A second look.
I wrote about this article before, but in light of recent events, particularly of me being labeled a “mentally ill freak” whose criticism of “movement” failure is pure “sophistry” I believe it is useful to take a brief second look at this.
Excerpts and my comments:
BuzzFeed News can reveal that in at least one instance during the summer of 2016, Thiel hosted a dinner with one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America…
Given the identity of that individual, and that he is/was “one of the most influential and vocal white nationalists in modern-day America” can we be surprised what an utter failure Der Movement is?
— a man who has called for the creation of a white ethnostate and played a key role in an effort to mainstream white nationalism as the “alt-right.”
How has that all worked out so far?
…the ascendant alt-right movement, which despite its prominence was a collection of small and often cash-strapped organizations.
Cash-strapped? Really?
One avowed white nationalist privately speculated that Thiel’s money and influence could have made him “our George Soros.”
Hmmm. Work out? No? But I thought you guys are “winning” and any skepticism about that is “sophistry?”
The people he met or had had plans with are unfamiliar to the vast majority of Americans, but they were for a time key figures pushing racist ideology and white nationalism toward a place of greater acceptability within the hard-right world of Trumpism.
Trumpism is hard-right? In reality, as opposed to perception?
This laundering of white nationalist ideas into wider conservative circles was the alt-right’s raison d’être.
They’ll tell you that they succeeded. What do you think? Success upon success!
A handful of events Thiel attended with some of the most influential voices in the far-right and white nationalist movements in 2016 and 2017 provided a venue for those connections.
Which led to…drum roll please…endless failure.
Here you go:
A Far-Right Web
Kevin DeAnna
Founder of far-right Youth for Western Civilization. Has written for white nationalist publications, under various pseudonyms. Met Thiel for dinner in July 2016.
Curtis Yarvin
Influential far-right thinker who blogged under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Argues for authoritarian-style government. Has written that he’s “not exactly allergic” to white nationalism. Longtime Thiel associate.
Peter Brimelow
Founder of VDare.com, a hard-right anti-immigration website that frequently publishes white nationalists. Has said that “Hispanics do specialize in rape.” Published DeAnna.
Brendan Kissam
Former GOProud volunteer and tea party activist who filmed videos as “Wilson Hewlett” for VDare.
Greg Johnson
Founder of the white nationalist website and publishing house Counter-Currents. Author of books, including The White Nationalist Manifesto.
Jeff Giesea
A Thiel associate and former employee who developed his own connections in the far right. Helped organize 2017’s DeploraBall.
Still wondering about the endless failure?
Newly uncovered emails seen by BuzzFeed News….
How? Eyebrows (both real and fake) are raised.
…show white nationalist leaders were chattering about plans with Thiel in the summer of 2016.
Fail.
On July 2, Peter Brimelow, the founder of leading white supremacist website VDare, emailed his star writer Kevin DeAnna to chastise him for freelancing for other outlets.
That’s just too easy to mock, pass.
Brimelow, who later asserted that “Hispanics do specialize in rape, particularly of children,” also wanted to know: Why hadn’t his writer kept him updated on an upcoming meeting with Thiel?
Inbox
From: Kevin DeAnna
Sent: July 3, 2016 To: Peter Brimelow, Lydia Brimelow
1. JT sent me some links and said you can write this up for us real quick. It took about two hours. Originally, it was just going to be on that teacher but then I found some stuff about BAMN.
JT? Hmmmm.
I didn’t look too much into what actually happened at the protest because I still don’t know what happened and don’t think I’ll ever know. I just don’t believe what TWP is putting out (that the skinheads weren’t armed.)
My point is I didn’t plan this out and then write it. JT just said you can do this real quick and I said yes and then did it. But obviously first refusal from now on.
2. Not sure why I’m getting in trouble for the Thiel thing. I told Lydia about it one day after Greg told me about it. And she’s the only person I’ve told as it is totally secret. I thought you’d be happy about that.
I’ll blog more, let you know what I’m planning on writing with first refusal, and do a better job of talking on the phone.
Will write on the GOP stab in the back against Trump on Tuesday.
Trying to figure out who the cop is, no luck yet.
Good Internet and computer security there.
“I am fed up with being surprised about e.g. this meeting with the Right Stuff, Ann Coulter, Thiel etc.,” Brimelow wrote, with his wife, Lydia Brimelow, copied on the message. “You are being paid in part to keep me abreast of Alt Right developments and you’re not doing it.”
Well, gee, Pete, all Kev had to do was just send repeated messages all containing the word “failure” and that would have kept you effectively “abreast of Alt Right developments.”
DeAnna, an influential white nationalist who pens pieces for VDare and has written many pieces for other prominent publications in the movement like American Renaissance and Counter-Currents, under the pseudonyms “James Kirkpatrick” and “Gregory Hood”…
Meanwhile, RaceNatGoy is falsely accused of being my “sock puppet” account.
The dinner that Friday night was a little different. Termed the “Right Wing Dinner Squad, III” in an email sent by one attendee, the event featured an individual that the billionaire, despite his flair for controversy, has never associated with publicly.
That guest was DeAnna.
Inbox
From: Peter Thiel
Sent: July 30, 2016
To: Kevin DeAnna
Subject: Right Wing Dinner Squad, III
Kevin – really enjoyed meeting you last night. I may be in DC towards the end of September, and let me know [if you] make it to SF anytime!
—-Peter
Wonderful.
From: Brendan Kissam
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 11:52 AM
To: Peter Thiel
Subject: Right Wing Dinner Squad, III
Howdy Peter and Kevin,
I’d been looking forward to you guys getting to meet, and last night proved fantastic! I’m sure you two will have plenty strategy to bounce back and forth, and I look forward to hearing about it.
-Brendan
Brendan? Hmmm. I have some questions for a certain individual who wrote an article about my “neurotic” blogging.
DeAnna, though not a household name, had by that time been involved in far-right politics for close to 10 years, and had played a key role in channeling white nationalist ideology into the emerging alt-right. After graduating from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, DeAnna joined the conservative Leadership Institute, and founded Youth for Western Civilization in 2006.
Success after success!
DeAnna did not respond to questions from BuzzFeed News.
Alas, one other apparently did respond. See below.
DeAnna also served as a Trump evangelist in his community. He was among the voices on the fringe who exhorted their peers to get on board with Trump…
And how did that work out? Who was it who wrote that Trump was so weak that he made “Jimmy Carter look like Alexander the Great?”
…and work within the system instead of marginalizing themselves outside it. For Spencer’s website Radix Journal, DeAnna wrote in 2015 urging support for Trump, even though some in the movement were wary of conventional politics.
And someone warned back in 2016 that Trump was a fraud, a vulgar ignorant buffoon, and a Negrophilic race cuck. Any guesses as to who that sickle-celled mentally ill freakish person is?
“DeAnna’s email with Thiel was prompted by Brendan Kissam, a former Tea Party activist from Philadelphia.
Brendan from Philadelphia. Hmmmm. Let’s see:
Kissam met Thiel in 2010 when he volunteered to help organize a fundraiser at Thiel’s New York City apartment for the gay Republican group GOProud. According to a source who had spoken with Kissam, the activist and Thiel kept in touch after the fundraiser; in January 2011, a user identifying themselves as “Brendan Kissam” commented on a critical post about Thiel on LGBTQ website Queerty…
Hmmm. I have some ideas that I’m, let us say, flirting with, but I’d like to ask some questions to a particular individual who reads EGI Notes.
“It’s amazing,” Spencer said on the night of a “Gays for Trump” party thrown near the Quicken Loans Arena the night before Thiel spoke. “We’ve taken over the right.”
And drove it right into the ditch.
Those weeks of political victory for Thiel coincided with a public reckoning for the alt-right, which had sought to portray itself as a gentler, more mainstream-friendly iteration of white nationalism. Richard Spencer was caught in November shouting “Heil Trump” while others performed Nazi salutes at an event hosted by Spencer’s think tank. The incident caused a bitter row in alt-right circles and drew unwanted attention to the dark underbelly of the movement.
I see now in retrospect why some Alt Righters were so upset about Heilgate and were so quick to denounce Spencer. They saw all their dreams of big money evaporating like dew on a warm summer morning.
Spencer’s banishment and Thiel’s presence indicated a new mainstream taking shape on the right. While the more radical elements of the movement became marginalized, the DeploraBall crowd was still able to attract a high profile Trump donor like Thiel.
End result – failure.
Thiel also started a family. After marrying longtime boyfriend Matt Danzeisen in an elaborate ceremony in Austria in 2017, the two had a baby daughter, according to those close to the couple.
They “had a baby daughter?” Had? Did I miss an update in reproductive biology somewhere along the line?
In an email from this April viewed by BuzzFeed News..
Security marches on.
…Greg Johnson, the publisher of white nationalist website Counter-Currents and author of The White Nationalist Manifesto, was still fuming over the “Heilgate” incident and blamed Richard Spencer and others for making the movement too toxic for big donors like Thiel.
I thought all you guys are “winning?”
Johnson, who said he never met Thiel, didn’t deny the email’s accuracy to BuzzFeed News…
Well, then, apparently someone did respond to Buzzfeed it seems. What happened to not “being in bed with the press?” Was an opportunity to knock Spencer too good to pass up?
Spencer and his think tank National Policy Institute were “being eyed for larger donations, but he blew it. A lot was possible in 2016, before Hailgate,” Johnson wrote to other alt-right leaders.
“I don’t think Peter Thiel is going to become our George Soros after all this,” Johnson continued. “There is simply no calculating the setbacks caused by these kooky and treasonous people.
OK. I thought you are all “winning?” Are you actually saying that inept “movement” “leaders” caused “setbacks” of a magnitude that “there is simply no calculating?” Are you sure that’s not “sophistry?” Don’t be “paranoid” now!
Basically, the Sallis narrative that the failed “movement” and its pitifully inept “leaders” squandered the massive opportunity of Trump and “right-wing populism” is confirmed not only by the article itself but also by Johnson’s quoted statement within.
Of course, it is possible Johnson denies communicating to Buzzfeed and making these statements. Can we have clarification about that one way or the other?
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