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Yesterday’s Radicalism Is Today’s Mainstream

Owen Strachan has a new article in The Federalist on how White men are flocking to the Alt-Right:

“Various journalists have helped form a narrative of sorts about the identity of this shadowy, boisterous alt-right movement. The alt-right is childish and vicious, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing other than the message-board histrionics of aggrieved young men in their parents’ basement. …

I do wonder, however, if the media has missed at least one true thing regarding the “alt-right.” The movement (if we can call it that) may often prove inchoate and even inarticulate, but behind the memes and coded language, there seems to be a massed sentiment. It is this: men feel left behind. …

Others see men struggling, observe them falling precipitously behind in earning college degrees and other achievements such as earnings for unmarrieds, watch them leaving their wives and children then violently lashing out, and begin to wonder if men need something besides elaborate gender theory or a dismissive long-form hot-take. Maybe men, particularly young men, need help. …

Because it is not friendly to them, many men do not like postmodern society. They have been taught they have no innate call to leadership of home and church, and accordingly have lost the script for their lives. They have been encouraged to step back from being a breadwinner, and do not know what they are supposed to do with their lives.

They have been told that they talk too loudly and spread their legs too wide, and thus do not fit in with a feminized society. They may be the product of a divorced home, and may have grown up without an engaged father, so possess both pent-up rage and a disappearing instinct. They did nothing to choose their biological manliness, but are instructed to attend sensitivity training by virtue of it. They recognize—rightly—that politically correct culture constrains free thought and free speech, and so they opt out from it. …

But here is where the common narrative of the alt-right and related groups makes a major mistake. Men are disappearing, but they are not vanishing. They are moving out of the mainstream, and into the shadows. …

But men need a deeper solution than this. They need something more than a message-board movement to join. They need a call to maturity, to repentance, to greatness, to leadership, to courage, to self-sacrifice on behalf of women and children. They need a hero: not a political performance-artist, but a true hero, a savior who, unlike a fallen culture, leaves no repentant man—or woman—behind.”

Here are a few thoughts:

1.) Just to clarify, we’re really talking about cisgendered, straight non-Hispanic White men here. Jewish men, Hispanic men, Asian men, black men and homosexual men aren’t facing the same situation. These people have greater opportunities than they enjoyed in the past.

2.) I’ve reviewed Marilyn Yalom’s A History of The Wife, Stephanie Coontz’s Marriage, a History and Andrew Cherlin’s The Marriage-Go-Round. To put this in perspective, there have been more sweeping changes in marriage, sex, the family, the status of women and gender identity in the last fifty years than in the previous two thousand years of Western history.

3.) The mass immigration of non-Whites into Europe and North America is similarly an unprecedented phenomenon. It can only be compared to the incursions of the Arabs, Turks and Mongols and even those invasions don’t do justice to the magnitude of the cultural and demographic changes sweeping across the West. Unlike the predicament we are facing today, those invasions were bitterly resisted by premodern Europeans. They weren’t welcomed and encouraged by a feminized leadership.

4.) There was no such thing as the “mainstream” until around 1960. In order to be “mainstream,” your behavior has to conform to a moral code which didn’t exist a century ago. It is a secular catechism created by radicals and propagated by a cartel of mass media outlets.

5.) Christianity has been twisted in all sorts of ways to conform to the dominant narratives of the “mainstream.” We live in a country where Lutherans denounce Martin Luther!

6.) Around the mid-20th century, the people who had previously been identified as radicals and who were confined to the margins of our culture began to break into the elite and succeeded in hijacking culture producing institutions. In many cases, they were at the forefront of pioneering new forms of media like film. Eventually, what used to be known as the counter-culture became “mainstream” culture, and what used be normal, healthy attitudes were stigmatized as “fringe.”

7.) As Thomas Carlyle would say, the White male is now invited to observe the ruins of his own culture which has been reduced to “mere mountains of anarchic rubbish.” We’re invited “to sing Fraternity, &c. over it, and rejoice in the now remarkable era of human progress we have arrived at.” If you dare to hold a contrary view on these developments and deny any of the new sacred -isms and -phobias, you are excommunicated from the “mainstream.”

8.) The Alt-Right doesn’t consider any of this progress. On the contrary, we see it as a decline. The family unit has been demolished. It has been replaced by abortion, divorce and ugly women with loose morals wearing pink pussy hats. We’re being invaded by millions of foreigners because our elites want to dissolve our borders. We have a culture that is collapsing because it is being pulverized by networks of subversive elements who have infested our media and universities.

9.) There are millions of White males who want nothing more than to live a quiet, peaceful, normal, healthy life. You can’t do that and expect to be “mainstream” these days. The costs of the catastrophic breakdown we experienced in the mid-20th century are mounting by the day. A crisis is looming.

10.) Finally, I will just say that I am trying to cut the “mainstream” out of my life and recommend that others do the same. It took me a long time, but I found a nationalist wife who shares my values. We have a family now. I have use social media to network with likeminded people who reject the “mainstream.” I now have lots of friends who share my values. I use social media to attack the “mainstream” and so many people appreciate my voice on these issues that I am gradually becoming economically independent of the “mainstream.” Whether it is compromised churches, public schools, politicians or the fake news media, we are rejecting the “mainstream” in favor of alternatives.

The “mainstream” is dying from a thousand cuts. Good riddance!

Hunter Wallace
the authorHunter Wallace
Hunter Wallace is the founder and editor of OccidentalDissent.com

28 Comments

  • As far as I can tell the altright is made up of (mostly young) men (although its leaders seem to be older) who are sick and tired of seeing everything their ancestors build for them being given away or destroyed. Western society and all its institutions and products were made by our ancestors specifically for us. Not for anyone who subscribes to a list of propositions, but for us, and us alone. Our current CultMarx leaders have contributed nothing to Western society, and yet think they have the right to destroy Western society and to spit all over us; the only ones who care to claim our birthright. They make no secret of what it is they are doing, yet call us crazy conspiracy nuts for pointing it out. They don’t try to reason with us, or convince us that what they are doing is for the best, but gloat over white decline. Owen Strachan is right about feminism, but feminism is merely a symptom of the destruction of the West. It is no good to just cut off pieces of a weed, you have to haul the whole thing, roots and all, out by the stem.

  • If we want to save the West, we should go back to AT LEAST to the first half of the 18th century to find a suitable foundation upon which we can build our future. By the end of the 18th century, Goethe already complained about the decline of the West in his letters to Schiller. The (French & American) revolutions of the late 18th century didn’t start the decline. Together with the Marxist revolution of 1917 and the “counter-cultural” revolt of the late ’60s, it only accelerated a process of decline that had already been set in motion!

    “My principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal.”
    — Julius Evola

  • Talk about the Alt Right as the dominant world view of the ’30’s – the 2030’s, and beyond. We have the “futuristic” ideas on our side now, as we discover that our allegedly ignorant and prejudiced ancestors got a lot of important things right the first time around about race, identity and human sexuality.

  • My biggest struggle is having zero allies who are all-in on understanding what the hell is going on, and it makes me feel isolated as all hell. Sure some of my folks nod and get the jist but no sense of urgency or action.

    How are people linking up in meat space? Particularly men with young families who can’t travel much or far?

    • There are the Daily Stormer book clubs. One probably exists near you.

      Tbh they are largely old right WN’s who have rebranded to remain relevent. Anglin does good work and I enjoy his articles, but I have some basic ideological differences with much of the people over there. Still it’s worth looking into if your okay with Hitler worship.

    • Have you ever met anyone you have been honest with who agrees with? If so start getting together for social purposes. If your a Christian go back to church and be ready to start expressing your opinions and changing peoples minds.

    • This advice may seem counter-intuitive – but I would suggest NOT looking to find people who are necessarily “Alt right” or like minded politically, or political at all.

      If there is a difference between “right” and “left” it is this. The “left” is basically a cult group. You must have the correct opinions. They say that the “right” looks for allies and the “left” expels dissenters.

      If “right” means anything it is natural cultures. So forget an “alt right” political group. Instead, find a natural organization: a church, a civic group, a fraternity, maybe just a hunting club with your buddies. These groups will be implicitly white even if not explicit. As long as they aren’t actively cucking, it’s probably all good.

      Natural civic organizations that are based on organic culture are going to naturally be somewhat “right wing.” Groups that are political in nature, that are “activists” are naturally going to be “left wing.” Just look at a young libertarian club – sure, it’s “right wing” but it may as well be “left” or it will be soon.

      A young family? Church, of course.

  • Thank you, Hunter…….

    “The “mainstream” is dying from a thousand cuts. Good riddance!”

    AMEN 1000X……..

  • “Arabs, Turks and Mongols and even those invasions don’t do justice to the magnitude of the cultural and demographic changes sweeping across the West. “- wrong

      • Yeah, west what about eastern Europe, i could say that there is nothing bad happening now here where i live. So in that sense from my perspective this is far better then Turkish and Mongol occupation of eastern Europe.
        And as i know western children aren’t taken away to be janissaries(boys) or sold for camels as sex slaves (mostly girls) on some market in Syria or Khartoum, today.
        Or if you want, Skopje (today capital of FYR Macedonia) before Turks came was nice city with stone roads, and almost all people there could write and read, and when Turks came. But when Serbian army liberated it, it was one big pile of mud, and yeah almost no Christian could write and read (except priests). I mean there are books about all thing, except ofc. western historians like to describe Ottoman caliphate as source of stability for region.
        And well i think that most people in the west don’t take Constantinople as part of western civilization.

  • Those of us in the Alt Right possess a high degree of rational and reality, others like those at the Federalist do not. Hunter, I applaud your efforts you mentioned in point 10, but there must be more. Yes, pulling away from the mainstream is important but we are dangerously close to being an online movement only. I am working in my church building relationships voicing another opinion with the goal of using the church as a force for changing the local culture. BTW many mainline churches are desperate for members this is an opportunity we are overlooking. We can make a change by using their own inclination to cuck when meeting a strong opinionated force.
    I would love to hear what others are doing.

    • “BTW many mainline churches are desperate for members this is an opportunity we are overlooking”

      An issue I’ve been harping on forever. All the American civic institutions have collapsed numerically in the last two or three generations – which means there is a huge amount of infrastructure just waiting to be co-opted. Churches, fraternities like the Masons, Elks, Knights of Columbus, credit unions, the Lions Clubs, everything.

      Bob Whitaker told a story about how when the Catholic scandals broke, he knew a couple that walked out and never came back. But what good does that do? If an institution is corrupted, you don’t abandon it – you stay and fight and win it back.

      The Episcopal church is virtually the definition of mainstream in America, and it’s suffered a massive loss of membership and a major split due to feminism and “LGBT” issues. Now would be a perfect time to take back the literal central institution of American Christianity. Literally all you have to do is walk in the front door and show up every Sunday and Wednesday. Get enough people to do that and you can un-cuck these institutions in one generation.

      • I’m so glad you responded as well as Reformed Feminist. I wish you where here. My husband pastors a small large mainline congregation ripe for the picking. The baby boomers are traditional enough to be swayed by growth grounded in the “conservative” realm.
        If you are Christian get back to a mainline church and be ready to start finding, building and growing community where you live.

    • Yes, this is a great way to transition the movement from being online to in-person. We aren’t like leftists who think a get together of like-minded people must include include violent riots and degenerate public displays of tolerance. We’ve no need for black masks and other cowardice. Churches, fraternities as mentioned below, and other meaningful get-togethers offer the best platform to start out with for those of us who may not be able to attend conferences.

      Also, I think many outsiders are convinced the movement is only supported by white males and not also white women. Yes, men are the natural leaders of the alt-right/ trad movement, and should remain so. However, there are many unseen women standing behind them.

      Whether you’re a wife/ girlfriend who stands behind her alt-right man, or a divorced single mom with two cats who is devoted to her children (and also supports their right to a meaningful relationship with their father) – the number of women who are beginning to see the light are growing. And yes, I predict there will be many men and women from broken homes becoming disillusioned with the lies of misinterpreted equality picking up the pieces and joining a movement that can teach them how to change for the better and mend their fractured lives.

      In the end, it will be the men who lead their women out of the shadows, and our like-minded sisters to keep us from slinking away once the liberal feminists wolves come out to attack.

      • Conferences are exciting but ineffectual at growing community. I can attest to that after speaking with my daughter who is still searching for an Alt Right community who is actually intentional about becoming friends and mutual support in her area. Being Alt Right can be very lonely. That’s where women can be helpful we are natural social organizers. I challenge the young women in this movement to reach out and start gatherings such as a get together and dinner parties. They don’t have to be elaborate just someplace people can come together to build trust and friendship. You’ll need it.

  • “Cisgendered” “Non-Hispanic White”

    C’mon, Hunter. Get with the program. Stop using enemy terminology. WTF is “cisgendered”? It is a complete non-term. It is like “wet-water”, or “unschizophrenic”, or something. And I’m not “Non-Hispanic”, I’m just WHITE. We should not be defining ourselves in a negative, secondary role.

    “Normal White men” would suffice.

    • One of the great things about the altright is how we take enemy terminology and make it our own. ‘Fucking white male’ has become a meme and proud self-label, ‘the current year’ has come to signify all that is wrong with modernity (and more recently, to refer to our recent gains) and ‘goy’, a dismissive term for non-Jew, has become a mark of pride.

      • I disagree with “reclaiming” the word “goy”. We shouldn’t satisfy ourselves with the same Pyrrhic victory as the negro. We should make the jews themselves choke on that word every time they try to utter it.

  • Who knew that Hunter Wallace, Jared Taylor, Richard Spencer, Tara McCarthy, James Edwards, and others are all living in their parents’ basements?

    …watch them leaving their wives and children then violently lashing out

    Actually, as men are now well aware, the great majority of divorces are initiated by the woman. When custody is disputed she gets the kids. She also gets the house. Our family courts have made marriage very dangerous for men, and The Federalist blames men for this.

  • So they are trying to – yet again – ignore the RACE issue and bring it back to something they can handle, a “gender” issue. And they are doing exactly what the “manosphere” has been bitching about for years – tell men to “man up.”

    “They [men] need a call to maturity, to repentance, to greatness, to
    leadership, to courage, to self-sacrifice on behalf of women and
    children. They need a hero: not a political performance-artist, but a
    true hero, a savior who, unlike a fallen culture, leaves no repentant
    man—or woman—behind.”

    Dalrock would call this “conservative feminism” – but all the manosphere types deconstructed this five years ago. As is usual, the conservative scam artists at The Federalist are a day late and a dollar short.

    Sure, feminism sucks. Yep, we need more patriarchy.

    But they are not going to put the RACE genie back in the bottle no matter how hard they try. White men don’t give a damn about abstractions like lolerbertarianism anymore, which is just an excuse to flood America with non-white “immigrants” – whether those “immigrants” are blue collar Latinos or white collar Chinese.

    The conservative scam artists at The Federalist have the exact same goal as the left wing liberals at Huffington Post – they want to flood American with non-whites. It’s just the conservatives and liberal disagree on how best to sell it to the White public – which clearly is having none of it.

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