Perspective

Back to the Future

Taking part in the launch of a new website, AltRight.com, evokes great hopes for the future . . . but also a certain nostalgia and déjà vu.

In March 2010, I launched the original AlternativeRight.com. By then, the “Alt Right” label had gained currency among the circle of young rightist intellectuals I was friends with in Washington and New York City, as well as the wider audience of Takimag.com, where I had worked as Editor. A website called Alternative Right was a real stake in the ground (if only a digital one), an announcement—ambitious, pretentious, quixotic—of nothing less than a new movement.

I fondly remember the whole process of creating something original, not just the fun parts like blogging and polishing off the masthead, but the busywork of purchasing the URL, setting up bank and PayPal accounts, ordering business cards, and so on. I ran the site mostly single-handedly, as a young writer who was hardly a mover-and-shaker in the journalist and think-tank world and totally unknown outside it. Brandishing an “Alt Right” business card or discussing my grand plans for an intellectual takeover would mostly elicit confused stares and questions about what on earth an “Alt Right” really was. I can also remember all those people who advised me not to go out on my own so boldly, as, apparently, I was throwing away the opportunity of having my soul-sucked in some Beltway bastion of “conservatism.”

But even at this early stage, we made waves, and, much like now, we punched well above our weight. The Alt Right was treated as a looming threat by the likes of David Frum (Dubya’s speech writer and one of the most well-connected neoconservatives in Washington), who commissioned multiple hatchet jobs. From one perspective, such attention was unwarranted (if not ridiculous). AlternativeRight.com had a few thousands dollars in working capital, and we were publishing fascinating, though not exactly news-making, articles: Kevin MacDonald’s analysis of Jews and American conservatism . . . Paul Gottfried’s characteristic pieces . . . Stephen MacNallen’s treatise on Why I’m a Pagan. . . my memories of Duke basketball . . .

That said, Frum and company were right in attacking the fledgling Alt Right . . . and not just because they seemed to have prophesied the various controversies that erupted throughout Trump’s rise in 2016. After all, our enemies discerned in AlternativeRight.com not just another conservative webzine, and not just another hotbed of the “far right” and “extremism” (the most common insults launched at us). Our detractors recognized, quite correctly, that we had new ways of seeing the world . . . which would, by necessity, impact politics, culture, and society.

In this way, the “Alt”—the otherness and new beginning—was just as important as the “Right”—the designator of tradition and continuity.

I’ve joked that George W. Bush could be cited as the ironic founder of the Alt Right. For it was everything about him—the universalist “freedom” obsession, his vulgar religiosity, the “fight terror by going shopping” cult—that inspired me to recognize that “American conservatism” was wrong from the beginning and that a real alternative was necessary right at that moment. But to connect the Alt Right with Bush is to misunderstand it as being merely about policy and technicalities.

This new site’s ambition is to define the Alt Right—a term that has sprung from obscurity to household notoriety . . . the kind of thing that receives finger-wagging from Hillary Clinton (and even Donald Trump) . . . that gets a laugh on Saturday Night Live . . . that inspired the gag that Darth Vader no longer identifies as a Sith Lord but as an “Alt Jedi.” While currency in pop culture is certainly a sign of success, it also means the term is in danger of turning into a cliché.

This site is also an attempt at real collaboration between some of the most important intellectuals and activists in our movement. I’m not alone anymore in being a career thought-criminal; indeed, I’m amazed and envious of the work of my colleagues.

And finally AltRight.com is an attempt, in its news and commentary function, to reach a much broader audience than ever before—an audience that no longer stares back at me perplexed but is actively googling and contemplating the Alt Right and its ideas.

It was the campaign of Donald Trump that sling-shotted us into the mainstream, as he sounded many of our themes (if in crude and immature ways) and as we projected onto him our hopes and dreams. But now that Trump is in office—that he’s no longer a potentiality but an actuality, more of a man than a God Emperor—it’s time for the Alt Right to distance itself critically from him. We might even need to go into opposition.

The Alt Right is about new beginnings.

Today marks another one.

Richard Spencer
the authorRichard Spencer
Richard Spencer is American Editor of AltRight.com; he's President of The National Policy Institute and founder of RadixJournal.com.

27 Comments

  • I remember the original youtube video where you announced that your new website would be called “Frum Forum.”

    Having read Frum’s boy-toy arguing with the “racists” over at Occidental Dissent before he was outed, it was all the more amusing.

  • Let’s all work to make this a great site. Albeit with out Jewish wives. I for one would love to see FTN and the Fatherland here. Harden the ruck up, toys.

  • 3 cheers for your “collaboration” idea – quite brave & ground breaking! most of us a few weeks ago were marveling at Richard Spencer, Andrew Anglin, & Mike P. Enoch all together on a podcast – i’m glad i saved that one – wish i had saved some FTN’s & TDS’s – hope they pop back up archived on this website! PS – the Duke basketball link is broken:) keep up the good work & the constantly going forward.

  • Here’s hoping this site has a long, great run. I remember reading the old Alternative Right site during the salad days of the Obama Administration. That site was an important break from both the Bush years and Paleoconservatism.

    How about a news aggregate like Drudge?

  • Great areas of growth for the alt right is social science.

    Fractal methodology is comparable and fits well within the alt right mind set.

    Also futurists and environmentalists are needed. We will bleed the left dry.

    https://youtu.be/bKuT7EKwAtU

    #AnimeRight

  • Richard Spencer wrote: “It was the campaign of Donald Trump that sling-shotted us into the mainstream…”

    Yes. I see the Right as falling into three groups in the current year:

    1. The old globalist cuckservative Right, with its failed poster-child the buffoon known as Jeb!

    2. The civic nationalist Right, lead by Donald Trump, and

    3. The Alt-Right, soon to be the New Right, openly White Nationalist, leadership to be determined.

    The 2016 election was a key event in that it got a majority of White America to make the move from #1 to #2, or if you like, half-way to White Nationalism. It can’t be stresses just how huge this was. All it will take is just one more key event to move them to #3.

    Although most events can’t be predicted, I’ll bet that the final move will occur with the 2024 election. I see “Trumpism” as just a stepping stone, it will fail long term. All we need is a good openly White Nationalist candidate to run against a future Democrat radical like Keith Ellison. I wouldn’t be surprised if he, or someone like him, is their 2024 standard bearer. That will make things much easier for us.

    • You’re absolutely right that Trumpism will fail except as a stepping stone towards something stronger. The barriers to entry from 2 to 3 are much, much higher than were those from 1 to 2 though. Your average normie can easily make the jump from cuck to civic nationalist based solely on memeing ridicule of SJWs.

      Make no mistake though. You still can’t touch race realism. You still can’t touch the JQ. You can barely even touch tranny faggotry without losing your job.

      In thee Current Year of 0003, we need to attack those barriers to entry. By far the biggest barrier to entry is the threat to our livelihoods posed by SJW doxxers. Most people just don’t have a job skill that is marketable as a solo practitioner. They depend on the ability to go to work and earn a livelihood. It’s going to take a rather large business refusing to fire someone who is revealed to be a major alt right shitlord. That would require a strong redpilled presence in the boardroom and an iron stomach to stand up to the resulting boycotts.

      No public companies. They will cuck out to the demands of their (((shareholders))) every time. No, it needs to be a privately owned company, preferably a local business but one large enough to generate a lot of buzz for refusing to fire a neo nazi.

      Or we pool our money into a lower-value public company and buy a 51% interest.

      Something like that

  • http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/175/384/e1a.png

    This Pepe really captures the mood of the Alt Right on this day. Today, we feel isolated and dejected. The shitlords of the once great castle which was the 504um are sitting haplessly in the ruins, trying to pick up the pieces. The sadness in his eyes is because he has been cut off and isolated from his brothers, but note that Pepe still dons the armor, for he has not forsaken the fight. He needs time to grieve, but the evidence is already present that this sadness will, very shortly, morph into a primal, visceral and focused rage. His left hand, still armored, is already beginning to clench into an angry fist. The fire reflecting in his eyes will soon migrate to the visceral cavity of this chest and he will channel the righteous wrath and furious vengeance of Kek. His castle has fallen, yet only days later, another is erected, Richard Spencer its shitlord. One day, many years from now, when the day is won and we are relating the tale of our great struggle to our posterity, this Pepe will immortalize the symbolism of January of thee Current Year 0003. Those who stand with the Alt Right on this day are the Vanguard.

    Hail Victory fam.

  • Congratulations on making it this far (and going even further as we speak) in advancing the White Right! The intellectualism and moral courage of your original AlternativeRight was a light in the darkness. Thank you for maintaining them both in the face of our enemies!

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