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Mar 15, 17
Filed under: Analysis, Anti-fascist, US
Turning Point USA, the malformed brain child of neoliberal bootlicker Charlie Kirk, have publicly declared that the organization has no ties to the Alt-Right. This has been refuted more than once; including Kirk’s involvement with both Breitbart and the Trump campaign, he has also provided a platform for Reddit darlings like Milo Yiannopoulos on multiple college campuses. Now that Milo has lost his marketability, TPUSA has supplanted him with an equally repulsive understudy; Ivan Throne, of “Dark Triad” fame. He will be speaking at TPU’s regional conference in Denver.
Ivan is a psychopath; this means, generally speaking, psychologists and philosophers agree that he is incapable of being held morally responsible for the detrimental effects of his actions. He has explained it as being “emotionally deaf” — he doesn’t experience empathy. However, this makes him a uniquely valuable tool for the directors of TPUSA; Ivan’s cold, detached calculation can validate the worst behaviors of those who choose to suppress their empathy as part of a political ideology. And just as one person’s blindness doesn’t erase the existence of color to the sighted, Ivan’s inability to value the human consequences of his behavior doesn’t justify or neutralize the pain of the emboldened oppression it causes. Turning Point is to blame for knowingly contributing to that oppression.
https://twitter.com/polNewsNetwork1/status/841263646894354434
If TPUSA is not affiliated with the alt-right, and doesn’t support hate speech, they could have fooled us. Let’s tick off the boxes for Ivan:
Ivan has expressed concerns over his personal safety while visiting the Grand Hyatt, apparently convinced of an Antifa plot to physically attack him. Unsurprisingly, he had no such pearl-clutching reaction to violence when he was employing thinly-veiled death threats against the protesters at Milo’s CU Boulder visit. Ivan has no real anxieties about this matter; just like at CU Boulder, he’ll be nowhere near the Antifa frontline. He’ll be preening in safety behind the riot cops.
Throne gained his online reputation pushing the ideology of the “dark triad,” a mixture of narcissistic, sociopathic behaviors that Red Pill types believe are the ultimate secret to financial success, public recognition, and of course, sexual conquest. As part of this exaltation of psychopathic symptoms, he tries to typify the “warrior cult” persona that so many MRAs, Gaters, Freepers, and other “dark enlightenment” poseurs use as a substitute for a backbone and a personality. It is the cornerstone of toxic masculinity to equate physical conflict and psychological manipulation to legitimate male identity, while downplaying the value of sympathy and cooperation.
But Ivan takes it an extra step, proposing a laughable, Bushido-esque lifestyle:
“Gold and glory don’t care if you publicly bedded a stunning blonde and left her sticky and exhausted and sore in front of a crowd. Gold and glory are not about image or publicity or fashionable displays. Gold and glory are about death, power and the dark world.” ~ 3 Steps to Gladiator Power
“Your entire life is preparation for any fight for survival. Do not leave that survival to chance… There are no referees in your fight for survival… You must accept without outrage or indignation that another man plans to take your life and destroy your existence. There cannot be hope of pity or expectation of gentleness or wish for his forbearance. You must accept the dark world as it is.” ~ How to Fight Like a Psychopath
“As long as your adversary breathes he is capable of rising and ensuring your death. When killing, certainty is demanded of you in the pursuit of your own survival. Do not guess.”
This is the heart and soul of the buffoonish “dark triad” rubric. It’s a delusional view of one’s self as a masculine, warlike hero in a world of helpless thralls. It’s a storybook journey through a gritty movie universe of harsh amorality, where only the strong survive — a schoolboy’s daydream taken to a revolting conclusion. With this Social Darwinist, knockoff Patrick Bateman identity comes one of the foundational fascist tenets: the equating of compassion with weakness, and weakness with unworthiness of inclusion in the national identity. Umberto Eco categorized this as a fundamental column of the fascist power structure:
For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare… In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.”
And this delusion of conquest, of course, brings us right back to Trump’s popularity in the alt-right. He’s their “strong man” leader, despite being a paunchy septuagenarian. He “tells it like it is” and stands up to political correctness, by lying endlessly and shrinking from conflict immediately. He’s a successful, ruthless businessman who’s bankrupted four casinos and couldn’t follow through with his promise to remain totally self-funded. In short, he’s an overgrown child masking his insecurity through name calling and generic misogyny– a model student of the manosphere if ever there was one.
Like the rest of the alt-right, Ivan possesses an endless wellspring of hatred, condescension, and insecurity surrounding women. Unlike MRM and Red Pill devotees, he is usually careful to fine-tune the tone of his written pieces so as to maintain a smidgen of plausible deniability. But his writing quickly wears this veneer thin whenever he speaks on the subject of women and sex:
“The principle of hypergamy often drives, to the dissolution of the female, an unattractive carousel process of bedding male after male while in her attractive young adulthood and her sexual glow is at its prime. This does wonders for her self-esteem and sexual experience but detracts from her market worth and severely degrades the calculation of her wife value.” ~ 10 Ways to Calculate Her Wife Value
“Committed feminists are nearly universally unhappy, bitter and complaining whiners who refuse to accept the reality of the dark world and insist on subservient behavioral and intellectual conformity with their silly and obnoxious ideology.” ~ 10 Ways to Calculate Her Wife Value
“Bit by bit, the damaged and deranged woman will assuage her abandonment fears by insidiously infecting your life and your time with her control.” ~ 3 Red Flags of the Damaged Woman
For those not in the know, “hypergamy” is a term the MRM adopted to shame women for having “too much sex,” a statement which bases itself off of an arbitrary male threshold of tolerance for how sexually active a woman should be.
Notice the stale, telltale pattern of patriarchal thinking: women are to be valued based on their usefulness and acceptability in a man’s eyes, and held to a lower standard because of a presumed inferiority. This is the point of unification between Ivan and the rest of the alt-right, an agreement around male supremacy based on the misguided belief that males of the species are meant to be dominant, and that a “feminization” of modern men is bringing about the destruction of civilization. Nevermind that genuine human evolution improved our adaptability by moving away from this unnecessary gender dichotomy which is more pronounced in our less-evolved sister species.
The natural, intrinsic counterpart of male fanaticism is female repression; it’s as simple as that. To keep one elevated, the other must be devalued. This belief has been demonstrated by every significant figure in the alt-right, including Milo’s derogatory remarks towards women, trans identity, and feminism:
“Everyone knows that becoming a feminist makes a woman less marriageable, more crass and generally just unpleasant to be around. But does it also make them uglier?… This may explain why so many angry, lesbianic placard-wavers look like they’ve been hit by a bus.”
“Men on the other hand dominate high paying STEM majors like Electrical Engineering. Women are free to study engineering, and often make fine engineers. But why on earth would feminism feel the need to shoehorn women into studying a subject they don’t want to?”
“Feminism is like the Netherlands: it owes its existence to a network of dykes fighting the forces of nature.”
This rhetoric has caused real damage over time; Ivan’s own suspicion that every woman is, at heart, a conniving succubus is echoed in the manifesto of Elliot Rodger.
TPUSA is, unquestionably, taking part in a continuation of the behaviors exhibited during Gamergate and the surge of Reddit-based male supremacist movements during 2014. Before the alt-right gained legitimacy in mainstream politics, they were propped up by the hatemongering and abusive tactics deployed against critics of pop culture’s rampant disregard for the female, the non-cishet, and the non-white. This component of the alt-right was, and remains, a reactionary movement dedicated to preserving a dominant gender by intimidating the opposition, nothing more or less than a contemporary rebirth of the He-Man Woman Haters Club.
Turning Point will furnish as evidence of their gender-neutrality their Women’s Leadership event, and their numerous female members. This omits the fact that as adherents of Donald Trump, they support the agenda of an admitted sexual predator and open misogynist, irrespective of the gender of this or that supporter specifically — that’s to say nothing of their ties to Milo, or to Steve Bannon, who once said that leftist women only oppose female conservatives because they are “a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools.” Tokenism is not a satisfactory defense against such deafening inhumanity.
As part of his worship of Trump – to whom Ivan insipidly refers as the “God Emperor” – Throne is equal parts jingoist and capitalist, forming that rich soil of nationalistic chauvinism and neoliberalism from which fascism inevitably sprouts:
“$54 billion is expensive. It is far less expensive than no longer being the dominant military hyperpower in the new age.” ~ Responding to a question on 45’s budget adjustments
“The leftist bastions across the nation are reeling with shock and fear at the overwhelming victory of Trump at the polls on Tuesday. It is a phenomenal outcome, well predicted by those who face reality unblinded – and the source of savage opportunity for men of the West to both push forward the advance of civilization, and their own natural ferocity.” ~ Your Future Under the God Emperor
“In Trump’s popular rise to ultimate power we see the lessons of his ferocious talent and a secure future for an American nation faced with the fall of Western civilization into a pit of multicultural collapse.” ~ Donald Trump the Dark Triad Man
This nationalistic, ego-driven mentality is mirrored by TPUSA’s patriotic zealotry, heightening American society to an Olympian ideal of self-sufficiency, militaristic dominance, embodiment of justice, and entitlement based on superiority. But their claim that this country is “the best in the world” is not just a childish tautology, it’s also visibly untrue.
Remember, the Western culture that alt-right goons and Trump disciples fetishize is demonstrably NOT a culture of prosperity or valor. “Real America” is a place where the military budget can be increased obscenely at the expense of HUD and SNAP, where high infant mortality, poisoned water supplies, police state violence, childhood homelessness, and mass incarceration are routine. America supplies itself not through “self-sufficiency,” but by robbing weaker countries of resource and autonomy. It is a nation which allows a codified privilege of the white, heterosexual male to reign supreme. Those in power — just as in the days of race, gender, and property restrictions for voters — have access to a code of law which overwhelmingly benefits them, and thereby enables them to mold those very same laws to their personal gain. This is not the failing of the system, but its very function; to extract resource from the many, at whatever cost, for the benefit of the few. Donald Trump is the most openly corrupt politician in recent years, certainly, but that openness is his only truly unique trait. American presidents have variously been murderers, white supremacists, war criminals, and outright crooks.
WEAPONIZED IGNORANCE
What lies at the core of TPUSA, Ivan Throne’s fame, and the assorted organs of the alt-right, is a fundamental lack of awareness. It is from this aquifer of willful ignorance and arrogance that Western chauvinism is dredged:
Ivan, like Charlie, applauds nationalistic, hypermilitaristic tendencies throughout history, because he has never confronted their ill effects, and never will. It’s no wonder his orations are so emptily grandiose and hyperbolic; without recognizing (or acknowledging) oppression, a legitimate and useful analysis of America is impossible. The image of the “conquering empire” becomes a romantic ideal, rather than a daily-administered cudgel in the hands of a self-appointed aristocracy, with which the elite have extinguished countless lives in the name of preserving their own artificial superiority. But willfully ignoring or flippantly justifying these imperialistic trends is mentally pleasing, and allows a person to consider themselves part of a grand tradition of idealistic civilization — ironically, seeking validation through a conforming identity, the antithesis of the “lone wolf” ideal that Ivan and his fans drool over.
This destructive behavior exceeds by leagues and miles the singular voices of the alt-right. It informs the mentality of Steve Bannon, of ICE and DHS agents, of the NSA and the military and the police. The battle against this ongoing territorial occupation called “America” goes far beyond lone individuals.
THIS HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT JUST ONE MAN
Ivan Throne, like Milo, is a sloppily-painted mockery of an intellectual. His hollow writing combines the forced edginess of our cringe-inducing high school days with a knack for hocking commodified anti-PC pornography to Red Pill dopes. He’ll wave around his bestseller as proof of his genius, forgetting he shares that honor with the Twilight Saga, The Secret, 50 Shades, and the Da Vinci Code — all highly marketable, self-indulgent, pseudo-spiritual masturbatory aids for the paranoid, the immature, or the terminally affectatious.
Some of the white supremacist and Alt-Right accounts that Ivan follows on twitter
