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The former porn star and adult icon now spends her days retweeting conspiracy theorists, sharing anti-Muslim scare stories, and defending Milo Yiannopoulos. What happened?

Jenna Jameson is once again the talk of the porn industry. An icon with close to 200 adult films under her belt, Jameson is still idolized by many women getting their start in the biz. But there will never be another Jenna. The former Queen of Porn has achieved more mainstream recognition than any female porn star, despite remarking at the 2008 AVN Awards, Ill never, ever, ever spread my legs again in this industry. Ever. While shaming the adult industry is apparently forgivable, a series of alt-right social media tirades has forced even Jamesons most ardent supporters in the XXX world to reexamine the woman whos come to represent it.

Since the start of her conversion to the Jewish faith, a journey she embarked on in order to marry her shady Israeli jeweler/fianc Lior Bitton, Jameson has adopted a fierce and public anti-Islam stance, ranting against Muslims online and clapping back at those in disagreement. She regularly shares stories and videos about the alleged havoc wreaked by adherents of Islam from dubious far-right sites like the pro-Trump agitprop outlet Breitbart and conspiracy theory forum Infowars, along with bigoted replies from her army of close to 700,000 Twitter followers.

Her XXX industry defenders, who would mostly like to remain nameless, point out that the terror of ISIS hits a bit close to home for Jameson, who is eight months pregnant with Bittons baby. She tweeted: My husband is a morrocan Jew his family was forced from morocco by the escalating violent Muslim climate there.

But then there was the time Jameson made headlines for her apparent defense of the KKK. Jameson tweeted: Do the klu klux klan follow a religion that orders the death of apostates? When was the last time we saw a klan member blow up infidels?

Shortly after her alleged defense of the KKK, Jameson followed it up with another tweet clearly not in favor of the Klan, or Democrats: Yes, and thank god theyve been all but eradicated and forced into obscurity no thanks to the democrats who created them. (The KKK was affiliated with the Southern Democrats, but those people were mostly absorbed into the Republican Party following the implementation of Nixon and Goldwaters southern strategy.)

Jameson claims it was all a misunderstanding in the service of defending her family. She explained to The Daily Beast, Another Twitter follower compared ISIS to the KKK and I responded with facts. Saying I defend an organization that wants the death of all Jews is wrong. I am Jewish and so is my family.

Nonetheless, many who revered her as an outlaw-idol of porn now find her tirades on Twitter shocking.

Shes progressively gotten more aggressive and I feel like shes trying to be controversial, says 21-year-old porn star Janice Griffith. Being a sex worker people look down on us, were stereotyped and put into these rigid boxes of who they think we are and what we do, and now shes doing that to other people. I expected better from her.

Before entering porn almost four years ago, Griffith looked up to Jameson, admiring her shrewd business acumen and the space she carved out for herself, but now says she feels bad for her. I try to stay away from the crazy, I dont follow Jenna Jameson or Trump, says Griffith, whos changed her Twitter handle to janice hates trump to weed out the undesirables.

Arguing politics on social media is an exhausting waste of time for adult film actress Richelle Ryan, who says she learned her lesson after putting her two cents in during the election. When I came out and posted a couple of tweets supporting Trump I had so much backlash! It was so stressful to constantly defend myself, so I applaud anybody that can dish it back, says Ryan. Before she entered porn ten years ago, Ryan was an exotic dancer by the name Jenna, paying homage to her idol. And Ryans admiration for the former porn goddess hasnt dissipated. She has a lot of balls. I respect anyone that comes out and speaks his or her mind, says Ryan. Its extremely draining to argue with people over politics because youre not going to win. We all have our own views.

Its that lack of restraint that one of her old colleagues remembers most about her. As fellow contract girls for Wicked Pictures in the mid-90s, former adult actress Serenity (who left the industry over 12 years ago) encountered Jameson frequently over the yearson the same sets, signing at the same conventions, and attending the same meetings. The Jenna I knew back then wasnt so political but I dont find it surprising or out of character. Thats just Jenna, Serenity tells The Daily Beast. Jenna is a flamboyant personality. Its why she was separated from the pack.

Yet, some may wonder how its possible to respect Jamesons public defense of Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right fellow traveler who was forced to resign in disgrace from his perch at Breitbart after video emerged of him defending hebephilia.

Jameson tells The Daily Beast that she does not condone Milos comments, but empathizes with him. I think people were quick to judge and label him without realizing he was a victim of sexual abuse, says Jameson. Having been a victim myself, I know people can deal with the pain of victimization with callousness.

Shes had a lot of pain in her life, notes Serenity. It wouldnt surprise me if that were coming through on some of her stances.

The 42-year-old ex-porn star clearly appears happy to embrace the controversy of her alt-right views. She idolizes Ann Coulter (I want to be her when I grow up) and the illuminati-obsessed Paul Joseph Watson, has called Iran a cancer, regularly shares anti-Muslim scare stories, and even tweets anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros funding cabals of liberals (the irony is apparently lost on her). She even trolled Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who is a Muslim, into blocking her on Twitterbefore declaring him anti semetic for doing so.

Jamesons attacks on outsiders are rubbing the porn industry the wrong way, especially when so many women in porn understand what it feels like to be marginalized firsthand. Its shocking that someone who has represented the adult industry can be so intolerant. Born in Serbia, and then raised in a Serbian community in Canada, it wasnt until her teens that Nina Kayy relocated to the United States. Kayy, a 28-year-old adult actress, no longer looks up to Jameson and finds her controversial outbursts on social media disturbing. Shes a minority too: shes a woman and she was an adult performer. Shes also been harassed so I dont understand why she cant relate to other minorities, says Kayy. For me, its very important to not be complicit when it comes to race, bigotry or homophobia. You have to be active in fighting it.

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Identifying as neither Democrat nor Republican, Kayy says she simply has a problem with hate. I dont want to make excuses for her. Shes an adult woman with her own agency. She didnt grow up in a privileged environment. She was stripping as a teenager and her last name was inspired by a bottle of whiskey. She didnt have a perfect life so I dont know why she feels so privileged, says Kayy. Her comments are extremely ignorant and its disturbing to see hate speech like that from someone who should know better. She is allowed to have an opinion but we also have to call her out when its hateful and offensive.

As a fellow mother, Alana Evans, vice president of APAG (Adult Performers Actors Guild) and an active porn star, understands that being pregnant can be stressful and worries about Jamesons condition. When youre pregnant you cant always do other things, but its not healthy for a woman in this stage of her pregnancy to be engaging in arguments with people, says Evans. I would love to come over, turn the phone off, rub her belly and say its okay, were not going to talk to anyone until these babies are out because shes gone off the deep end.

Meanwhile, not everyone is surprised to see that Jameson has embraced the corrosiveness of the alt-right. Nothings changed, says her ex-husband Brad Armstrong. Shes not news shes a cautionary tale.

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Jenna Jameson's Shocking Alt-Right Transformation - Daily Beast

MARCH 3, 2017

IVE READ THE NAME Milo Yiannopoulos so many times over the past couple of weeks that I dont have to copy and paste it anymore. The spelling is ingrained into my brain. I have what you might call Milo-Mania, a disorder characterized by clicking on anything that bears Milos name usually followed by a world-weary, need-to-lie-down-for-a-minute headache. The pain intensifies when I begin to think that Milo Yiannopoulos might be the first gay role model for impressionable young minds. The headache is somewhat eased by the knowledge that someday soon I will never have to type the name Yiannopoulos again.

On Monday, February 20, following the unearthing of video interviews in which he seemed to countenance pedophilia, Milo was disinvited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and his forthcoming book, Dangerous (for which he had received a six-figure advance), was canceled by Simon & Schuster. The following day, Milo resigned from the political website Breitbart.com after several employees threatened to walk out if the alt-right publication didnt terminate him. These events followed months of rampant controversy: a Twitter war with SNL star Leslie Jones that got him banned from the social media site, a riot before a speaking engagement at Berkeley, and an exhausting list of other offenses and provocations. The week of Valentines Day, Jeremy Scahill, editor of The Intercept, canceled his appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher because he refused to share the stage with the out-gay-Catholic-alt-right blogger. The show, as they say, went on. Although the interview itself was nothing special, Maher enthused about Yiannopoulos as the second coming of Christopher Hitchens only gay and said he would be happy to have the young provocateur on his show again. The Real Time appearance could have been a star-making move for Milo.

Then this snippet from an interview he did on comedian Joe Rogans podcast last year, in which he discussed his alleged abuse at the hands of a priest when he was a young teen, got passed around the internet:

Yiannopoulos: If it wasnt for Father Michael, I would have given far less good head. Rogan: Was there a real Father Michael? Did he make you suck his dick, for real? Yiannopoulos: He didnt make me. I was quite enthusiastic about it. Rogan: How old was he at the time? Yiannopoulos: I dont know He was quite young. Quite hot. Rogan: Really? Yiannopoulos: Yeah.

This exchange undoubtedly made a lot of people uncomfortable, but its hardly a reason to get booted out of a conference, lose a book deal, and be forced to quit ones job. Its not uncommon for victims of sexual abuse to rationalize the trauma as a rite of passage or a learning experience. Milo is not the first person to have said such a thing, not by a long shot. Clearly, the folks at CPAC and Breitbart simply couldnt stomach hearing their gay minion who had certainly been outspoken before about his preference for black cock speak out about his prolonged relationship with a Catholic priest when he was 14.

But that was just the beginning of the outrage. Rogan went on to press Yiannopoulos further on the subject of pedophilia. He asked if Milo had ever hung out at any of X-Men director Bryan Singers alleged parties. This is where the exchange got really sick. Yiannopoulos started talking, at length, about parties hed been to in Hollywood parties where the media elite engaged in unprotected sex with underage boys. Every time Rogan asked him to name names, Milo deferred, saying that he practices discretion. This is the same Milo who, at his college speeches, singles out students in the audience in order to ridicule them in front of his adoring fans, the same man who says transgendered women should not be allowed in the restrooms comporting with their gender identity, knowing full well hes exposing them to further victimization. This same man was claiming to practice discretion for pedophiles who also happen to be powerful Hollywood executives. Milo, who has such a bad poker face, couldnt hide the fact that he was gloating about the sense of privilege he feels to be welcomed into the company of these elite creeps.

Milo Yiannopoulos is an out gay man. His campus tour is called Dangerous Faggot, and it is wildly popular with right-wing students who come out to hear his politically incorrect diatribes. But what, exactly, are we supposed think is dangerous about him? That he mocks the powerless while flaunting his collusion with the powerful? Doesnt that just make him another run-of-the-mill albeit rather flaming Republican?

Theres another clip of Milo floating around the internet that I find more telling than the Joe Rogan interview. Its from five years ago on 10 OClock Live, a Daily Showtype program on Great Britains Channel 4. In the clip, Yiannopoulos debates the subject of gay marriage with none other than gender-bending icon of the 80s, Boy George. Attired characteristically in a sequined jacket, with tons of make-up and a hat fashioned after the one Burgess Meredith wore as the Penguin, Boy George seems entirely his flamboyant self. Milo, sitting beside him, is a stark contrast: a stiff, mumbling nerd in a shirt and tie that look like they came from Kmart. Moderator David Mitchell introduces Milo as a writer for the Catholic Herald, who is Catholic and gay. Then he introduces the other guest as a musician and singer, who is also I was surprised to learn gay. The joke draws a huge laugh due to the hilarious juxtaposition between the swanky pop icon and the uptight, buttoned-down reporter. Poor Milo his hair buzzed on the sides, with curly fringed bangs drooping down seems to sheepishly shrug, Im gay, if thats okay?

In the debate, Milo trots out the standard conservative attacks on same-sex marriage e.g., heterosexual unions are the glue of society but the discussion takes a weird turn when he admits to Mitchell, Boy George, and the studio audience that he wishes he wasnt gay a strange psychological ball to drop in the middle of a debate. In response, Boy George, in his seriously awesome pink top hat, reaches out to Milo and says: I want you to be happy. Its a touching moment; one can imagine the pop icon has learned how to do this over his nearly 40 years of speaking up for LGBTQ people. Before Milo was even born, Boy George was helping kids who experienced the same self-hatred Milo is very publicly going through. Could anyone picture the Milo we know and hate these days extending that kind of compassion to an at-risk youth?

Even back at the time of 10 OClock Live, there was more than one Milo. You can practically see Milo the Gay wrestling with Milo the Catholic. Boy George trounces him in the debate, aided by the audiences clear support for gay marriage. Even Mitchell, supposedly moderating, gets in a few barbs at young Milos expense. Through it all, Milo just sits there, stewing like Draco Malfoy, determined that someday people will take him seriously.

Five years later, during the interview on Real Time, Bill Maher, after mentioning that Milo is gay, erupts into laughter, chortling Spoiler alert! Milo rolls his eyes and retorts, What tipped you off? Hes a changed man now, in appearance. His hair is straightened and bleached, and even though he often wears suits when doing live engagements, his tanned chest is exposed and he is laden with necklaces. Milo now knows how to drop the word fabulous, and he waves his hands around a lot. He must have taken a cue from Boy George in that debate: Maybe the key to being taken seriously is to be outrageous! When Bill Maher comments that he looks like Brno, Milo flinches, perhaps suddenly realizing that whoever hes hired to style him has indeed been fashioning him after the Sacha Baron Cohen character. Milos platinum-blond hair, his tracksuits, his gold chains, all went out of fashion eons ago.

While Milo largely behaved himself during the televised interview, in the Overtime segment posted on YouTube, he flashed his politically incorrect attitudes, getting into nasty spats with the other guests, saying yet again that trans women cant be trusted in bathrooms, even hitting on the only person on the panel who had his back, former Georgia Congressman Jack Kingston. This is a thing with Milo going too far; much like Brno who, in the eponymous 2009 movie, tried to sleep with every man he encountered, even presidential candidate Ron Paul. Milo has the same trouble with boundaries largely because he has crafted his public persona to make the same smirking misjudgments that caused audiences so much discomfort while watching Brno.

Its hard to see, frankly, how he thought this act was ever going to work. Five years ago, Boy George may have appeared the more flamboyant of the two, but the most outrageous thing he said in the debate was, I think gay marriage is a bit conservative. Perhaps because, like Cohen, he is performing a parodic version of hyperbolic gayness (though without the redemption of self-consciousness), Milo doesnt know when to pull back. During Real Times online segment, both Bill Maher and fellow guest Larry Wilmore had to tell him to shut up. Whenever Milo tried to make a joke, he was the only one laughing.

So who actually does think hes funny? Supposedly Breitbart hired him to reach a youth audience that may not otherwise tune in to debates about economic nationalism and routine bouts of Hillary-bashing. Milo dropped out of not one, but two colleges, never finishing a degree. He made a name for himself by writing clickbait and internet trolling. He actually fits the mold for a Breitbart blogger except for that gay thing. Surely an out-gay instigator wasnt going to last very long with an alt-right publication. Whatever symbiosis both parties achieved, it had to have been a volatile relationship from the get-go.

And yet, Milo surely does represent a very real part of the population. He is, after all, an openly gay closet case. While Milo is frank about his desire for men, his Catholicism takes precedence over his sexual identity. He has stated many times that he would rather be straight, if given the choice. This cauldron of intellectual and emotional confusion undoubtedly gives voice to a shadowy subculture of closeted gays. There are men everywhere just like Milo: politically conservative, devoutly religious, who nonetheless engage in sex with other men. If you doubt this, check out Jane Wards 2015 book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Men or just go to the next conservative convention near you, download Grindr, and bear witness to the sea of faceless white torsos looking for no-strings encounters. Because these men choose not to be openly gay, they have no real visibility in politics or the media. So, in a way, Milo like an albino crocodile or some other natural anomaly is giving the public a glimpse into the mind of a closet-case. I guess we can thank him for that.

I imagine that most gay intellectuals recognize in Milo an unfortunate cocktail of privileged upbringing, too much religion, and sexual abuse. I personally find him a tragic character. He never really seems to understand what hes talking about, while at the same time trying so hard to get in. No wonder, in the five years since that Boy George debate, he turned to hate-baiting on the internet. This methodology has gotten him compared to Trump, to whom he claims to be fiercely devoted. Milos characteristic deflections are the same as Trumps: anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot who doesnt know what hes talking about. Like Trump, Milo frequently refers to his own array of alternative facts. He even displays little verbal and physical tics when hes backed up against an argumentative wall and seems to know his opponent has outsmarted him, tics that are more likely than not signs of an undiagnosed psychiatric disorder. Im totally autistic or sociopathic, Milo once stated. I guess Im both. Its unclear whether he was trying to be provocative or if that was a desperate cry for help a conundrum that just brings on another headache.

Poor Milo, we might actually feel sorry for you if your ideas werent so loathsome. Now go away so we can forget all about you.

Kyle Mustain is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. His film reviews can be found on the website Film-Forward.

See the article here:
Out-Gay, Alt-Right: The Two Milos - Los Angeles Review of Books - lareviewofbooks

By Rhina Guidos Catholic News Service Posted March 2, 2017

WASHINGTON (CNS) When the Conservative Political Action Conference, popularly known as CPAC, met near Washington in late February, the events main organizer did everything possible to separate the annual gathering from a fringe group it said it wants no part of and whose members dont reflect their values.

There is a sinister organization that is trying to worm its way into our ranks and we must not be duped, said Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the CPAC gathering, referring to the self-described alt-right movement, whose followers espouse white nationalism, populism and white supremacy.

Saying the group had hijacked the very term alt-right,' Schneider pummeled away at its supporters whom he called fascists, and angrily rebuked them for using the term, which he said up until its hijacking had been used for a long time in a very good and normal way.

They met just a couple months ago in Washington, D.C., to spew their hatred and make their Heil Hitler salutes, said Schneider angrily. They are anti-Semites. They are racists. They are sexist. They hate the Constitution. They hate free markets. They hate pluralism. They hate everything and they despise everything we believe in. They are not an extension of conservatism.

Those belonging to the self-described alt-right movement had attended the conference before without incident, including Richard Spencer, the de facto leader of the alt-right, a shortened version of alternative right. But Feb. 23, he was asked to leave CPAC as Schneider publicly excoriated the movement.

That same day, Maria Mazzenga, assistant director at the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America was at the universitys campus in Washington, describing the movement and Spencer during an event and panel discussion about how Catholics should respond to the alt-right.

Spencer, she said, is a white nationalist who calls himself an identitarian not a white supremacist, but he advocates for a white homeland, for a dispossessed white race, and calls for peaceful ethnic cleansing to halt the deconstruction of European culture. Those who follow him and the alt-right movement hold the same views, she said, adding: Sounds like white supremacism to me.

Mazzenga reminded the audience that Steve Bannon, a Catholic who is the chief strategist and special counsel to President Donald Trump, was the former CEO of Breitbart News, who once called the site the platform for the alt-right. Bannon has been critical of the churchs stance on immigrants, another hallmark of the alt-right, and he sneeringly calls (Republican House Speaker) Paul Ryans Catholicism social justice Catholicism strangely enough, Mazzenga said.

Bannon, she said, holds the views of one of two camps of Catholic Americans she studies: the exclusionary variety and the inclusionary.

Exclusionary Catholic Americanism is defensive, adopts a siege mentality, emphasizes persecution of enemies, views other religious traditions as threatening to its very existence, Mazzenga said. Inclusive Catholic Americanism seeks to reconcile American ideals of religious liberty and ethnic pluralism with Catholic traditions. It seeks continuity with its parent, Judaism, and commonalties rather than differences with other religions to which its related, like Islam.

Both views are strong in the countrys politically charged and divisive environment, and also very much present in the churchs pews and institutions today. While Catholic churches welcome refugees and immigrants, views that demonize Muslims, that believe theres a war between Christianity and Islam are often tolerated among American Catholics, said Jordan Denari Duffner, who participated in the panel and studies Islamophobia for the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University in Washington.

While Islamophobic views, which are very much in tune with those who follow the alt-right movement, have little impact in places such as the Vatican, they have found a sympathetic outlet among some publications in Catholic media, Duffner said.

Some of those views portray Islam as a religion that is violent, misogynistic, not part of the Judeo-Christian West and say that Muslims cant be trusted and seek to impose their way of life on us, Duffner said.

If some of this doesnt sound unfamiliar to you, its because its become so mainstream, she said, and even appears in some Catholic newspapers, websites and on popular Catholic television programs in the U.S.

Julia Young, a historian with The Catholic University of America who also participated in the panel, said similar views have existed before in the country, but this time the targets for such views, which some would call nativism, others would call xenophobia, seem to be immigrants and Muslims.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the U.S. has always made clear where it stands, she said. As early as 1919, the U.S. bishops formed an immigration bureau whose sole focus was to speak on behalf of and defend immigrants, to provide legal counsel and defense for them, particularly with the goal of keeping families together, Young said.

Duffner said high profile Catholic leaders such as Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, as well as other bishops and the bishops conference have spoken up against the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment that those in the alt-right foster. But she said shed like to see national efforts trickle down to Catholics in the pews, to bring them together with people of different faiths, particularly Muslims, because it would help combat some of the prevalent and erroneous views some of them hold about Islam.

She said shed also like to see Catholic leaders confront the portrayal of Islam that we are seeing in books published by Catholic publishers, adding that Catholic media should police itself and examine some of its portrayals.

Panelist Christopher Hale, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, said that while the internet created a democracy, it also created an oligarchy of lies in which some of the views that target certain communities and are based on fear and lies have gained ground.

The more you communicate, the more you get systems of communication, the more your lies become the truth, Hale said. The only way to fight lies is with the truth.

But for the truth to win out, he said, we must engage these folks and the wrong approach, he said, is to think that were better than they are, even if they hold views that may be difficult to hear.

Talking to people who hold views such as the ones embraced by the alt-right is the Christian approach, he said, and the idea of not talking to them, of thinking that some people are below our worth is what he calls the deplorable option, referencing Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons comment in which she called Trump supporters a basket of deplorables.

Lets be real, he said. Racism isnt simple. Theres a lot of things built up in racism beyond just a moral evil. Theres structural issues, theres economic issues. Xenophobia is complicated. So, if were going to be really engaging, we have to spend a little less time denouncing and actually engaging and proclaiming the truth without any hesitancy but understand that the way people got to where they are, theres a path they took. They didnt just parachute in.

Dialogue, he said, is vital.

Young, the historian, said that as a Catholic, for her it also is important to be supportive of the victims or targets of some of those who are attacked by the alt-right and its sympathizers, while also seeking a way to dialogue with them.

I dont think those are incompatible, she said.

View post:
Catholics called to stand against 'alt-right' views but seek dialogue - CatholicPhilly.com

For what most people would deem all the wrong reasons but he almost certainly wouldnt, Milo Yiannopoulos has been all over the news in recent weeks. Having built a reputation as the alt-rights most vocal spokesperson and, in his own words, the most fabulous supervillain on the internet the charismatic, Kent-born, gay 33-year-old had his book deal with Simon & Schuster terminated (it was due to be published in June), and was forced to resign from his editor post at alt-right news site Breitbart. Both of these things happened after comments surfaced in which he apparently defended the idea of relationships between older men and younger boys.

But just as his ban from Twitter in July last year (for his role in the abuse of Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones) only served to reinforce his enemy-of-the-mainstream status, these events will only make him more notorious. I look forward to making you all laugh, cry and think for many decades to come, he said at the press conference to announce his resignation from Breitbart. Dont think for a moment that anything that has happened in the last 48 hours will ever stop me being as offensive, provocative and outrageously funny as I choose. I am not going anywhere.

Yiannopoulos is perhaps the most high-profile and most extreme of the right's new wave of provocateurs, but he is far from the only one. In the past six months, a wave of UK-based bloggers and writers, all linked by a distaste for liberalism, political correctness and the mainstream media (or the MSM, as they call it) are beginning to rise to not dissimilar levels of prominence.

Milo Yiannopoulos challenged on Breitbart News headlines about Muslims and feminism on Channel 4 News

Youve had a priesthood of pundits working for the established broadcasters and theyve interpreted current events for us, notes Douglas Carswell, the first elected Ukip MP, whose book The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy compared what is happening now to the Reformation. Suddenly digital means that anyone can present an analysis on current events... and its created the space for a lot of insurgent opinion. Now, some of that opinion is pretty appalling. But dont blame the insurgents: theyre a consequence of the priesthood of pundits being so out of touch and one-sided.

The term alt-right was coined by the president of the US National Policy Institute and white supremacist, Richard B Spencer, in 2008 he founded alternativeright.com in 2010 and since then has come to describe a broad group of people on both sides of the Atlantic. They may not agree on quite what 'alt-right- means (indeed, there is no completely settled definition) but all of them are relatively young and adept at using social media; they are pro-Trump, pro-Brexit, and anti-feminist; they have a strong taste for outrage-for-its-own-sake over any particular political leanings; and they see themselves as part of a new counterculture. They promote each others content through their own channels. All of them have growing numbers of followers. All of them, appearance-wise, are the antithesis of the aged skinheads you might traditionally associate with the right. All of them also, you suspect, do not intend on going anywhere any time soon. So who are Britains key players?

(Wigmore/Finn/Splash News)

Raheem Kassam

Standing furthest to the right literally, not figuratively in that photo featuring the President Elect and Nigel Farage in front of Trump Towers gold door was Raheem Kassam. Previously the former Ukip leaders chief aide, then a Ukip leadership hopeful himself (slogan: Make Ukip Great Again), he is currently editor-in-chief of Breitbart UK. He has conducted sympathetic interviews for Breitbart with people such as Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League and subsequent founder of anti-Islam organisation Pegida UK.

Kassam, 30, was born in Hammersmith and raised in Hillingdonas the son of Tanzanian immigrants. He was educated at Bishopshalt comprehensive in Uxbridge and went on to study politics at the University of Westminster in 2004. There, after apparently witnessing the number of students intoradical Islam (the Islamic State militant known as Jihadi John was two years below him), he began to turnhis back on the Ismaili Muslim faith. And then he became politically anti-Islam.

He began blogging, and was working in a call centre when he was approached by Steve Bannon, then executive chair of Breitbart, now Donald Trumps chief strategist, and a man who Kassam insists is not a white nationalist not far right, or an extremist.

Hes an obsessive; he doesnt really have other interests, says a long-time associate of Kassam.

Hes pretty much fallen out with everybody hes ever worked with over money... but hes a sociable type who likes the good life: dinner, brandy... but not drugs.

Kassam has a penchant for combative, wilfully shocking tweets (he has more than 50,000 followers), the most notorious being one in which he suggested Nicola Sturgeon should have her legs taped shut to stop her reproducing. He did not respond to requests for an interview.

Paul Joseph Watson

Raised on a Sheffield council estate and since relocated to a flat in Battersea, before the US presidential campaign Paul Joseph Watson, 35, was a relatively unknown blogger for US conspiracy theorist Alex Joness Infowars site (Hot Women in Ads Banned to Please Fat Feminists is an example of a past title).

Then he posted a video entitled The Truth About Hillarys Bizarre Behaviour, which claimed that Clintons weird seizures, psychotic facial tics, over-exaggerated reactions and coughing fits could be the side effects of strokes, and that her outbursts were likely linked to years of persistent drug abuse. The video went viral and was picked up by the National Enquirer, which led to Is Hillary having health problems? becoming the second biggest search on Google that week, despite the fact that there is no evidence for any of Watsons claims.

On Twitter, he is a hugely divisive presence with over half a million followers. He claimed last week that the actual number of attendees at the anti-Trump march in London last month was 2,000, and offered to pay for any journalist claiming Sweden is safe to stay in the crime-ridden migrant suburbs of Malm.

In addition, hes a staunch defender of Yiannopoulos, claiming that no journalist has done more to expose actual paedophiles. Having previously referred to the Evening Standard as absolute slimeballs, Watson has little interest in engaging with the mainstream media.

Michael Heaver

Until recently, 27-year-old Michael Heaver was Nigel Farages chief press adviser. He rose quickly through the Ukip ranks, having joined the party as a 17-year-old.

As of 17 January this year, though, he has been editor of westmonster.com, funded by Arron Banks, the biggest financial backer of the Leave campaign. Heaver also runs the site out of Bankss leave.eu offices in SW1. Unlike other alt-right bloggers, Heaver still drinks in Westminster haunt the Marquis of Granby with other politicos.

The site is very much inspired by the way Breitbart has tapped in to the alt-right sensibility. After the Brit Awards last week, for example, it lambasted the vile Donald Trump/Theresa May-baiting performance by multi-millionaire luvvie Katy Perry.

Educated at Coleridge Community College in Cambridge (which he calls one of the countrys worst state schools), Heaver scored highly enough in his GCSEs to secure a place at Hills Road Sixth Form College, regarded as one of the best in the UK.

While there he won the Schools Question Time Challenge to secure a place on a Question Time panel alongside Iain Duncan Smith and Douglas Alexander, against whom he more than held his own.

He is what he appears to be, says a long-time associate. A Ukip hardliner. Hes authentic. Chippy. And very paranoid about Westminster.

Matthew Tait

The host of the first alt-right London social in October last year, well-spoken business studies graduate Taitjoined the British National Party at the age of 18, founding a new branch in his native Maidenhead in 2004.

In stark contrast to other members of the alt-right, Tait identifies as an environmentalist, and initially intended, as an already-politicised teenager, to join the Green Party.

Unconvinced by what he read about them, though, he instead joined the BNP, having gone on its website, initially, as a joke. Tait left the party in 2010 and eventually assembled a group of like-minded people who, on deciding that a political party was not the way forward, launched Western Spring: a website representing the interests of White people everywhere, but in particular the interests of the White people indigenous to the British Isles.

Tait is now a regular speaker at meetings on both sides of the Atlantic, and was present at the notorious alt-right conference at Washington DCs Ronald Reagan Building in November, just after Donald Trumps victory, which saw some attendees giving triumphant Nazi salutes. After the event, he was ushered outside by Richard B Spencer, past the waiting press. He did not take questions.

Colin Robertson

Introducing this Scottish YouTuber to the same conference audience, Richard B Spencer described him as just the kind of person we want in the alt-right (he also said that the assembled crowd could see Robertson and himself as two of a kind, as kind of the hipster whisperers).

Only recently revealed to be Colin Robertson, 34, from Linlithgow, he was previously known only as Millennial Woes despite the fact that all of his videos feature him against a dark black background, talking directly to camera (titles include The Smugness of the Worldly Liberal).

Robertsonwas a socialist as a teenager, then a libertarian, then a paleoconservative. His epiphany came in the mid-2000s when he arrived at art college in London and found his multiracial halls of residence dizzying and horrible.

He began his YouTube channel at the beginning of 2014. It drew attention very quickly, to the point where, in the aftermath of Trumps triumph, he was being invited to speak in the US and to the extent that he recently celebrated reaching 25,000 subscribers on his channel. He claims that 4,000 of these came in the aftermath of his identity being exposed in the mainstream media. Enjoy being replaced by the alternative media, and thank you for the free publicity, his most recent video said.

Robertson may be based in Scotland but the reverberations of his huge, growing online presence can be felt keenly in the capital.

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Are these the faces of London's young 'alt-right'? - Evening Standard

Trump is not a new phenomenon. He is the latest, and most aggressive to date, repackaging of corporate-radical right attempts to reassert corporate hegemony and control over the global economy and US society. His antecedents are the policies and strategies of Nixon, Reagan and Gingrichs Contract for America in the 1990s.

Trump has of course added his new elements to the mix. Hes integrated the Tea Party elements left over from their purge by Republican Party elites after the 2012 national elections. Hes unified some of the more aggressive elements of the finance capital elites from hedge funds, commercial real estate, private equity, securities speculators and their ilki.e. the Adelsons, Singers, Mercers, and Schwarzmans. Hes captured, for the moment at least, important elements of the white industrial working class in the Midwest and South, co-opted union leaders from the building trades, and even neutralized top union leaders in some manufacturing industries with fake promises of a new manufacturing renaissance in the US. Hes firmly united the gun lobby of the NRA and the religious right now with the Breitbart propaganda machine and the so-called Alt-Right fringe.

Trump is a political and economic reaction to the crisis in the US economy in the 21st century, which the Obama administration could not effectively address after the 2008-09 crash. Trump shares this historical role with Nixon, who was a response to another decline in US corporate-economic political power in the early 1970s; with Reagan who was a response to the economic stagnation of the late 1970s; and with the Contract for America, a program associated with a takeover of Congress by the radical right in 1994, after the US housing and savings and loan crash and recession in 1989-1992. All these antecedents find their expression in the Trump movement and the policy and program positions that are now taking form under the Trump regime.

American economic and political elites are not reluctant to either change the rules of the game in their favor whenever warranted to ensure their hegemony, targeting not only foreign capitalist competitors when their influence grows too large but also potential domestic opposition by workers and unions, minorities, and even liberals who try to step out of their role as junior partners in rule.

This restructuring of rule has occurred not only in the early 1970s, early 1980s, mid 1990s, but now as well post Obamai.e. a regime that failed to contain both foreign competition and domestic restlessness. US elites did it before in the 20th century as well, on an even grander scale in 1944-47 and before that again during the decade of the first world war.

Whats noteworthy of the current, latest restructuring is its even greater nastiness and aggressiveness compared to earlier similar efforts to restore control.

Trumps policies and strategies reflect new elements in the policy and politics mix. Hes rearranged the corporate-right wing basebringing in new forces and challenging others to go along or get out. New proposals and programs reflect that base changei.e. in immigration, trade, appeals to white working class jobs, economic nationalism in general, etc. But Trumps fundamental policies and strategy share a clear continuity with past restructurings introduced before him by Nixon and Reagan in the early 1970s and 1980s, respectively.

NIXON-TRUMP

Like his predecessors, Trump arose in response to major foreign capitalist and domestic popular challenges to the Neoliberal corporate agenda. Nixon may have come to office on the wave of splits and disarray in the Democratic party over Vietnam in 1968, but he was clearly financed and promoted by big corporate elements convinced that a more aggressive response to global economic challenges by Europe and domestic protest movements were required. European capitalists in the late 1960s were becoming increasingly competitive with American, both in Europe and in the US. The dollar was over-valued and US exports were losing ground. And middle east elites were nationalizing their oil fields. Domestically, American workers and unions launched the second biggest strike wave in US history in 1969-71, winning contract settlements 20%-25% increases in wages and benefits. Mass social movements led by environmentalists, women, and minorities were expanding. Social legislation like job safety and health laws were being passed.

Nixons response to these foreign and domestic challenges was to counterattack foreign competitors by launching his New Economic Program (NEP) in 1971 and to stop and rollback union gains. Not unlike Trump today, the primary focus of NEP was to improve the competitiveness of US corporations in world markets.

To this effect the US dollar was devalued as the US intentionally imploded the post-1945 Bretton Woods international monetary system. Trump wants to force foreign competitors to raise the value of their currencies, in effect achieving a dollar devaluation simply by another means. The means may be different, but the goal is the same. Nixon imposed a 10% import tax, not unlike Trumps proposed 20% border tax today. Nixon proposed subsidies and tax cuts for US auto companies and other manufacturers; Trump has been promising Ford, Carrier Corp., Boeing and others the same, in exchange for token statements theyll reduce (not stop or reverse) offshoring of jobs. Nixon introduced a 7% investment tax credit for businesses without verification that he claimed would stimulate business spending in the US; Trump is going beyond, adding multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for business and investors, while saying more tax cuts for businesses and investors is needed to create jobs, even though historically theres no empirical evidence whatsoever for the claim. Nixon froze union wages and then rolled back their 1969-71 20% contract gains to 5.5%; Trump attacks unions by encourage state level right to work business legislation that will outlaw workers requiring to join unions or pay dues. Nixon accelerated defense spending while refusing to spend money on social programs by impounding the funds authorized by Congress; Trump has just announced an historic record 9% increase in defense spending, while proposing to gut spending on education, health, and social programs by the same 9% amount. Nixons economic policies screwed up the US economy, leading to the worst inflation and worst recession since the great depression; So too will Trumps. Similarities between Nixon and Trump abound in the political realm as well. Nixon fought and railed against the media; so now too is Trump. The only difference was one used a telephone and the other his iphone. Nixon declared he had a mandate, and the silent majority of middle America was behind him; Trump claims his forgotten man of middle America put him in office. Nixon bragged construction worker hard hats backed him, as he encouraged construction companies to form their anti-union Construction Industry Roundtable group; Trump welcomes construction union leaders to the White House while he supports reducing prevailing wage for construction work. Nixon continually promoted law and order and attempted to repress social movements and protests by means of the Cointelpro program FBI-CIA spying on citizens, while developing plans for rollout in his second term to intensify repression of protestors and social movements; Trump tweets police can do no wrong (whom he loves second only to his generals)and calls for new investigations of protestors, mandatory jail sentences for protestors and flagburners, and encourages governors to propose repressive legislation to limit exercise of First Amendment rights of free assembly. Trumps also calling for an investigation of election voting fraud, which will serve as cover to propose even more State level limits on voters rights. Nixon undertook a major shift in US foreign policy, establishing relations with Communist Chinaa move designed to split the Soviet Union (Russia) further from China; Trump is just flipping Nixons strategy around, trying to establish better relations with Russia as a preliminary to intensifying attacks on China. Anticipating defeat in Southeast Asia, Nixon declared victory and walked away from Vietnam; Trump will do the same in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East. The now infamous Powell Memorandum was written on Nixons watch, (within days of Nixons August 1971 NEP announcement)a plan for corporate America to launch an aggressive economic and social offensive to rollback unions and progressive movements and to restore corporate hegemony over US society; an equivalent Trump Bannon Memorandum strategic plan for the same will no doubt eventually be made public after the fact as well. Nixon was a crook; so will be Trump branded, but not until they release his taxes and identify payments (emoluments) received by his global businesses from foreign governments and security services. But this wont happen until corporate America gets its historic tax cuts, deregulation, and new bilateral free trade agreements from Trump.

REAGAN-TRUMP

The parallels in economic policy and political strategy are too many and too similar to consider merely coincidental. Nixon is Trumps policy and strategy mentor.

Similar comparisons can be made between Trump and Reagan, given a different twist here, a change in emphasis there.

Reagan introduced a major increase in defense spending, including a 600 ship navy, more missiles and nuclear warheads, and a military front in space called star wars; Trump loves generals and promises them his record 9% increase in war spending as well, paid for by equal cuts in social programs. Reagan introduced a $700 billion plus tax cut for business and investors in 1981, and an even more generous investment tax credit and accelerated depreciation allowances (tax cuts); Trump promises to cut business tax rates by half, end all taxes on their offshore profits, end all inheritance taxes, keep investor offshore tax loopholes, etc.more than $6 trillion worth while eliminating wage earners tax credits. Reagan cut social spending by tens of billions; Trump has proposed even more tens of billions. Reagan promised to balance the US budget but gave us accelerating annual budget deficits, fueled by record defense spending and the tax cuts for business of more than $700 billion (on a GDP of $4 trillion), the largest cuts in US history up to that time; Trumps budget deficit from $6 trillion in business tax cuts and war spending escalation will make Reagans pale in comparison. Reagans trade policy to reverse deteriorating US trade with Japan and Europe, was to directly attack Japan and Europe ( 1985 Plaza Accord and Louvre Accord trade agreements), forcing Japan-Europe to over-stimulate their economies and inflate their prices to give US companies an export cost competitive advantage; Trumps policy simply changes the target countries to Mexico, Germany and China. Each will have its very own Accord deal with Trump-US. The first free trade NAFTA deal with Canada was signed on Reagans watch; Trump only wants to rearrange the deck chairs on the free trade Titanic and replace multilateral free trade with bilateral deals he negotiates and can claim personal credit for. Reagan encouraged speculators to gut workers pension plans and he shifted the burden of social security taxation onto workers to create a social security trust fund surplus the government could then steal; Trump promises not to propose cutting social security, but refuses to say if the Republicans in Congress attach cuts to other legislation hell veto it. Reagan deregulated banks, airlines, utilities, trucking and other businesses, which led to financial crises in the late 1980s and the 1990-91 recession; Trump has championed repeal of the even token 2010 Dodd-Frank bank regulation act, and has deregulated by executive order even more than Reagan or Nixon. Stock market, junk bond market, and housing markets crashed in the wake of Reagans financial deregulation initiatives; the so-called Trump Trade since the election have escalated stock and junk bond valuations to bubble heights. Reagan bragged of his working class Republican supporters, and busted unions like the Air Traffic Controllers, while encouraging legal attacks on union and worker rights; Trump has his forgotten man, and courts union leaders in the White House while encouraging states to push right to work laws that prohibited requiring workers to join unions or pay dues. Reagan replaced his chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Volcker, when he wouldnt go along with Reagan-James Baker (Treasury Secretary) plans on reducing interest rates; Trump will replace current chair, Janet Yellen, when her term as chair expires next year.

Then there are the emerging political parallels between Reagan and Trump as well:

Even before the 1980 national election was even held, Reagans future staff members met secretly with foreign government of Iran to request they not release the 300 American hostages there before the 1980 election; Trump staff (i.e. General Flynn), apparently after the election, met with Russian representatives to discuss relations before confirmed by Congress. Reagans boys got off; Flynn didnt. Events are similar, though outcomes different. Reagan attacked the liberal media. Much less aggressively perhaps than Trump today, but nevertheless the once liberal-progressive Public Broadcasting Company was chastised, under threat by the government of budget cuts or outright privatization. It responded by inviting fewer left of center guest opinions to the show. So too thereafter did mainstream television Sunday talk shows (Meet the Press, etc.); Trumps attack on the media is more aggressive, aiming not to tame the media but de-legitimize it. He has proposed to privatize the Public Broadcasting Corporation. Reagan staff directly violated Congressional laws by arranging drug money seizures from Latin America by the CIA to pay for Iranian arms bought for the US by Israel, that were then distributed to the contras in Nicaragua to launch a civil war against their duly elected left government. Nixon had his Watergate, Reagan his Irangate. Next gate will be Trumps. Reagans offensive against the environment was notorious, including appointments of cabinet members who declared publicly their intent to dismantle the department and gutting the EPA budget; Trumps appointments and budget slashing now follow the same path. If Nixons policy was court China-challenge Russia, Reagans was court Russia-isolate China; Trumps policy is to return to a Nixonian court Russia-confront China.

The corporate-radical right alliance continued after Reagan, re-emerging once again in the 1994 so-called Contract With America, as Clintons Democrats lost 54 seats in the US House of Representatives to the Republican right after backtracking on notable Democrat campaign promises made in the 1992 elections. The landslide was a harbinger of things to come in a later Obama administration in 2010.

The Contract for America proposed a program that shares similar policies with the Trump administration. It was basically a plagiarism of a Reagan 1985 speech. But it provided program continuity through the 1990s, re-emerging in a more aggressive grass roots form in the Teaparty movement in 2008.

TRUMPs Breitbartification of NIXON-REAGAN

Trump is more than just Nixon-Reagan on steroids. Trump is taking the content and the tone of the conservative-radical right to a more aggressive level. The aggressiveness and new elements added to the radical right conservative perspective in the case of Trump are the consequence of adding a Breitbart-Steve Bannon strategic (and even tactical) overlay to the basic Nixon-Reagan programmatic foundation.

The influence of Bannon on Trump strategy, programs, policy and even tactics cannot be underestimated. This is the new key element, missing with Nixon, Reagan, and the Contract with America. The Breitbart strategy is to introduce a major dose of economic nationalism, heretofore missing in the radical right. This is designed to expand the radical rights appeal to the traditional working classa key step on the road to establishing a true Fascist grass roots populist movement in the future.

The appearance of opposition to free trade, protectionism, reshoring of jobs, cuts in foreign aid, direct publicity attacks on Mexico, China, Germany and even Australia are all expressions of Trumps new element of economic nationalism.

Another element of Bannonism is to identify as the enemy the neoliberal institutionsthe media and mainstream press, the elites two parties, and even the Judiciary whenever it stands up to Trump policies.

Added to the enemy is the danger within, which is the foreigner, the immigrant, both inside and outside the country. The immigrant is the potential new jew in the Trump regime. This too comes from Breitbart-Bannon.

Another strategic element brought by Bannon to the Trump table is the expanded hiring and tightening of ties to various police organizations nationwide and the glorification of the police while denigrating anyone who stands up to them. No more investigations of police brutality by the federal government under Trump.

Still another Breitbart strategic element is to attack the character of democracy itself, raising issues of fraud in voting, and undermining popular understanding of what constitutes the right to assembly and free speech. That is all a prelude to legitimizing further state level limitations and restrictions on voting rights, already gaining momentum before Trump.

Even the military is not exempt from the Bannon-Breitbart strategy: high level military and defense establishment figures who havent wholeheartedly come over to the Trump regime are replaced with non-conformist and opportunist generals from the military establishment.

Bannon-Breitbart is the conduit to the various grass roots right wing radical elements, that will be organized and mobilized if necessary, should the old elites, media and their supporters choose to challenge Trump directly with impeachment or other nuclear options.

Nixon and Reagan both restructured the political and economic US capitalist system. But they did so within the rules of the game within that system. Trump differs by attacking the rules of the game, and the established elites and their institutions, while offering those same elites the opportunity for great economic personal gain if they go along. Some are, and some still arent. The showdown is yet to come, and not until 2018 at the earliest.

Trump should be viewed as a continuation of the corporate-radical right alliance that has been growing in the US since the 1970s. The difference today is that that alliance is firmly entrenched at all levels and in all institutions now, unlike in the past, and inside as well as outside the government.

And the opposition to it today is far weaker than in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s: the Democratic Party has virtually collapsed outside Washington DC as it continues myopically on its neoliberal path with its recent selection of Perez as national chair by the Clinton-Obama-Big Donor wing (i.e. the former Democratic leadership Conference faction that captured the party back in 1992) still firmly in control of that party; the unions are but a shadow of their past selves and split, with some actually supporting Trump; the so-called liberal press has been thoroughly corporatized and shows it has no idea how to confront the challenge, feeding the Trump movement instead of weakening it; grass root minority, ethnic, and progressive movements are fragmented and isolated from each other like never before, locked into their mutually isolated identity politics protests; and what was once the far left of socialists have virtually disappeared organizationally, condemning the growing millions of youth who express a favorable view of socialism to have to learn the lessons of political organizing from scratch all over again.

But they will learn. Trump and friends will teach them.

Original post:
Trump in Historical PerspectiveFrom Nixon to Bannon-Breitbart and the Alt Right Fringe - Center for Research on Globalization