Anyone who can't hold up to basic scrutiny on their past as a leftist (I:E there is no clear break with it) probably should be treated that way. Ending up like all the nerd cultures that were subverted through the process of new person joining, not fitting in, demanding concessions, then driving out the people who were the original group can't be allowed when it comes to political movements. It's basically subversion in its most pure form to let an opposing political ideology infiltrate yours. I hate saying that because it feels so trite and buzzwordy but It's how it is.
That being said Charlemagne has a legitimate point, there is a large amount of people on the right currently who are extremely vile people. They are impossible to get along with and make everything more difficult not because they have some out there political beliefs that are not main stream, honestly I usually agree with them on a pretty large amount of what they saying, but because they are such abominable spergs about everything that there is no talking to them. Everything is always interpreted in the least charitable way and small details are hyper focused on to the point of missing the big picture or losing winnable fights. They are uneccesarily vulgar in almost every interaction no matter how sympathetic or convincible the person on the other end is. It's intolerable and makes getting anything done difficult. Treating leftist ideologues like shit has some utility, treating everyone like shit does not.
As for Women...that's a problem I don't see any easy solution on other than getting higher quality Women in to handle it. The quality of female commentators on the rightwing is generally very low because they can get away with it because they are female. Simps will simp for them (we are burdened with an enormous amount of simps, thanks modernity), pragmatic people will recognize that women are needed and be reluctant to drive them out, I feel like for every Alex Kaschuta making intelligent commentary there is 25 Nicole Arbors types who are vacuous thots who add nothing. You could say the same for Men I suppose where there is 1 Auron Macintyre for every 25 guys who lightly skimmed revolt against the modern world, but the difference is those 25 guys get no where near the same amount of attention.
While being in exile in Zürich, Lenin and his underlings never stopped purity spiralling. They always kept on having autistic discussions not only on issues of the day, but also on Marx, Hegel and metaphysics. Not a sufficient condition, but probably a necessary one.
Somewhat humorous and somewhat repulsive. It definitely demonstrated the reality that there are a lot of spergs who don't know how to offer any positive vision (i.e, they only know how to gatekeep); and also, there is and unsurfaced fear that many of the "dissident thought leaders" have that they will be "found out" as nothing but empty polemics.
My understanding (as someone who is not particularly right-wing) is that the animating issues of "anime avatar anons" (AAAs), going back to 2015 and before, are immigration and race. These two things were what the AAAs found attractive with Trumpism, and what they continue to care about.
The problem is that this dissident right-wing (insofar as they are a homogeneous group of AAAs) has let in a bunch of people who claim to understand that these are foundational issues, when they don't, and even if they do, are more interested in being polemical than advancing genuine policy and securing cultural gains. Especially true post-Trump.
A couple of examples:
* Pedro Gonzales is a 2x Bernie voter and constantly (still does!) counter-signaled Trump, even from the time he was elected. If the gatekeeping filter is "people must publicly & clearly denounce former leftist views & associations", Pedro certainly doesn't make the cut. From what I can tell, he successfully targets neo-cons and right-liberals, but nothing much more than that.
* Scott Greer –– who was the one who basically turned this episode into overdrive –– has done nothing to advance policy on immigration and race. The only thing he does nowadays is bitterly rage against people who he perceives are stealing his audience. He constantly counter-signals e.g., Saurabh Sharma (because he's brown I guess?) who is much more effective at furthering the immigration issue via tactics and policy. He does the same to Ryan Girdusky who spends significant man-hours in the field working for America First candidates.
* In the same vein, Indian Bronson piled on and gave the Rizoma episode more visibility, trying to "defend Scott". Indian Bronson advocated for the mass immigration of Ukrainians and Russians into the USA via H1B at the start of 2022 invasion –– you can go find it on Twitter! Even I found that to be a disgusting take!. He even claimed the immigration battle "was already lost". He has consistently counter-signaled people like Roger Ross from US Tech Workers (who is also brown!, same as IB, which makes this even more hilarious), the latter being highly knowledgable and dedicated to implementing extreme immigration restrictionism. IB *clearly* doesn't pass the RW gatekeeping test, and still he's considered a vanguard leader on that side.
* I remember the AAA spergs went after MartyrMade (Darryl Cooper) sometime ago over something he said about "Twitter anons being cancerous trolls", or something to that effect, essentially trying to "cancel" him from RW spaces (Martin was particularly vicious about this).
There are ton more example like this, which I don't need to list out here. The point is that most of the "leaders" on the online right don't pass the gatekeeping test, and they know that, and the AAA spergs know it too, and yet everyone listens to only them (the former) on the topics of immigration & race.
> I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more things like this happen in the future.
Yes, they will. Rizoma is just an outlandish & obvious person to attack, and because she's a woman (also leftist), she gets both more attention and more vitriol.
It will continue well into the future, on the grounds of them being "safe" or "one of the good ones" whilst not coming up to snuff elsewhere.
As a good friend has recently said, funny how all the dissident talking points that make it into the mainstream are also highly compatible with Marxism.
That's what I noticed, too. Many times the modern Nietzscheans far outdo the neo-Marxists on the grievance politics and ressentiment.
I'm glad you decided to write about this. I brought this up in a couple of group chats, because it seemed like a significant episode. Not just for RW, but for "the left left me" types, and independents, and everyone in between.
Doesn't seem like anyone came out of it looking too good, which is unfortunate...
I think the question of asking 'How did she get published at American Mind' is the most important question. Instead of punishing Mrs. Colby and raking her over the coals, shouldn't RWers be clamoring for an explanation from the editorial staff at American Mind? I'm sure that the explanation would be some combination of failure to vet (and who has the time?) and interest in publishing a piece of vaguely RW content by a woman. However, I think the RW would get more from raking the editors at American Mind than Mrs. Colby (even though I'm sure it would not be as fun or entertaining).
This combined with a few prominent DR accounts sharing snippets from the article and saying "must read" definitely raised my suspicions about things going on "behind the scenes."
Great summary of a situation I had no idea about, and i agree on most points. Its tough for someone coming from mainstream normiedom e.g. 99.999% of womyn, to resist countersignaling w prior language...but I also agree with your take that it's not entirely forgivable in this instance.
The one part I push back against is needing to be intentional about sweeping anyone INTO our tent. I believe we should react against the incorrigible awful anon purity spiralers, but not because we need to clean anything up for anyone, but only because they suck--they're emotional and paint with phony references. I think the last thing we want to do is start "trying" to including edge cases like Ashley Colby. We need not try at all—neither gatekeep nor gate expand.
Solid take, although I wouldn't say I'm for intentionally sweeping anyone into our tent, but I think working on nudging the discourse in a less fake and gay direction. I certainly don't want edge cases in, but I see what you mean.
Yes agreed , better to focus on quality of discourse, our strength, than quality of community, our weakness. This I would argue the fundamental differentiator between masculine (purpose based) and feminine (relationships based) spaces.
I don't intend to make this a regular thing, reporting on drama, but by being a party and participant I felt that it needed to be discussed.
Anyone who can't hold up to basic scrutiny on their past as a leftist (I:E there is no clear break with it) probably should be treated that way. Ending up like all the nerd cultures that were subverted through the process of new person joining, not fitting in, demanding concessions, then driving out the people who were the original group can't be allowed when it comes to political movements. It's basically subversion in its most pure form to let an opposing political ideology infiltrate yours. I hate saying that because it feels so trite and buzzwordy but It's how it is.
That being said Charlemagne has a legitimate point, there is a large amount of people on the right currently who are extremely vile people. They are impossible to get along with and make everything more difficult not because they have some out there political beliefs that are not main stream, honestly I usually agree with them on a pretty large amount of what they saying, but because they are such abominable spergs about everything that there is no talking to them. Everything is always interpreted in the least charitable way and small details are hyper focused on to the point of missing the big picture or losing winnable fights. They are uneccesarily vulgar in almost every interaction no matter how sympathetic or convincible the person on the other end is. It's intolerable and makes getting anything done difficult. Treating leftist ideologues like shit has some utility, treating everyone like shit does not.
As for Women...that's a problem I don't see any easy solution on other than getting higher quality Women in to handle it. The quality of female commentators on the rightwing is generally very low because they can get away with it because they are female. Simps will simp for them (we are burdened with an enormous amount of simps, thanks modernity), pragmatic people will recognize that women are needed and be reluctant to drive them out, I feel like for every Alex Kaschuta making intelligent commentary there is 25 Nicole Arbors types who are vacuous thots who add nothing. You could say the same for Men I suppose where there is 1 Auron Macintyre for every 25 guys who lightly skimmed revolt against the modern world, but the difference is those 25 guys get no where near the same amount of attention.
While being in exile in Zürich, Lenin and his underlings never stopped purity spiralling. They always kept on having autistic discussions not only on issues of the day, but also on Marx, Hegel and metaphysics. Not a sufficient condition, but probably a necessary one.
> While the space was humorous
Somewhat humorous and somewhat repulsive. It definitely demonstrated the reality that there are a lot of spergs who don't know how to offer any positive vision (i.e, they only know how to gatekeep); and also, there is and unsurfaced fear that many of the "dissident thought leaders" have that they will be "found out" as nothing but empty polemics.
My understanding (as someone who is not particularly right-wing) is that the animating issues of "anime avatar anons" (AAAs), going back to 2015 and before, are immigration and race. These two things were what the AAAs found attractive with Trumpism, and what they continue to care about.
The problem is that this dissident right-wing (insofar as they are a homogeneous group of AAAs) has let in a bunch of people who claim to understand that these are foundational issues, when they don't, and even if they do, are more interested in being polemical than advancing genuine policy and securing cultural gains. Especially true post-Trump.
A couple of examples:
* Pedro Gonzales is a 2x Bernie voter and constantly (still does!) counter-signaled Trump, even from the time he was elected. If the gatekeeping filter is "people must publicly & clearly denounce former leftist views & associations", Pedro certainly doesn't make the cut. From what I can tell, he successfully targets neo-cons and right-liberals, but nothing much more than that.
* Scott Greer –– who was the one who basically turned this episode into overdrive –– has done nothing to advance policy on immigration and race. The only thing he does nowadays is bitterly rage against people who he perceives are stealing his audience. He constantly counter-signals e.g., Saurabh Sharma (because he's brown I guess?) who is much more effective at furthering the immigration issue via tactics and policy. He does the same to Ryan Girdusky who spends significant man-hours in the field working for America First candidates.
* In the same vein, Indian Bronson piled on and gave the Rizoma episode more visibility, trying to "defend Scott". Indian Bronson advocated for the mass immigration of Ukrainians and Russians into the USA via H1B at the start of 2022 invasion –– you can go find it on Twitter! Even I found that to be a disgusting take!. He even claimed the immigration battle "was already lost". He has consistently counter-signaled people like Roger Ross from US Tech Workers (who is also brown!, same as IB, which makes this even more hilarious), the latter being highly knowledgable and dedicated to implementing extreme immigration restrictionism. IB *clearly* doesn't pass the RW gatekeeping test, and still he's considered a vanguard leader on that side.
* I remember the AAA spergs went after MartyrMade (Darryl Cooper) sometime ago over something he said about "Twitter anons being cancerous trolls", or something to that effect, essentially trying to "cancel" him from RW spaces (Martin was particularly vicious about this).
There are ton more example like this, which I don't need to list out here. The point is that most of the "leaders" on the online right don't pass the gatekeeping test, and they know that, and the AAA spergs know it too, and yet everyone listens to only them (the former) on the topics of immigration & race.
> I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more things like this happen in the future.
Yes, they will. Rizoma is just an outlandish & obvious person to attack, and because she's a woman (also leftist), she gets both more attention and more vitriol.
It will continue well into the future, on the grounds of them being "safe" or "one of the good ones" whilst not coming up to snuff elsewhere.
As a good friend has recently said, funny how all the dissident talking points that make it into the mainstream are also highly compatible with Marxism.
That's what I noticed, too. Many times the modern Nietzscheans far outdo the neo-Marxists on the grievance politics and ressentiment.
I'm glad you decided to write about this. I brought this up in a couple of group chats, because it seemed like a significant episode. Not just for RW, but for "the left left me" types, and independents, and everyone in between.
Doesn't seem like anyone came out of it looking too good, which is unfortunate...
I think the question of asking 'How did she get published at American Mind' is the most important question. Instead of punishing Mrs. Colby and raking her over the coals, shouldn't RWers be clamoring for an explanation from the editorial staff at American Mind? I'm sure that the explanation would be some combination of failure to vet (and who has the time?) and interest in publishing a piece of vaguely RW content by a woman. However, I think the RW would get more from raking the editors at American Mind than Mrs. Colby (even though I'm sure it would not be as fun or entertaining).
When I first saw all this, that too was my first question, "what the hell is going on at The American Mind?"
I don't have an answer, despite what some people think I'm not that connected, but the next article I'm working on talks about this ongoing phenomena.
This combined with a few prominent DR accounts sharing snippets from the article and saying "must read" definitely raised my suspicions about things going on "behind the scenes."
Great summary of a situation I had no idea about, and i agree on most points. Its tough for someone coming from mainstream normiedom e.g. 99.999% of womyn, to resist countersignaling w prior language...but I also agree with your take that it's not entirely forgivable in this instance.
The one part I push back against is needing to be intentional about sweeping anyone INTO our tent. I believe we should react against the incorrigible awful anon purity spiralers, but not because we need to clean anything up for anyone, but only because they suck--they're emotional and paint with phony references. I think the last thing we want to do is start "trying" to including edge cases like Ashley Colby. We need not try at all—neither gatekeep nor gate expand.
Solid take, although I wouldn't say I'm for intentionally sweeping anyone into our tent, but I think working on nudging the discourse in a less fake and gay direction. I certainly don't want edge cases in, but I see what you mean.
Yes agreed , better to focus on quality of discourse, our strength, than quality of community, our weakness. This I would argue the fundamental differentiator between masculine (purpose based) and feminine (relationships based) spaces.
great article!