A Jaguar is quite comfortable at high speed, as long as the road is smooth and straight, but in the turns, it is a little twitchy, so you don’t have confidence in it. I’m not sure why the car rental place gave me a Jaguar, but if you’re going to the Hater’s Ball, there’s no reason not to go in style. That said, I did not find the car all that special. The interior is not much better than a high-option Toyota and the media center is baffling. The car also turns itself off when you stop at a light. This is to save energy, but it is very annoying.

The secret lair of American Renaissance is about an hour outside of Nashville, so it is a pleasant drive if you like thinking about the diversity of America. The hills of Tennessee are nothing like what you see along the along the coast and the people are just as different. I got off the highway and drove some of the back roads. Tennessee is a blend of the old south and Chechnya. You have the gentility and sophistication everyone associates with the South, but there is that crazy hill people element too….

Pulling into the park, I was confronted with a team of armed men. The authorities had set up a mobile command center at the entrance to the park and the place was swarming with park rangers in tactical gear. I saw at least one K-9 unit and everyone was questioned before they could enter the area where the conference center, villas and restaurant are located. To get inside, you had to submit to cavity search. The park police take things seriously this year, which means the lunatics are in trouble…

I caught up with the great J’Onquarious Williams at the reception. I introduced him to F. Roger Devlin. Both seemed flattered to be on the company of the other, which amused me greatly. AE’s graphs and charts have touched millions of eyes on social media and Devlin’s essay Sexual Utopia in Power pretty much started the whole man-o-sphere thing. The two of them have done more to influence people than all the e-celebs combined, yet both are oblivious to it. They just enjoy doing what they do…

There are a lot of new people here again. That’s always a good sign. It’s not cheap to attend and it is a hassle to get here. There’s also the risk factor. I would expect people to come once every few years, so it is a positive sign to see lots of new faces. That means there is increasing interest. The room is once again packed and there are lots of young people. Even better, there are more women this year, mostly spouses of attendees. That’s another sign that more and more people see this as important and worth their effort…

One person not here is Richard Spencer. Despite his absence, he is a topic of conversation. I’ve been querying people about their opinions of him. The general feeling is he probably needs to take a break and regroup. Even among the sorts of people who attend these things, the alt-right has lost a lot of its luster. There’s no disavowing or anything like that. It’s just that the missteps have not gone unnoticed. As I wrote the other day, people judge leaders by their results. The last year the results have been poor…

I had a long conversation with Greg Johnson and his crew. Some on the alt-right don’t like Greg, but that’s to be expected. He’s been involved with this stuff for a long time and that inevitably means turning off some people. It’s human nature. There’s no doubting his intelligence. He is a very smart and a very well-read guy. He’s also committed to this thing. He travels all over the world doing events and giving talks. Make no mistake. No one is getting rich warning European people of the looming demographic disaster.

What recommends Greg Johnson is the fact he does think about the mistakes that have been made of late, including his own errors. It’s easy to pluck the mote from the eye of others, but most of us struggle with the beam in our own. As J’Onquarious noted, I offered my unsolicited opinions. Many people would have told me to perform an unnatural act, but Greg was polite and engaged my arguments. Whether or not it will make any difference is unknown, but it speaks well of him that he was interested enough to listen…

Today is the long day. There are half a dozen speakers, including Nick Fuentes. I’m not all that interested in what children have to say about anything, but I am curious to see how the young people respond to him. Fuentes is one of those guys who was born old, but he is still a kid speaking mostly to kids. The future of this thing is not geezers like me, but young guys prepared for the world as it will be in the coming decades. The youth movement will need respectable faces to help educate a skeptical public..

More tomorrow…