Der Optics War

The blind leading the blind.

See this.

I never took a side in the Optics War.

That war was a battle of wits between unarmed opponents.

I’ve been around this particular political mulberry bush enough times that I don’t give much attention to the hot new “dissident” trends…

Unlike Johnson, Taylor, MacDonald, et al.

…because I’m aware of how quickly every last one of them crashes and burns. 

And why is that?  Failed “leadership,” perhaps?

So the only opinions I publicly expressed while this war was raging were that in a modern technocratic dystopia, traditionalism is bound to lose…

Tell that to Greggy, Jimmy. You can find him hiding, snug in his hobbit hole, reading Savitri Devi.

By the way, I don’t think it qualifies as a “war” when it’s “fought” entirely online and not in the streets…

Tough man Jim Goad.

More on point: Who exactly managed this “war” that was only successful in that it took everyone’s attention away from focusing on the common enemy? I suspect it was someone with a lot of power—either in the government, the private sector, or some collusion between the two.

As far as who pulled the strings behind the curtains of this entirely unnecessary and wholly divisive war, I strongly suspect it was someone who was hostile toward both sides. Maybe it involved agents in the FBI and the CIA. Perchance it involved wealthy Republican operatives who didn’t like the taint of bad PR from what used to be known as the Alt Right. Maybe it involved all of the aforementioned.

A conspiracy!  All a conspiracy!  Jews!  Feds!  Jewish Feds!  But you just wait and see what Goad writes below about people who talk about "Feds."

But I highly doubt it was some organic uprising of the sensible and righteous hall monitors of the “Dissident Right.” 

Err…wasn’t your Grand Poobah Johnson one of the leading "hall monitors" of this "war?"

But even though I didn’t take a side, when it comes to which side I found much more annoying, it was the “good optics” people. It wasn’t even close. Most of them came off like a bunch of pampered, snarky brats. 

Greg Johnson?

Whether or not they were encouraged to do so by murky, unnamed forces, the good-optics crowd seemed to have instigated the infighting and done almost all of the attacking, and seemed to rejoice whenever one of their designated foes…

Designated foes like Richard Spencer?

…was destroyed or jailed. It was sickening to behold.

Indeed.

I sense that most of the “wignats” were taken unawares and mostly wondered what the fuck was going on. After all, they were being attacked by people who were openly Sieg-Heiling and focusing 100% on white identity only months prior.

How many tributes to Adolf Hitler have we seen at Counter-Currents?

It mostly seemed like a one-way war. Most of the accused “wignats” seemed to be thinking, “What the hell is this all about, and why has it happened all of a sudden? We were best friends only a year ago!” I feel the entire “anti-wignat purge” was ill-advised. If things get hairy, you’re going to need those people. Many of them may be dumb, but I sense a lot of them are more willing to shed blood—that of others and their own—than many of the trust-fund, frat-bro “optics” crowd who look down on the wignats with the identical disdain that Leftist snobs fling at them.

The problem here is that there is a difference between “wignats” (with scare quotes) and actual wignats whose hearty he-man activism was limited to chugging gallons of milk, shirtless.

I find it difficult not to see the “Optics War” as an intraracial class war among whites, with all the snooty and protected rich boys making fun of “trailer trash wignats.” 

Johnson mocking Heimbach?

If the shit really goes down—and I don’t know anyone who thinks it won’t…

The collapse is coming!  In five years!

One thing the modern Left doesn’t tend to do is disavow anyone who seems to be on their side politically, no matter how nutty or violent they are. 

Which is why Travis LeBlanc (who says he "fought in the Optics War") endlessly writes articles on precisely that.  

The snobbier—and, in many ways, softer—elements of the “Dissident Right” have consistently displayed as much open disdain for the trailer-dwelling “wignats” as the Left does, if not more. So thanks for volunteering to do the Left’s dirty work for them, fellas.

Please explain why that does not apply to Johnson.

I may be getting my chronology wrong here, but it seems as if the Optics War ignited shortly after Charlottesville. Of course, “Unite the Right” was the most ironically-named event in political history. Rather than achieving its stated goal, it pulverized the Right into subatomic particles. But when factions of the very same people who’d sympathetically attended Charlottesville began blaming other factions of those who’d sympathetically attended, I was baffled. I remain mystified that people could blame anyone but the press, Antifa, and the police for what happened that day.

Ask Greggy.

After Charlottesville, things quickly devolved into a pissing contest centered on the narcissism of small differences. Who gives a fuck if some fool is stomping around in a Stahlhelm if he agrees with you on 99% of the things that matter?

Maybe because he’s a moronic idiot that is completely delegitimizing racial activism?  Maybe because people who actually did turn out to be “Feds” tend to be enriched in the Stahlhelm  fraction?

Suddenly, everyone began accusing everyone else of being federal agents...my instincts tell me that the first sign someone is a fed is that they’re always accusing others of being feds. 

OK. Please consider what Goad wrote above – “As far as who pulled the strings behind the curtains of this entirely unnecessary and wholly divisive war, I strongly suspect it was someone who was hostile toward both sides. Maybe it involved agents in the FBI and the CIA.”  And didn’t James O’Meara once accuse Spencer of being CIA-connected?

Just drop it, guys. It creates an insane climate of paranoia and mistrust. Most importantly, it does the enemy’s work for them. They don’t even have to get their hands dirty.

Yes, Jim and James, stop accusing people of being Feds. Seriously though – is Goad the most self-unware person in the “movement?”

As far as the aftermath goes, January 6 was incalculably worse than Charlottesville. Now the same people who seemed to think “good optics” would prevent them from social ostracism and even jail are learning the hard way that it didn’t. A lot of the “good optics” people were directly involved in the January 6 fiasco, which will prove to be a billion times more disastrous for “the cause” than anything that happened in Charlottesville.

Sure, after all, some guy running through the Capitol Building dressed like a bison is the epitome of good optics.

And now both sides are destroyed. Was it worth it, guys?

Well, Greg Johnson, was it worth it?

I don’t have a clue about how to build a sustainable coalition…

Well, I suppose he does have some self-awareness.

…but I believe I have a good sense for what’s unnecessarily divisive. 

You mean your constant sniping at Italians?  Or Johnson feuding with everyone and calling me a “paranoid piece of crap” suffering from “insanity?”

I’m not a “movement” guy. 

You could have fooled me.

Trying to appeal to “normies” will fail. Circumstances will drive “normies” this way. Until then, quit the petty bickering, you schoolgirls. 

Put away that pink purse, Greg.  No more handbags at dawn.