  Ok, but agreeing with the infamous memo doesn't make someone a far right extremist. The parent comment suggested it will push them to vote for a harder-line movement but there is a big margin between being opposed to affirmative action and white supremacists.

Chris2048 9y ago

> But what happens when the 4chan poster with the anime pillow who denies the holocaust just to get a rise out of the libcucks crosses paths with an actual hardline anti-semite who is interested in building an even-more-final solution? Sounds like an amazing sit-com. Stay tuned, folks!

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]