Throughout the book, I felt like the author was showing a certain amount of sympathy for the alt-right. It unironically did that thing of describing people like Richard Spencer as being the “dapper” face of fascism. Okay, I thought, maybe I’m just imagining things. It’s a good overview of what’s happened in the last few years and certainly gives a great insight into a lot of the nastier subcultures.
But then you reach the conclusion and realise – holy shit, my feeling was totally correct and this lady is fully sympathetic to people like Milo and Richard Spencer. Or maybe she’s so completely disappointed with the left, it just seems that way. But she talks about how the left is either incapable of arguing with Milo or chooses not to because they come from the “intellectually shut-down world of Tumblr”. But then in the next sentence, talks about David French criticizing Milo and being “attacked by … the alt-right attack dogs”. She talks about Stavvers and how “the embarrassing and toxic online politics represented by this version of the left, which has been so destructive and inhumane, has made the left a laughing stock for a whole new generation”, but (and I’m in serious danger of whataboutism here) doesn’t address how the similarly destructive and inhumane behaviour of the alt-right hasn’t made them a laughing stock?
Like I said, it’s a pretty good overview of where we’re at, culturally, and how we got here. I just completely disagree with her conclusions.