Aurini discuses past and future trends for the alt-right: The Tide is Returning: Logos is Rising/
The major problem for the alt/dissident-right, among other reasons, is that there is no economic or social catalyst or justification for a right-wing insurgency, especially not in America, but perhaps less so in European countries, which have weaker economies and more social unrest. Due to cultural and political factors, I think there is way more potential for a right-wing political insurrection in Europe and South America, than the United States, even though said regions tend to be more socially and economically liberal than America.
Right now, and since 2016, America is in a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and tranquility, in spite of high rates of immigration and increased divisiveness online. Half the country hates Trump, but at least, offline, things are pretty civil by historical standards, besides the occasional protest or mass shooting.
My prediction is, this state quiescence will continue for quite a long time, as part of the transition to an increasingly deterministic society and economy. This means social, financial, and economic trends can be predicted with a with a high -degree of certainty, and trends tend to persist. Trump’s approval rating is in the tightest range of any US president in history, at around 1-2%, since tracking of presidential approval ratings began over 60 years ago. The post-2009 bull market and economic expansion is the longest ever, beating out the ’90s expansion in terms of duration but also inflation-adjusted gains. Unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades. Living standards for most Americans are the highest they have ever been, and Americans have an abundance of purchasing power and credit. There is little crime and minimal threat of terrorism.
Now compare that to the weeks and months after 911, in which the Nation was not only under attack, but in a recession. After 911, Bush’s approval rating surged as high as 90 percent, and remained high for much of the remainder of his first term, only to fall when the threat of terrorism subsided, but also because of mismanagement of the Iraq War.
Regarding slowness and and ‘things being anemic,’ for a news cycle to interesting, the stories need to be high stakes and the outcome uncertain, but in recent years especially, the overwhelming majority of stories fall in the quadrants of either being low stakes and or predictable. ‘Extreme’ and fringe ideologies and movements tend to thrive during periods of unrest and uncertainty. Today is much like the mid-’90s, when political discourse was dominated by low-stakes culture war issues, until a trifecta of events all within a a 18-month period: the Florida recount, the 2001 recession, and 911, changed all of that.
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve seen indications that the Scene is returning. Roosh V has decided to put his money where his mouth is. He stopped selling his old books, and has rewritten the rules of his forum to exclude discussions of fornication, exposing many of his followers for the MOPs that they are: fair-weather “friends” who want him to play Freebird for the rest of his life. Other writers have been seeing the same thing that I described in this piece – and have been taking steps to do something about it. Alternatives to the current crop of social media are developing, which promise to be less wrath-inducing than the socially-engineered Hate Boxes that are Facebook and Twitter (click here to follow my updates on Telegram), and in several places, the Geeks are re-orienting and reaching out to one-another – I myself have had two fellow-travelers from far off lands reach out to me, and we found that we spoke the same tongue.3
I think the latest iteration is ‘vague, contrarian articles by classically-minded academics and journalists that challenge modernity and other convention,’ sorta like the left-wing version of NRX, but for a much bigger audience and secular, yet the criticism of modernity is still there, whether it’s about the ‘cult of positive thinking’, the ills helicopter parenting, kids being coddled, lowering of academic standards, modern architecture being ugly, people being addicted to technology, the fall of higher ed due to political correctness and safe spaces, the benefits of boredom and loneliness, ‘All Work, No Ethic’, etc. The post-Trump rise of Jordan Peterson and the IDW, as well as the huge popularity of sites such as Quillette and Hedgehog Review that publish centrist and right-of-center content yet are willing to occasionally entertain taboos such as race and IQ, is part of this trend.
Politically and in terms of national sentiment, because conservatives are perceived as upholding ‘law and order’, economic crisis benefits democrats as was the case in 2008, and foreign policy and social crisis benefits republicans, such as after 911 or the Iran hostage crisis.