Yet another entry in the currently popular genre of “unethical right-wing scumbag advises the left to use completely ineffective tactics”.
Y’all know that these folks are dishonest slime. Why are you assuming that they’re being honest now?
10 Likes
Yeah, that’s about it. This guy’s a leach riding the backs of trolls and we were just tricked into hearing the sales pitch for his book.
7 Likes
I don’t know if it’d hold up in a court, but I honestly feel like he incites violence. If not, he steps right up to that line and does a sassy dance.
Going off the top of my head and not looking it up at all, I think one of his columns talked about how a fellow incendiary speaker was told they would have to pay for their own security, and Milo cited a law in which found that it was unconstitutional for a government or state-run institution to require a speaker to pay for their own security. The case he cited was a case involving the KKK.
The guy’s an asshole, surely he’s done something worthy of deportation.
2 Likes
Am I to believe that Ryan Holiday is not still at it? Because this advice sure sounds a lot he’s trying to hurt the cause he’s giving advice to.
The problem he monetized is that society is full of disaffected young people who are looking for a purpose and not finding any. So some charismatic person comes along and tells them they can do something important. That person could be selling them on internet trolling, terrorism, abortion protesting, or building housing for Habitat for Humanity. The cause is irrelevant.
So if you want to beat these awful trolls, build a better society where fewer young people feel like their lives have no purpose and no hope. Fewer people will then buy into this shit, because they’ll be too busy doing something actually worthwhile.
In the mean time, don’t let some asshole tell you to silence yourself because expressing yourself is bad strategy. Ryan Holiday is not your communications director. None of these idiots know what they are doing. If a hatemonger speaking in your neighbourhood makes you angry, go protest it. Be loud. Spend less time thinking about their strategy and more time thinking about yourself and what you want and how you feel. Things have always gotten better (in horrible fits and starts) because people acted the way they believed was the best way to act, not because yet another white man showed up and told everyone what to do.
No matter how much they want it to be, this isn’t all about them.
33 Likes
18 Likes
I think Milo would agree with this approach. In fact, that is pretty much what happens at each of his speaking engagements. The result: Free publicity and a $250k advance on a book deal.
1 Like
Laurie Penny said as much when explaining why she wouldn’t debate him even though he has wanted to for a while. She said (I’m paraphrasing here) that she would lose because she actually has beliefs, whereas he is a trolley and would say anything. There is no way she could win.
9 Likes
Identify your audience.
Your audience isn’t Milo and his ilk. They either know what they are and don’t care or are so deep into what they are that no argument will reach them. The point isn’t to convince him he’s wrong.
The point is to show the hundreds of would-be whiny alt-right dipshits in the audience that he’s not the vanguard of some cool taboo, he’s just dick. Showing up and making good points is an effective way to do that. Shutting him down isn’t an effective way to do that.
War On Drugs logic.
2 Likes
This bit I don’t.
The point is to show the millions of non-fascists that the fascists are not the majority, and that the rest of us aren’t just going to stand by while it happens again.
Less focus on “how do I demoralise the enemy?” and more on “how do I support my allies?”.
War on Drugs “logic” doesn’t work and never has.
11 Likes
I probably wasn’t clear: the logic of the War on Drugs is that if we suppress drugs, they’ll magically go away. This doesn’t work. The same principle applies to hate speech and the like - if we suppress it, it won’t magically go away. If all you want to do is silence the alt-right, you’re following failed War On Drugs logic. Permit it, regulate it, and make sure that money goes to a positive place, and you’re well on the way to reducing the appeal.
With the usual caveat that I’m a straight cisgender white guy who makes more than 50k per year and lives in a major metropolitan area, so it’s not really my place to tell actual minoritized populations how to react to someone literally calling for their dehumanization. You do what feels right to you. But if you’re in a place to strategize about how to fight these pathetic losers, silencing them isn’t a great strategy (though sometimes necessary).
But yeah, I wholeheartedly support your idea. 
10 Likes
To me, the most effective retorts against the alt-right were when Trevor Noah had Tomi Lahren on his show and when Elle Reeve profiled Richard Spencer for Vice.
I highlighted the big problem with this opinion. To a moral person having someone well-respected like, for example, Edward R Murrow letting these folks hang themselves works. Moral people can recognize the banality of evil when it’s laid bare and be repulsed by it.
We are not talking about moral people. They do not want listen to well made arguments. They want listen to the person on stage saying the asshole things they feel they can’t. They have no interest in anything a respectful disagreement brings. They want to watch their stand-in insult their perceived enemy for an hour. They want the validation that would come with their enemy treating their views as something to address. The simple fact that one of them got on the Daily Show was a win for that crowd. Simply showing up to debate Milo The Garbagepile is a win. He has been validated.
As I’ve pointed out many times in these threads: These people are a no-win scenario. Denying them is a win in their minds. Fighting them is a win in their minds. Your only options are to be aggressive when shutting them down and possibly be seen as the bad guy, or clean up after they attack you and yours.
7 Likes
Re: war on drugs strategies, “let’s try to convince people that drug users are pathetic losers” was a significant factor in the Reagan era.
Remember these?
As to how effective that was…well, I think I still have my “only users lose drugs” t-shirt somewhere…
8 Likes
He’s a self-hating homosexual. He’ll never get over that.
2 Likes
But… but… We don’t want him back! He’s on a watchlist for radicalisation here!
1 Like
I’ve been told (although it’s not something I’m an expert on by any means) that the War on Drugs began as an effort to discredit Billie Holiday and her contemporaries on the music scene. By making drugs repellent in the public eye, they would also make those who used them repellent - and after Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday and her fellow drug-using jazzmen accrued a large following and was seen by the authorities as a potential focal point for black activism and possible rebellion.
Does anyone know how solid that theory is?
That’s a disputed quote, but it’s in character for Anslinger.
4 Likes
I’m sure if everyone just found a know-it-all white guy and did whatever he said then hate speech would just vanish into the ether. Anyone who tells you there is one right way to deal with problems is being stupid. There are tons of ways to deal with problems, absolutely none will work every time. We all know that. Having everyone trust themselves is going to consistently produce better results than picking a soothsayer and doing whatever he says because he got lucky in the past.
If real expertise existed in a relevant field, I’d say bring that to bear. There is none here.
5 Likes
Yeah, this article and this quote in particular…
I have never understood this game. That’s why I’ve always refused to debate Milo in public. Not because I’m frightened I’ll lose, but because I know I’ll lose, because I care and he doesn’t—and that means he’s already won. Help and forgive me, but I actually believe human beings can be better than this.
10 Likes
I had to look up the tomi lahren interview, it’s…interesting. Sure, she’s a hateful, deluded, privileged asshole but fair play to them for having her on there. I do believe in engagement for the most part, unless you’re alex jones - that guy should be sealed in a concrete box and dumped in the ocean.
Oh and if anyone has a link to the extended interview it would be appreciated. It’s on the comedy central site but geo-locked.
1 Like
