Kill All Normies

Nagle posits the alt-right's misogynist, transphobic, and racist worldview is just a toxic, in it for the lulz, ironic reaction to overzealous social justice warriors with their fervent “Tumblr liberalism”. The left's ascendency during the Obama years defined by its “culture of fragility and victimhood mixed with a vicious culture of group attacks, group shaming, and attempts to destroy the reputations and lives of others within their political milieu” escalated into hysteria. Increasingly the rhetoric at the edges became anti-male, anti-white, anti-straight, and anti-cis and it has been performatively adopted by the mainstream as it capes for Pride, #BLM and #MeToo.

In that sense Nagle takes alt-light figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos at his word, that the right has become the counterculture; modern day punks focused on transgression against the dominant morality, a big middle finger to the progressive status quo. The right has learned from the left, has better weaponized online aggression, and created more compelling myths that speak to those that can't keep up with the new woke language of gatekeeping, gender fluidity, cultural appropriation, white feminism et al. “America, Fuck Yeah” is just easier to grasp.

These swings come fast and it will be interesting to see how the alt right evolves given their many pronged attack on journalism, constantly moving the Overton window and a pandemic that has backed people into corners looking for easy to grasp narratives that reassuringly tell them who to blame. The left seems to just resort to cultural politics, shaking their head at how dumb the right is and patting themselves on the back for how not-racist they are. That doesn't seem to be working and the rise of the dirtbag left seems like an interesting reaction to watch. I'd love for Nagle to tackle this again now that it's 5 years later.