The other day, someone sent me an e-mail in which they asked, “How long have you been a shitlord?” I had to laugh as I have not heard the term for a while. Just in case, I looked it up to make sure it had not morphed into something other than what I remembered. I’m assuming my correspondent was being complimentary. The term has gone through an own-the-insult transition where fringe weirdos use it to mock social justice warriors.

I’ve never really considered myself a provocateur, but I have no qualms about unloading on someone on-line. I got started on the interwebs in the days of Hayes modems and dial-up bulletin boards. In the olden thymes, the internet was much nastier and aggressive. Strategic use of personal attacks was a common way to unhorse someone in a debate. It’s why the Hitler card was so popular. No one likes being compared to Hitler. As a result, I can post some horrible things on occasion in comment sections.

Of course, terms like shitlord are following the same road as alt-right. The Overton Window has swung so far to the left that the space to the right is something close to a majority. Public debate is so narrowly confined that vast stores of human knowledge, as well as most of observable reality, have been deemed heretical. What some are calling alt-right is what we used to call normal. Noticing stuff now makes you a shit-poster.

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend the alt-right is a thing that has definable contours and limits, with a set of unifying concepts holding all the parts inside. As a proud member of the alt-right, you want to be a shitlord. Offending people has some value, but in order to win converts, you have be something more than offensive. That’s the thing to keep in mind. Simply being a dick just makes you a dick. What freaks out the squares is someone that is both offensive and convincing.

The big thing the fringe-right has going for it is humor. Red pill types are smart and take pleasure in making sport of the people running the media. The fringe-right is probably making progress mostly because some of the prominent agitators on-line are hilarious. Watching a guy like John Rivers troll progs on twitter is about as much fun as you can have on twitter. Conservative Pundit has turned mocking Buckley Conservatives into an art form. Donald Trump is on the road to the White House because his zingers make people laugh.

Another bit of advice is to never complain and never explain. Vox Day, for example, is correct that “white genocide” is a non-starter. Fair or not, the narrative of white supremacy is etched into the DNA of modern Americans. Complaining about how the dusky folk are being mean to the honkies is always going to sound like whining and nobody respects a whiner. Mass movements win converts when they are cocky and confident and no one sounds cocky when they are pissing and moaning about the unfairness of it all.

The other half of this is never explain. There are more than a few crazy people hanging around the fringe. That’s always the way. The defenders of the status quo will seek out these people and try to make them the face of the movement in order to discredit you. The #nevertrump loons love this gag. The other day, one of them tried hard to get me to agree that some Trump voters are anti-Semites. I called the guy a bigot for claiming all Jews stick together. I was not going to waste time explaining Ricky Vaughn to anyone.

That’s the other thing. Always be on attack. In a culture war, there are two modes, offense and defense. That’s why the Left is always pushing into increasingly bizarre causes. They have to be on offense. Otherwise, they have to go on defense. If you take the red pill and decide to go shitlord, attack, attack, attack. David Horowitz is a veteran at this and he just dropped an anvil on Bill Kristol’s head. He is doing to Kristol what Kristol did to Buchanan. That’s how you go on offense.

Horowitz is a good guy to read as he spent a lot of time in radical politics so he knows how to play hardball. What he understands and what comes through in his column, is there can be no enemies to your Right. The Left perfected this strategy. They never spent a second defending or explaining the extremists on their Left. Instead they focused attention on their enemy, forcing him to complain and explain. The radicals these days are on the Right and the same tactics apply. No enemies to the Right.