What is Alt-ZOG?
Alt-ZOG represents the post-Trump, post-censorship, online (and increasingly offline) Right-wing consensus-making media machine. The tidal wave of censorship which disrupted the radical ethnocentric and nationalist communities on Twitter and YouTube in 2018 created a vacuum which was quickly filled by what I and others (namely Joel Davis, who in fact coined the phrase) have taken to calling Alt-ZOG. Akin to a multi-level marketing operation, the most startling aspect of Alt-ZOG's influence is the zealotry espoused by its captured audience; young men hypnotized by mimesis (and thus believing themselves to be engaged in an authentic power process), launder bastardizations of Alt-ZOG's already bastard material. The exuberant piss and vinegar displayed by Alt-ZOG's youthful audience has yielded an outsized credibility far outstripping the individual labors its own actors have managed to achieve – especially in the twilight of its present incarnation. (Remarkably, the fact of this success works to shield individual actors within Alt-ZOG from critique, thus further delaying the explicitized announcement of its passing.)
First and foremost, the purpose of Alt-ZOG is to obstruct, confuse, and exploit the racial consciousness of White Americans (and White Westerners more broadly). A close second to this aim is the diligent and willful privileging of Jewish (specifically Zionist) chauvinism within Right-wing circles. It may be argued that this order is reversed, or that the two are in fact a synergetic one, but it cannot be argued that such things are not occurring, nor that they occur in a "spontaneous” or “organic” fashion.
Because Alt-ZOG is a movement predicated on cynicism it is inherently and implicitly (as well as being consciously self-understood as such) elitist. But it is also reactionary, and so its cynicism is of cynicism as practiced by ZOG proper. Enlightenment doubt toppled the Church, then the Nation-State, eventually suspending folkishness itself (facilitated steadily over time with the aid of a revolutionary and mercantile Semitic power). Alt-ZOG is not in opposition to this fact, after all it agrees with the axiomatic ideals of a doubting global Enlightenment (e.g., reductionism, social Darwinism, instrumentalism, to name a few). What motivates Alt-ZOG is resentment over being relegated to the proverbial dustbin of history.
Progressivism of the 19th and early-to-mid 20th century was decidedly of the “strong man” variety: square-jawed, erect, and well-armed. 21st century progressivism though, in the words of Alt-ZOG, is “of the longhouse”. (To my eye, “the longhouse” is a euphemistic way of describing the alleged tyrannical gynocentrism of contemporary global society. From our view, though, this characterization is inaccurate but not meritless. “The longhouse”, for convenience’s sake we will continue to use the term, represents the familiar and hegemonic techniques of domination administered – and in some cases refined – by a now inclusive non-chauvinism (an inversion in staffing and ideology of the previous administration). We may argue whether the material facts of the present dispensation exactly align with its self-presentation, but even if this discontinuity were merely superficial that would only make Alt-ZOG's resentment more pathetic. We do not doubt the sudden preponderance of foreign voices and alien wills in contemporary governance, however. The change in temperament (chauvinist exclusivity to tolerant inclusivity) is synonymous with the movement from self-assured challenger to battle-fatigued champion.
Which, of course, is not to say that we find this development any more satisfying, either. For Alt-ZOG, however, this about-face was taken as a personal affront – a blow to the ego of those who were to comprise it. After all, the psychology of a certain type of chauvinist draws its ego strength through primary identification with the social-political organism he or she is embedded within. We should find this rather obvious fact as reasonable and resist the attempt to overcomplicate it with analysis. For Zio-Atlanticism, we look to the folk stock responsible for the alliance, hopefully with a sympathy for the alienation all first children of imperialism experience upon realizing that they have been stepped over. As such, Alt-ZOG is the joining of two familiar, well-acquainted interests: Gentile nihilism and Jewish chauvinism. The non-Jewish element, as much as can be surmised from the outside, is comprised of groups who we might consider Right-wing analogues to Ed Dutton’s theory of ‘the spiteful mutant’. (I will say at the outset that a familiarity with Alt-ZOG's online conduct is necessary if one seeks to authenticate the observations presented henceforth.) Either of mixed or otherwise questionable ethnicity and possessing clinically significant levels of narcissism or extreme sexual depravity (often both), the more racially homogeneous elements of Alt-ZOG should be understood as subservient to and dependent upon the status quo. It is the absence of a positive moral constitution (at times pseudo-Christian, while at others pseudo-pagan) which makes explicit the Gentile aspect of this coalition, while the Jewish element is governed by a stereotypical and non-descript ethnonarcissism.
This narcissistic ethnocentrism is the beating heart of Zionist morality and assists us in distinguishing Alt-ZOG's Semitic actors from its Gentile ones. What outwardly presents as a bottom-of-the-barrel nihilism – a directionless and endless vitriol for all things – is in simple fact mere self-assured bigotry. That it appeared to be at-all-times directed evenly was little more than an illusion made possible by their intentionally (and artfully) applied self-crypsis. Hidden in this self-assurance, however, is a kernel of self-betrayal. Antagonization of the Other, at least for the chauvinist Semite (particularly if he or she is of American or otherwise European extraction) is a self-preserving cope; crass, vulgar antagonisms mask one’s own feeling of displacement, but more significantly, preoccupies one with a mission other than the one he or she knows to be their true mission: reconciliation with his or hers own folk. Chauvinist Semites, like their Left-wing brothers and sisters, fear an eventual annihilation at the hands of the Other. When in confidence, chauvinists will confess their (very accurate) belief in the destructiveness wrought by Left-wing Semitism but will, for reasons of cowardice, restrain themselves from staging an intervention. Instead, they turn to Gentile society for a lifelong dose of narcissistic supply. Such is the dual nature of Alt-ZOG.
How does Alt-ZOG operate?
It is important to understand that because Alt-ZOG is a parasitical and hostile part of the online Right-wing ecology, their stated aims and justifications are often Machiavellian in nature. As such, core axioms do not serve their stated (or apparent) function. Take the issue of anonymity, for example. Before anonymity became a political necessity, it was simply a luxury afforded by the medium. For many, the internet offered a first serious opportunity to experience a disembodied and noncorporeal identity, unrestrained by the conventions of normative, materially mediated social reality. The hyperworld liberated psyche from its physical station, allowing for a free-floating and unsignified pseudo-social performance of the self. As the hyperworld was brought to heel, however, centralized by State and Corporate interests (thus closing the window on anonymity, possibly forever?), anonymity became a form of self-defense. What began as a free play of consciousness quickly became a mode of necessity and self-preservation.
But self-defense against what? Or, whom? Well, for the average person engaged in wrong-think, anonymity became a defense against those who would seek to punish them for speaking their minds. Or, even more sinister, for simply and naively accessing legal and widely spread information. Similarly, there are those who choose anonymity because of the intense persecution of illiberal thought, although their motives for participating in such a discursive space are decidedly less noble. This subset of wrong thinkers is motivated by the lure of the taboo and so their anonymity is a less principled, though no less self-preservatory, one. In the case of Alt-ZOG, anonymity is a mystifying fog which disguises and hides away the individual’s authentic self from the audience they seek to exploit. And why would a person do this? Well, they might, if their motives (once exposed) put them at odds with the audience they have successfully hoodwinked. Exposure of motive would likely lead to the exposure of their authentic self, which would also cast further doubt on the desirability (neigh, the morality) of their stated aims.
So, the double-threat of inner and outer tyranny wrought upon the hyperworld (a fact which challenges all participants), becomes a trinity of annihilation for Alt-ZOG in that it must defend itself against a more fully and truly panoptical space (a result of its a priori crypsis). Affectively, Alt-ZOG (already operating under the reign of cynical reason) is directed by a double instance of cynicism – not merely a cynicism of currently-existing cynical power, as we have already suggested – but perhaps more appropriately a meta-cynicism. Blended, knotted layers of disaffection (the kind observed by central figures within Alt-ZOG) can only produce twisted and incoherent performances of irony, quarter-truths, and resentful half-lies.
The ‘Alt’ in ‘Alt-ZOG’ should not be understood as offering an alternative to the Zio-Atlantic program, but as an operational estrangement from within ‘ZOG’ proper. Disaffected, estranged, and thus only temperamentally distinct from ZOG (while not, in fact, politically distinct), what Alt-ZOG offers is not an alternative to status quo politics, but an alternative path for the enjoyment of status quo politics. Jouissance, not justice. This fact goes over the head of the crowd, which as has been demonstrated in the works of Canetti, Le Bon, among others, is not a cunning or analytical organism, but an affective and somatic one. The feeling of difference and the imago of victory, by and large, are all that is needed to secure the mob’s favor. Fortunately for us they are not sufficient, however, to maintain it.
Because Alt-ZOG's anonymity is a predatory one, its defense of anonymity (in this instance, really an assault on bravery) is decidedly sinister in nature and therefore worthy of interrogating. We see Alt-ZOG's cynicism at work when its lieutenants preemptively critique “facefags” and “facelords”. Leaning on the average person’s natural skepticism toward the perspicuousness of celebrity, Alt-ZOG elevates anonymity from mere cynical self-preservation to that of a transcendent Good. The anonymous poster is, by virtue of his selfless and ego-less condition, necessarily closer to truth and virtue (or so Alt-ZOG and its lieutenants would have you believe). Here we have a clear example of Alt-ZOG's chief strategy for domination of the radical hyperworld: the promulgation and proliferation of shibboleths. Cleavages within the radical population are manufactured, so that large masses of radical (and potential radicals) can be mobilized (or demoralized) in a subconscious and automatic manner. Suggestion, an indirect and passive-aggressive style of communication, only need occur but a handful of times (or less); the fusion between mimesis and social proof ensures that the suggestion not only sticks, but wildly self-replicates outside of its initial context.
What could otherwise have been resolved in a more organic and case-by-case manner (that is, the discernment of an individual actor’s or institution’s credibility or sincerity), thereby sustaining less tension and producing far fewer confrontations, has been rendered rigidly, schizotically, formal and systematic – foreclosing the emergence of a higher moral and conceptual consciousness within the radical subculture. We have Alt-ZOG to thank for this. Methodologies of the hyperreal shibboleth hinge on access to novel communication and information technologies (and the large biomasses which come with them), and so definitionally Alt-ZOG is inorganic and non-relational in its persuasion style. In short, it is fake and gay. Alt-ZOG, whether we speak of it operationally or conceptually, is dependent on anti-social strategies of self-reproduction. It is important that we qualify this claim of “anti-sociality", for it is not only undignified to resort to psychological arguments, but also in fact quite dangerous. The “anti-sociality” of Alt-ZOG is not of a clinical, psychopathological character (at least, not entirely), rather it is “anti-social” to us and our cause because it is really the ‘sociality’ of an alien people. Certain ‘habits’ or ‘modes’ of ‘sociality’ are compatible with one another, and as such may drive organic and eusocial ethnogeneses. The ‘New York Ethnicity’ of the Irish/Italian or German/Irish Catholic is one such example of a relational ethnogenesis. Other attempts to reorganize sociality, as in the case of Alt-ZOG, are predicated on the superpositioning of one ‘style of sociality’ over another. ‘Superpositioned’ ethnogeneses are reciprocal (albeit in a superficial, or gamed, way) and not relational, thus leading to the privileging of one constituent sociality over the remaining one(s). I will say more about this dichotomy, but first let us do so within the context of another technique expertly implemented by Alt-ZOG.
A further method of organization central to Alt-ZOG's flourishing is its artful use of parasociality. Understanding that an overwhelmingly young, masculine, and Right-wing audience is definitionally motivated by status-seeking and explicit hierarchism, fostering hyperreal “relations” with the audience draws the audience more deeply into Alt-ZOG and its simulacrum of radical politics. This, perhaps counter-intuitively, depoliticizes the audience, who are themselves now engaged in a crude and self-exploiting power process. The last words uttered by every young, idealistic man with revanchist desires: “BAP followed me back!”
Reciprocity (e.g., becoming mutuals, getting retweets, et cetera), specifically an instrumentalized reciprocity, is misunderstood by the Gentile mob to be a demonstration of authenticity when in fact it is a technique for cultivating parasociality (understood as the feeling of sociality absent the fact of it). Relational reciprocity, if we are to term it as such, is predicated on an explicit (and therefore ritualized) situatedness where one’s ‘habits of socialization’ are properly contextualized. Within relational reciprocity, the community shares a conceptual horizon that is both capable of being articulated while also benefiting from being understood non-verbally (and therefore unneeding of excessive discursiveness. It need not be “discovered” or “discussed”, though it may arise in conversation, as it is first inhabited). Relational reciprocity, and the community which produces it is ‘being’ sans cynicism. For these reasons, among others, we ought to encourage relational reciprocity specifically; in a deconstructed and heterogeneous society one must have consciousness of what he does (in a way that is unnecessary in singular, homogeneous societies) or else lose himself to shrouds of suspicion.
Instrumental reciprocity, rather, is predicated on self-objectification without care for consequence. It might be better to say, rather, that this self-objectification is done in service of a particular consequence without care for the litany of deleterious consequences which the instrumentalized reciprocal act at all times flirts with. Instrumental reciprocity hinges on a certain kind of motivated, impassioned, self-deluded (also self-eradicating) reason which is common to master-slave dynamics. The Gentile nihilist offers him or herself to the Jewish chauvinist in hopes of satiating a self-serving (simultaneously, a self-destroying) end. Really, this is the Hollywood casting couch resituated in another context. More can be said on this matter, however I intended this to be a loose and introductory examination, not a formal investigation and so, having stated the point concisely, let us now press forward.
Why is Alt-ZOG a problem for nationalism?
Opposition to Alt-ZOG (merely formalizing it as such), has proven controversial for several reasons. For one thing, many in the hyperworld perceive the celebrity status of Alt-ZOG figures to be beneficial to American nationalism, and furthermore, to the Western anti-”Globalist” sentiment more broadly. Rightly or wrongly, naïve Right-wingers understand Alt-ZOG to be enriching their lives. For another thing, the average person participating in the online nationalist ecology also finds Alt-ZOG entertaining. Given that the Right (invoked loosely, here) believes Alt-ZOG to be (1) operating in its political interest (2) operating in its personal interest, and (3) a source of pleasure, fulfillment, and/or entertainment, why organize opposition, or write polemically against it?
The simple answer (and an answer that Alt-ZOG enjoyers should find easily assimilable to their current political schemas), would be the following: the people are wrong. Wrong in a technical sense, as it is demonstrably the case that Alt-ZOG is pro-status quo, but also wrong in a more profound sense – as in it is wrong to allow oneself to take pleasure in his or her own annihilation. Alt-ZOG deploys ‘tactical nihilism’ (described in the last paragraph of the first section of this essay), just as Zionists do, which means that Alt-ZOG also reproduces the same social derangements as does its progenitor. The only difference is that Alt-ZOG operates within the hyperworld, within the spaces where genuinely radical and counter-cultural (that is, counter to the culture of Zionist supremacy) people try to make sense of their present experiences as colonized (yet soon-to-be liberated) individuals. They gain the trust of people who have good reasons for resisting the prevailing cultural trends (or at least for resenting them), and then mimetically nudges them back into participation (or provides novel ideological reasons for re-committing themselves to and re-doubling their efforts).
The agents of Alt-ZOG themselves are the fruit of an earlier process of superpositioned ethnogeneses, and owing to this fact, we should consider the process of SE (superpositioned ethnogenesis) to be a form of genetico-political warfare. Via SE, intertribal conflicts are reproductively encoded directly into the individual, where the downstream psychological effects of a dysgenic and colonized heterogeneous society will drive them toward politically extreme or otherwise antisocial behavior (to be understood in this instance as expressly pathological). The fact of Alt-ZOG's tactical nihilism, and of its genetic reproduction of tribal strife, makes it American nationalism’s foremost opponent. Furthermore, that Alt-ZOG appears to be strongest in the United States makes the U.S., at least in a political sense, an opponent of the various European nationalisms (particularly, though not exclusively, the European nationalisms within the Anglosphere).
‘Extremist centrism’
The combination of these terms is sure to elicit confusion and anger for two reasons: (1) the seeming contradiction between the two, and (2) the affirmative use of “extremism” (which, at present, is (over)used in a strictly pejorative sense). However, neither of these concerns should drive us to dis-embrace the concept of ‘extremist centrism’. Alt-ZOG is affectively extremist (and therefore extremist in its aesthetics and rhetoric) but politically centrist, insofar as it seeks to maintain the status quo. The status quo (for those not keeping score at home) here being a hyper-materialist (and, seemingly paradoxically, hyper-idealist) nihilism nurtured and maintained by an alien sovereignty. What this means for our radical political subculture is that the most titillating, hedonistic, and transgressive memes, polemics, and ideas are deployed in support of conventional, Zionist-friendly, boilerplate pseudo-Anglophilic Conservatism. It is critical for the successful deployment and maintenance of extremist centrism that this so-called “radical” political subculture outwardly suggests a historical and archetypal Americanism, so as to implant in the minds of its targets a ‘continuity’ of the American political spirit but also a ‘discontinuity’ (the essential tension present within and necessary for any radically creative movement) from the cringey and narcoleptic party politics of the day. Extremist centrism is a parody of radical politics, but more importantly it is an exercise in cynical politics (demonstrably, in fact, a master class in cynical reason).
To combine ‘extremism’ and ‘centrism’ is merely to describe the way in which, in the present hypermodern period, conventional and unimaginative regime politics must dig ever deeper into its reservoir of cynicism if it is to rally the online (and, ultimately offline) American Right toward its cause. JD Vance may be seen, as representative of ‘Alt-ZOG’ on the national stage, insofar as he is an otherwise conventional (read: non-charismatic) Zionist-Republican stalwart who “dresses up” his cynical power-seeking with “a serious and substantive record” (itself mostly performative and intended to persuade the electorate of his radicality). A chasm (though, a shrinking chasm to be certain) separates the lifeworld from the hyperworld, and so while JD Vance isn’t posting ‘TND’ on the timeline, he is nonetheless engaged in a similar brand of performatively masculine chauvinism intended to corral estranged American voters on the Right. Alt-ZOG, be it in the lifeworld or in the hyperworld, is a containment operation pure and simple.
In practice, ‘extremist centrism’ means challenging the norms and customs of the so-called “longhouse” in service of driving individuals more deeply into it. I will offer some demonstrations of this:
Inculcating sexual perversion through mimetic transfer, by equivocating between eusocial, reproductive sexuality and its degenerative expressions (e.g., fetishizing a certain kind of tomboy-ish femininity and then associating it with homosexuality, posting drawings of “underage girls” and then fetishizing them, etc)
Encoding genocidal ideation as an affect or temperament and then legitimating it is a political axiom through the proliferation of online shibboleths (e.g., “TND”)
Dishonestly characterizing or portraying Zionist supremacy as being “authentically” masculine, traditional, or Right-wing (e.g., Likud party or IDF worship, etc)
Though I have provided only a handful of examples, these represent the most prominent instances of extremist centrism as demonstrated by Alt-ZOG. Each example provides a superficial veneer of resistance, and of a form of stoic and creative ego revolt which appeals to disaffected and demoralized American men. “[White] women are terible, they’re ruining society. Either fornicate with Brown women or fantasize over digitally animated simulacrum of pre-pubescent women. Take child brides. Rape. You don’t really want children, that’s not masculine”. The result of this kind of messaging can only be a further hyperpolarization between the sexes (which is functionally no different from our current circumstance, they only differ in their framing of hypermodernity’s problems). Similarly, psychopathic rhetoric directed at one (or more) maligned out-groups cannot but lead to painful non-resolutions. Rhetorical support for genocide however serves two functions, the first of which is already known (the provision of a rallying point for the reinforcement of an in-group). More insidious, however, is the fact that Alt-ZOG constructs and encourages this kind of rhetoric to secure its inclusion in said in-group (White Americans). This is cynicism par excellence – manipulating the tensions between two people-groups to curry favor with the one most amenable to your own success and security. The solution to America’s intractable race crisis cannot be the inciting of mass violence, just as the solution to America’s questionable choice of foreign allies cannot be coercing her younger generations into the same one-sided love affair.
Countering Alt-ZOG (by outlining strategies for radical political organization within the hyperworld)
Were we to assume a nobler and more charitable interpretation of Right Zionism (or Rightist Jewish chauvinism in the U.S.), rather than taking the standard antisemitic position (e.g., “They’re all in it together”, etc.), then one path of resistance might be found in attacking the prideful egos of chauvinist Zionists and Jewish Rightists. Considering the heroic and martial attitude common among both the Radical Gentile Right and the chauvinistic Zionist Right, it would behoove us to not call attention to the obvious cowardice demonstrated by the Right-wing (and politically active) Jewish men and women who hock their wares to a Gentile audience, rather than staring down their ethnic cohorts on the Left.
It is my view that many identifiably Zionist actors within the Radical Right are themselves castaways (or otherwise aging relics of a bygone era) – the black sheep – of their respective clans, and that, perhaps, a profound insecurity lies at the heart of their political activism. If we could associate their political activism with cowardice, rather than duplicity, then we might strike a more definitive blow against the alien and extremist infiltrators within our midst. For a demoralization campaign to succeed, it must operate within the psychic structure of the target, not from inside our own. As Peter Sloterdijk has noted, cynical reason is the predominant mode of thinking in the Western world, cynical reason being the logic wielded by one who is “beyond Good and Evil”. This logic is also at the heart of the modern Israeli State, itself arguably the most cynical political organism in recent memory. While I find myself unprepared at this moment to elaborate further on the problem of cynical reason (that investigation is still presently underway), in psychopolitics one does not fight fire with fire. Success is won where you are strongest, and your opponent is weakest. Alt-ZOG, like its progenitor ZOG, lacks an affirmative morality. And just as is true of ZOG proper, Alt-ZOG is deeply insecure and self-conscious (negatively so).
In fact, Alt-ZOG is more insecure than its progenitor for the very reason we provided earlier in the discussion: they have already been deposed by their own tribe. ZOG’s insecurity comes from its own insatiable nature, an insatiability that continually imperils its hard-fought-for Statehood. ZOG achieved its dominance by dominating the world-image and now risks losing many of its gains. Alt-ZOG, on the other hand, could not tolerate the indignity of merely being the lord or duke of lesser fiefdoms, and instead finds itself in the humbling position of existing between tribes, between regimes, and seemingly with no clear future to work toward. And there is nothing worse for a chauvinist than to be humbled.
If it is true that the center-right – occupied by Alt-ZOG (and related entities) – is the most immediate opponent of American nationalism, and if the analysis sketched out here is accurate, then strategies for countering Alt-ZOG and the center-right should focus on their weaknesses. We must step deeply enough into their conceptual horizon to uncover the most effective means for emasculating and isolating them. Conventional attempts to upend the center-right applecart have relied on sensationalism, paramoralism, and other such strategies which have done little to dislodge chauvinist Zionism and its allies from the political throne. Should our demoralization and isolation campaigns prove effective, we must capitalize by swiftly following up with clear and concisely delivered rhetorical or propagandistic efforts which effectively communicate our affirmative morality. To win we must accomplish two things: Demoralization of our opponents and moralization of our tribe. We have already discussed the former, and to a lesser extent we have discussed the latter. To put a finer point on our second aim, the moralization of our tribe may be achieved by offering a better deal to our people than the deal offered by alien rivals. Technically speaking this ought to be the simpler part of the equation, for our alien rivals offer nothing to our people. Unfortunately, this has not proven to be the case thus far. We can change that (if we truly want it to change).
You've made an excellent case for anyone looking for a "winner" to never bother with BAPists nor NRX, &c.: these people are the castaways of the O.G. castaways, the tribe kicked out of, what is it by now, 113 countries? They are both cowardly and deceptive; that's a package deal, but deception is also a marker of low intelligence. This circles back to deception because the PR is that they are high in intelligence, and in this circle, we all know where to go to debunk that.
Lol, Costin is Jewish. Passage Press is also Jewish.