What is the Alt Right?<\/p>\n
Steve Bannon is the new Chief Strategist of the Trump Administration and a huge promoter of the Alt Right.<\/p>\n
Lots of Trump supporters are expressing surprise (and resistance) at the prospect that Trump\u2019s Chief Strategist is a supporter and advocate of white ethno-nationalism (aka racism).<\/p>\n
He is.<\/p>\n
Bannon has bragged that he made Breitbart a \u201cplatform for the Alt Right.<\/a><\/p>\n The Alt Right\u2019s self-description<\/em>\u00a0(not the description given it by its enemies) is \u201cdedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States\u201d<\/a> aka \u201cwhite identity\u201d aka \u201cracism.\u201d<\/p>\n Here is a sample of white identity thought published in Radix <\/em><\/a>recently, explaining that the prolife movement is \u201cdysgenic\u201d (i.e. that it encourages the birthing of mixed race children) and making the \u201cidentitarian case\u201d for abortion:<\/p>\n Not only is the pro-life movement dysgenic, but its justifications rely on principles we generally reject. The alt Right is skeptical, to say the least, of concepts like \u201cequality\u201d and \u201chuman rights,\u201d especially as bases for policy. The unborn fetus has no connection to anyone else in the community. If it is not even wanted by its own mother, criminalizing abortion means that the state must step in and say that the individual has rights as an individual, despite its lack of connection to any larger social group. This is no problem to those in the conservative movement, who decide right and wrong based on principles like \u201cthe right to life.\u201d It is no coincidence that some of the most pro-life politicians are those most excited about adopting children from Africa and those in their movement are among the conservatives most likely to denounce the \u201cracism\u201d of their political opponents.<\/p>\n The mother-child bond is the strongest of human relationships, the one least subject to being altered by government policy or societal forces. While over the last decades, fathers have become more likely to walk out on their children and divorce rates have risen, there has been no similar rise in females abandoning their children. When the parent-child bond does not exist for a pregnant woman, society has no business stepping in. Those who want to do so, by banning abortion because it\u2019s \u201cracist\u201d or adopting children from Africa, are the ultimate cuckservatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cCuckservative\u201d is the awkward portmanteau coined by the Alt Right precisely to distinguish themselves from normal, sane non-racist conservatives they deem \u201cafraid\u201d to embrace the \u201creality\u201d of white supremacy. \u201cCuck\u201d is from \u201ccuckold\u201d and communicates the notion of a white man too weak to defend his racial purity from dark-skinned men having sex with \u201chis\u201d women. Rassenhygiene is a *big* thing with the Alt Right, as is the sophomore high school fantasy that women are personal property to be kept out of the hands of racial inferiors. The Alt Right sees itself as the hero in a Frank Frazetta painting<\/a>, defending nubile white feminine flesh from the assault of dark alien hordes bent on sapping and impurifying their precious bodily fluids with injections of inferior chromosomes. Regular conservatives\u2013\u201ccuckservatives\u201d\u2013are too weak to say this out loud with their wimpy commitment to \u201call men are created equal\u201d and the Christian insistence that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, that \u201cGod is no respecter of persons\u201d, that \u201cin Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus\u201d (Ga 3:26\u201328).<\/p>\n Note that when you click the second link above, you find that self-description for a whole slew of Alt Right organizations. That\u2019s because white identity is not an accidental feature of Radix<\/em> and a couple of outliers, but the fundamental ideology of the Alt Right<\/em>\u2013the Alt Right Bannon boasts of supporting, the Alt Right of which he is now the most powerful and prominent representative on Planet Earth as Chief Strategist to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n What does the Alt Right do? David French can tell you all about it and what it will look like in power.<\/a> So can this family.<\/a> So can all these people.<\/a> That\u2019s why Twitter finally took the step of shutting these people down.<\/a> Facebook, I\u2019m told, will be following suit.<\/p>\n My point is this: There is not a reason in the world prolife Christians should be putting themselves out to defend this racist filth. If they are serious about abortion being their core issue they should, if they are strapped for time and energy, simply be focusing on defending the unborn. If they have time and energy to spare for other things, they should be *protesting* the racism of the Alt Right as (in the words of Nostra Aetate<\/em>) \u201cforeign to the mind of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n But instead, prolife leadership like Fr. Frank Pavone and a host of the rank and file of the \u201cprolife\u201d movement are lining up to spend their time and energy, not on defending the unborn, but on cheering for the appointment of Steve Bannon<\/a> and on denying the existence of, excusing, and defending the Alt Right racism he champions.<\/p>\n That is the infallible pattern the anti-abortion-but-not-prolife movement\u2013the Old Prolife Movement\u2013now follows. It *claims* the defense of the unborn is the \u201ccore value\u201d. It *claims* that it will \u201chold Trump\u2019s feet to the fire\u201d. But in practice it does one concrete thing over and over\u2013it defends Trump and whatever evil or foolish thing Trump says or does. It did it all throughout the election cycle, crowning itself with an act of what Fr. Pavone\u2019s own bishop and Priests for Life Canada denounced as an act of desecration. And now it is moving on to spending its time defending, not the unborn, but Alt Right racism, because that is what the Boss likes.<\/p>\n We need a New Prolife Movement. One that is simply dedicated to the defense of the dignity of all human life\u2013of whatever color\u2013from conception to natural death. One that says simply, \u201cListen to the Church\u2019s *whole* teaching and not just the bits your political ideology likes.\u201d<\/p>\n