So I get a fair number of critiques, and
some things ruder than critiques, saying that The Alt-Right Playbook
isn't actually about the alt-right. I talk about a tactic the outright
uses and someone says: It's hard to separate the good faith and bad faith versions of this argument, but for those offering the former I'm gonna take a moment to address this. If we want to graph American politics
on the usual left/right/center spectrum, Republicans take up the bulk of conservatism, and the alt-right is way over here on the fringes. So when I say Republicans or conservatives, I'm referring to this part of the spectrum. When I say far-right or alt right or reactionaries, I'm referring to this end. And when I say 'the right', I'm referring to the entire right. I even take the effort to draw them differently; this little dupe being your run-of-the-mill conservative and this little loop of being your far-right reactionary But here's where the waters get muddy. The alt-right playbook is not a
dissection of alt-right persons, but alt-right rhetoric. And the rhetoric of the alt-right is designed to proliferate beyond them as a group. It is meant to convert conservatives into reactionaries, and it is meant to make reactionaries
palatable to the Republican party. It's a mix of exploits to liberal tactics, conservative talking points co-opted and weaponized to their own purposes, and new
techniques they hope will be unwittingly picked up by folks outside their sphere. And because they are pretty effective at all of this, the techniques in the alt-right playbook are being used by a lot more than just the alt-right. the alt-right is a pretty small but
disproportionately influential group. They're not the most powerful thing in modern politics, but they are, to use some eSports terminology, controlling the meta. Basically, they're Hungrybox in the first half of 2016. Not yet the most formidable opponent in the game, But if you don't have a plan for getting past
Hungrybox, you aren't getting to Grand Finals. So whether or not a person is a member
of the alt-right has only so much correlation with whether or not
they use alt-right rhetoric. The entire political spectrum is being colored by the alt-right as their language enters common parlance and their figureheads speak at colleges. That's kind of their goal. And they're not the first to do it; most of these techniques were workshopped in other reactionary groups in the years
before the alt-right existed. Which is why there's such high overlap between those groups and the alt-right. To restate what I said in the introduction, the Alt-right Playbook is a collection of 'the rhetorical strategies the alt-right uses to legitimize itself and gain power'. They're not the only people who use these strategies, and a few of them are as old as dirt. I've made a point never to imply, otherwise, though maybe that hasn't been coming across. Anyway. I occasionally use some variant of this dupe or the word conservative to refer to libertarians, or anti social justice folks who are otherwise pretty politically disengaged, so it's not always shorthand for Republican, just pay attention to which word I use. And there are a lot of people who use all
the same tactics as the alt-right, support all the same policies, and vote for all the same politicians, but do not self-identify as alt-right. For my purposes, I'm considering that
a distinction without a difference I also acknowledge that you can see these methods on both the right and the left, and do admit as much in every single video, but I still call them tactics of the right
because the sheer quantitative use between the right and the left is not comparable. I know a lot of people who criticize me
do not diligently watch all the videos; I think most of them don't even get halfway through one before leaving an angry comment. So I know nothing I say here is going to stop them from making these same criticisms. But if you found this useful, and you see someone saying 'You're conflating alt-right and Republican' in the comments, you don't have to argue with them. Just link them to this video, yeah? Thanks. [OUTRO MUSIC]
