Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino, and 'conservative media' are alt-right now? Great journalism here. This doofus author clearly shows what he's about.
He also claims he is not alt right, not homophobic, and not racist. So there is that.
If the left orthodoxy means treating people equally, sign me up.
> very smart
This is the guy who endorsed Trump in October 2020 for another four year term because “he’s already done all the damage he can, he can’t do anything more”. Genius.
If we all understand that this is actually (under the law) what MOST people want we'll be able to get along.
>What’s valuable about homophobia? What’s intellectually honest about hating people for their sexual orientation and advocating for discrimination against them?
I just started looking this up to write this comment. I was curious about it and I wanted to be as correct as I can. Ben Shapiro believes that contractually, under the law, homosexuality should be allowed. Full Stop. This is a very libertarian perspective. It's the idea that no matter what I personally believe due to my religion, you can and should be able to legally do what you want as long as it doesn't affect others (throwing that in for the abortion argument).
Personally, Ben Shapiro is a homophobe. Politically, he is not. He's pro-equality of opportunity and recognition under the law.
As someone who grew up really religious, I can understand how he justifies this idea. You are indoctrinated to hate the sin and love the sinner. This does not always come out the way it's supposed to, and leads to homophobia which I believe is evil and a reason I left religion. However, this dualism allows for one to strive for political equality, while still spouting homophobic ideas.
This is a very fine line to draw on a topic like this, but I think it's important for us to recognize if we're ever going to get less divided hateful towards each other. Most people, even bigots, racists, homophobes, etc. want equality. They want the government to give them the same rights as anyone else and to be left alone. They want their rallies, protests, sermons, etc. In order to get that they recognize (at least people like Shapiro do) that they need to fight a cultural war instead of a political one on this stuff.
It doesn't mean that those ideas are ok for people to personally have, but it does mean that we can work together to agree on a lot of shit, make progress.
tl;dr; Don't hate people on the other side of politics, talk to them.
Can you provide any evidence he does any of these things?
What % of people on the right would you consider alt-right? What % of people on the left would you consider alt-left?
The core underlying theme is that 'alt' gets used as a pejorative towards your outgroup. Your descriptions of the right here are quite uncharitable, which is a strong signal of your biased thinking.
You also conveniently didn't answer my question about % of the right you'd classify as 'alt-right' and the % of the left that you'd classify as 'alt-left'. I suspect the reason you chose not to is because of that same bias. It would make clear that you use 'alt' as a pejorative selectively towards your outgroup.
You lack perspective.
Not the GP, but the 'alt' prefix to me seems to invoke the similar usage in the term 'alternative' music like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc, which were an 'alternative' to pop music from the 80s and 90s. The prefix suggests a change of type and not just a change of degree. They aren't just "more conservative Republicans".
This is why it applies more to the right than the left in today's social discourse, since the spectrum on the left is still more a matter of degree than kind.
In the context of the right, this change of type means abandonment of traditional establishment Republican stances like free trade and foreign interventionism in near totality, and the promotion of previously fringe movements within the right like ethnic nationalism (often under the guise of 'economic nationalism').
I do disagree about a change of type not happening on the left. I see a very large rift developing on the left around whether to honor classically liberal values or not.
I do think the trends in 'alt' usage are predominately aimed at the right as more of a pejorative towards the outgroup, and less of a descriptive term. You can see a snapshot of the vast disparity in usage here: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=Alt-right,...
My personal take would be that alt right is a rightwing suberversion of traditional american conservatism. In addition to largely white identity politics, there's also a strong push for anti-establishment, and indifference to traditional norms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
> The term is ill-defined, having been used in different ways by various self-described "alt-rightists", media commentators, and academics. Groups which have been identified as alt-right also espouse white supremacism, white separatism, right-wing populism, anti-immigration, racism, anti-communism, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, antifeminism, homophobia, and Islamophobia.
If I were to wager a guess, I'd guess that the targets of the term 'alt-right' would rarely accept that description of their politics. Whereas 'right' or 'conservative' or 'social conservative' or similar terms would have a high acceptance rate for those that are being called it. 'Alt' has become a pejorative in everyday use (at least in the liberal circles that I run in).
I am a proponent of aiming for accuracy when trying to describe other people's politics, and being charitable whenever possible.
If I see a group of people using words to describe another group of people in a way that purposely misrepresents them, particularly in a negative way, I think that's something worth calling out.
I don't have the nihilistic take that "if you can't 100% accurately describe something, then it's okay to not even try".
Sounds like a classic case of the "flat-earth society that has members all around the globe".
In any case, it doesn't get much more fact free and hypocritical than that.
What the hell is alt-right anyways? As in, what are the fundamental principles of its ideology?
Do you take into account any counter-evidence when making such a deduction?
I think he has apologised for that one but it still shows some genuine racism.