If you’ve paid attention to politics on the internet as long as I have, you might have noticed a worrying and confusing trend: traditionally libertarian figures transitioning into alt-right supporters. I’ve followed the ‘classical liberal’ faction of the internet since about 2014, the year I started becoming interested in politics. I was watching Christopher Cantwell before he became known as the ‘crying Nazi’, when his chant was ‘taxation is theft’, not ‘Jews will not replace us’. I remember Stefan Molyneux when he was debating whether we should have a government, not whether government should be used to promote eugenics.

This fascinating transition from the libertarian right to the authoritarian right has been mirrored in just about every single alt-right figurehead. Think Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, and Tim Gionet (known as ‘Baked Alaska’). The latter used to identify as “a carefree, easygoing libertarian” who “firmly opposed the war on drugs, and championed the cause of Black Lives Matter”. But now, he’s being banned from Twitter for promoting white supremacy and ranting about how Jews control the media. The creator of the Right Stuff, a Neo-Nazi blog that hosts such unsavoury podcasts as the ‘Daily Shoah’ openly acknowledges this, saying “We were all libertarians back in the day. I mean, everybody knows this.” Jeffrey Tucker wrote “They’re doing to libertarianism what they did to Pepe the frog, or Taylor Swift — to co-opt it. They know that no normal American is going to rally around the Nazi flag, so they’re taking ours.” But what exactly makes these people so vulnerable to conversion to the alt-right?

“We were all libertarians back in the day. I mean, everybody knows this”

The History

To understand why libertarians are so susceptible to white supremacist ideas, we have to look at the history of it, specifically within the United States. The fact is that libertarianism has always been a refuge of racism and implicit support for authoritarianism, despite direct contradiction to their supposed ideology. Throughout history, the men who are considered the cornerstone of the right libertarian philosophy supported brutal dictators. Look at Mises’ support of Mussolini, or Hayek and Friedman’s backing of Pinochet. It is clear that the these people have always been willing to put aside ideology for what they see as an end that justifies the means, even in such morally abhorrent cases as supporting Apartheid in South Africa or the Confederacy under the pretence of ‘states rights’. This lingering white supremacy in the libertarian movement carried on beyond the mid twentieth century, into the ideologies of Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell. Rothbard himself wrote that “The proper strategy of libertarians and paleos is a strategy of ‘right-wing populism” Essentially, that means appealing to the racism held within the right of American society (not dissimilar to what we see in Donald Trump).

Richard Spencer introducing Ron Paul in 2007. Yes, that Richard Spencer.

We can see this again, with strands of white supremacy throughout Ron Paul’s two presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, perhaps the clearest place where internet libertarianism flourished. Paul was the favoured presidential candidate by libertarians, and if you spent a lot of time on websites such as Reddit in 2012, you almost certainly saw massive amounts of support for him. Of course, while not everyone who supported Ron Paul was a racist, he was surrounded by racists and they had a strong place in his campaign, including future alt-right leader Richard Spencer. But it wasn’t until the collapse of New Atheism that right libertarianism would reach the peak of its internet success.

New Atheism was the primary shelter for teenage white middle-class men around 2010 (and I’m ashamed to confess I was one of them). Reddit was originally one of the biggest places on the internet for New Atheism, with /r/Atheism being one of the biggest subreddits on the site. Over time, it transitioned from hating religion to hating ‘Social Justice Warriors’, supporting Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, and fighting for libertarian issues like legalisation of marijuana. Just as we can draw a direct line between Right Libertarianism and White Supremacy, we can do the same with New Atheism and the Libertarian movement. We just need to look to YouTube to see that ‘rational skeptics’, like TheAmazingAtheist or Sargon of Akkad, transitioned from New Atheism to Classical Liberalism to the Alt-Right (here’s an interesting inside perspective on that here). All of these communities carried over a similar audience, the previously mentioned white middle-class demographic, mainly on platforms such as YouTube or Reddit. Indeed, it could be argued that part of what made New Atheism so popular among this demographic was not only the counter-culture rebellion against traditional societal values, but strands of islamophobia. Obviously, both of these traits are core components of the alt-right. So, with the transition from New Atheism to right libertarianism, the alt-right had a clear target for conversion and recruitment.

“The YouTubers had to give their audience something else besides religion to fight because it became boring, and so what they chose was Social Justice Warriors and feminists”

The Similarities

As hinted at by its historical development, libertarianism is particularly appealing to white middle class men. It seems fairly obvious why; this group is perhaps the most privileged in our society, and sees little reason for a change in the societal order in place. Similarly, the alt-right and all levels of far-right politics hold exactly the same goal, though admittedly they aim to achieve them through different means. But when the advantages start to erode, that’s when they are forced to turn to more reactionary, authoritarian ideologies. Immigration is an ideal example for this, since under a libertarian ideology, immigration should not be restricted in any way. Borders are one of the major constructs of the state, and we shouldn’t be restricting the right of people to choose where they live. However, if you actually talk to libertarians, very often you’ll find that they are far more against immigration than their supposed ideology would suggest. The same rhetoric around the ‘undeserving poor’ is used both towards people on welfare, and immigrants who are apparently coming to live on welfare. This is also due to the idea that immigrants will vote for left-wing parties more (which they do), and then lead to a stronger welfare state. Time and time again, libertarians have shown to be willing to abandon what they would claim as their core principles to uphold the societal order, which places them at the top.

To understand this fully, I think it’s essential to separate the similarities between the alt-right and libertarianism into two categories; the emotional aspect and the ideological aspect. The emotional similarities between the two groups allows libertarians to become sympathetic to the alt-right, then the ideological aspect allows them to become fully integrated.

Emotional Similarities

The emotional similarities of these two groups can best be understood as the language and attitudes that they both share. To begin, both groups are primarily opposed to the same thing: Social justice. When watching a libertarian and a neo-fascist complain about feminism, it’s almost impossible to tell the two apart. It’s very rare to see a classical liberal attacking the alt-right or racists, instead feeling far more comfortable targeting the left. Both use the same language and buzzwords, with words like SJWs and western values constantly being tossed around in both spheres. This makes it incredibly easy for the alt-right to reach out to libertarians; they’re both already literally speaking the same language. Socialists control the media? Swap ‘Socialists’ out for ‘Cultural Marxists’ and you’re halfway to becoming the new Richard Spencer. Hillary Clinton was clearly the social justice candidate in 2016, and Trump was against it. If you’re somebody who bases their entire ideology around opposing social justice, you’re going to be drawn towards the candidate who describes Neo-Nazis as ‘very fine people’.

The rhetoric that libertarians consume acts as a lubricant for transitioning to the alt-right, especially around free speech. The concept of free speech is held in such high regard in libertarian circles, that when a leftist suggests that giving Nazis a chance to advocate for genocide isn’t a good idea, the libertarian is forced to defend the Nazi so as to stand up for their ideas. Obviously, the alt-right aims to limit free speech when they eventually come to power, but since they are yet to achieve power, they just don’t mention it. Instead, they absorb free speech as a rally cry, using it as a method for advocating their ideas. This links to the broader problem of the alt-right, that since they have yet to come to power, they’re able to hide some of their ideology that would be most disturbing to libertarians, such as anti-drug policies and mass surveillance. Instead, they’re concerned with free speech, immigration, and progressivism.