The Battle For Conservatives

[MisterSwig]

Nick Fuentes, leader of the Groypers, wants to see conservatives become more socialistic. He thinks this is the best strategy for saving America, by moving conservatives more to the Left economically, while preserving their cultural Right identity. He uses a white board to illustrate what he means in this video starting at 1:20:00-1:37:00.

Here is a photo of his graph in case the video gets deleted.

As you can see, he places neoliberals in the cultural left/economic right quadrant; conservatives in the cultural and economic right; populists in the cultural right/economic left; and progressives in the cultural and economic left. He admits himself some problems with the distinctions, and I don't endorse the graph. So you can stop right now if you think I'm being hoodwinked by this young, Catholic troll. What's important is that Fuentes is trying to persuade his followers to persuade the conservatives to become less capitalistic. Whereas Objectivists want them to become more capitalistic.

Fuentes considers himself a strategist, one of a few leaders in the America First movement, giving marching orders to the Groyper army. He recently guided their actions against Charlie Kirk and TPUSA, whom he considers neoliberals. Now he's beginning a campaign to find common ground with populists like Tucker Carlson.

For several reasons Fuentes poses a real problem. He's young, witty, charismatic, well-spoken, ambitious. His focus is attracting followers and moving conservatism toward Christian nationalism. He receives a lot of monetary support on YouTube from his superchatters. His Catholic upbringing has instilled a sense of moral principle and righteousness in him. Though clearly he's willing to bend on economic principles in order to achieve his political goals. Which makes sense, since his altruistic morality aligns more with socialism than capitalism. He is engaged in the battle for conservatives, and if he wins, I don't think we'll like the results.

Edited December 13, 2019 by MisterSwig

[MisterSwig]

Vincent James, cohort of Fuentes and host of YouTube show The Red Elephants, has joined the campaign. He's criticizing Trump and conservatives for neglecting populism and reneging on America First promises.

 

[MisterSwig]

The Children of Christ and Rand

The Groypers held their first Leadership Summit a couple days ago. It was a small, exclusive affair, but they broadcasted it on DLive to several thousand viewers. I don't know how long it'll remain on the DLive replay, so here it is on YouTube as well. The speakers were Patrick Casey from The American Identity Movement, Jake Lloyd of Infowars, and Nick Fuentes.

They coordinated this event as a sort of response to Turning Point's much larger Student Action Summit in Florida, which the Groypers attempted to attend--and no doubt disrupt with their mere presence and questioning tactics. Fuentes actually confronted Ben Shapiro outside the conference hotel.

In listening to Jake Lloyd's speech, something occurred to me. He described himself as a former Libertarian, and I recalled hearing Fuentes say the same thing on one of his shows awhile back. What I realized is that these young leaders represent the offspring of Christ and Rand. Libertarianism borrowed political ideas from Rand, and the Groypers borrow ideas from Libertarianism. The Groypers will even mention Rand occasionally, but they distrust her for being a female, atheist Jew. They prefer the paleoconservatism of Pat Buchanan.

It is also known that Charlie Kirk, leader of Turning Point, has been influenced by Rand and has hosted Objectivist speakers.

So here we have two post-Randian, conservative movements literally confronting each other at events and in the streets. Morally, they still cling, to some degree, to the traditional Christian values, the Groypers more so than Turning Point. But clearly both groups struggle with Rand's indictment of altruism and call to egoism, and we see their natural self-interest expressed confidently in positions such as their rejection of PC speech codes, feminism, multiculturalism and socialism.

Unfortunately, the Groypers are now openly flirting with socialistic populism as a means of political stratagem. So, politically, Turning Point appears to be much more devoted to a principled view of capitalism. But they do need to decide whether they will move towards Rand or Christ when it comes to ethics, because they're already displaying weakness against the Groypers, who're exposing the hypocrisy of so-called "Conservative Inc." The Groypers have chosen Christ, and are trying to push Turning Point in that direction too, accusing Kirk of being a neoliberal, pseudo-conservative who rejects traditional religious values.

Edited December 22, 2019 by MisterSwig