I got an e-mail from someone asking me questions about the alt-right. At first I thought it was a joke, but a little research revealed the person to be a reporter for a legitimate media site. Some guy from the Washington Post did a story on the hate think community the other day and he followed up with a primer for the good thinkers.  Hillary Clinton is planning to bravely take on the alt-right in a speech somewhere, assuming they can sober her up and keep her from toppling over. Now that the Cloud People have a label, they plan to demonize anyone that opposes them as members of the alt-right.

I’m not sure of the protocol on these things so I’ll leave the identity of my correspondent out of this, but the query had the feel of an e-mail blast hoping someone would respond. One question was “When did you join the Alt-Right?” It’s the sort of question asked by people who have spent their life accumulating credentials in order to advance in the bureaucracy. “Comrade, I joined Party after leaving University, where I got degree in ideology and policy.” Managerial class types just assume everything works like the exam system of the managerial class.

I don’t consider myself in the alt-right, but I suppose that depends upon how you define it. If memory serves, Richard Spencer coined the term Alternative Right and his thing is white identity and white nationalism. I have no interest in those things and I don’t write much about race. I’m a biological realist and I think most of what we are as humans is in our genes, but I think forming a white ethno-state is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The only thing dumber is the blank slate nonsense that comes from the managerial class through the mass media.

On the other hand, big foot journalists are now applying the label “alt-right” to anyone outside the government approved Left-Right orbit so maybe that does place guys like me in the club. John Derbyshire coined the term “Dissident Right” which is probably a better label. I don’t dream of a honky paradise. I just want one of the political parties to be slightly to the right of the Democrats of 1960. Half a century of cultural lunacy is enough. Let’s go back to what used to work for the bulk of the citizens.

None of that is important. What is important is the people in charge feel they need to do something about the growing hate-think community. Having Clinton waddle out in front of other humans is a high risk stunt, given her brain injuries, but having her take on the alt-right suggests the Cloud People are worried. As Hitler said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Maybe it was Gandhi who said it. I get the two mixed up all the time.

The reason the Cloud People are suddenly concerned about the hate thinkers is the numbers. In the 1980’s, Official Conservatism™ included people like Joe Sobran, Sam Francis, Peter Brimelow and Steve Sailer. The people outside the sphere of acceptable opinion were the sort of people who handed out literature on street corners extolling the virtues of the Albanian political system. The hard core racists and radicals were small in number and comfortably outside the tent so no one paid any attention to them.

Over the last thirty years or so, one group after another has been cast out of the increasingly narrow sphere of acceptable politics. Conservatism is basically low-tax liberalism now. It’s not just on the right either. Old school progressives like Bernie Sanders are now outside the realm of the acceptable on the Left. Cesar Chavez would be a hate thinker today, simply because he strongly opposed illegal immigration on economic grounds. The difference between the Left and Right today is over patronage and how often to bomb the muzzies.

The result of several decades of purges on the Right is that the “alt-right” is now bigger than the Official Right™ and it certainly is where the cool kids are hanging out on-line. The hate thinkers are also younger, on average, than the old farts in the mainstream media. One of the strange things about the alt-right is it is populated with young guys with everything to gain from a rebellion and old eccentrics with nothing to lose from a rebellion. The young guys are clever and funny, while the old guys are brilliant at noticing patterns in society and human behavior.

The safe bet is the increased attention to the hate thinkers will result in a holding of hands and chanting of lines from the liberal catechism. Howls of racism and antisemitism will echo through the halls of officialdom. We got a taste of this in the primary when guys like Jonah Goldberg tried to slime Trump as a closet Klansman simply because David Duke said nice things about him. Among the Cloud People, being called a racist is the worst thing imaginable, so it is their most powerful abracadabra word.

The trouble is the hate thinkers really don’t care and they seem to relish this sort of attention. The gag you often see is “When I was a conservative they called me a racist. When I was a libertarian they called me a racist. When I was a Tea Partier they called me a racist. Now that I’m alt-right I don’t care what they call me.” Often, the response to the charge of racism is mockery. It’s really hard to shout people down when they are laughing at your efforts. That and the old guys have been called these things so often they don’t pay any attention to it now.

Welcome to the Hater’s Ball Cloud People.