You’ve probably run across the term “mansplaining”. This is when men very patiently and condescendingly explain to us frail womenfolk what things really mean.

I’ve run into other varieties of this conceit. Goysplaining is the obnoxious way in which some goyim who fancy themselves experts on Judaism or Jewish history very patiently and condescendingly explain to us Jews what Judaism or Jewish history have to say about something. And of course there’s freisplaining, where frei (non-religious) Jews very patiently and condescendingly explain to those of us what Jewish law actually says.

(Goysplaining, btw, was coined by my partner, Havah.)

But now we have leftsplaining. Leftsplaining is where leftists very patiently and condescendingly explain to those of us who are nationalist or alt-right what those terms really mean.

A leftsplaining friend of mine just posted this on Facebook to explain nationalism:

See Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism”. “A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations…. [The nationalist] will show great sensitiveness about such things as the correct display of flags, relative size of headlines and the order in which different countries are named.”

See, this is what I love. People who aren’t nationalists telling those of us who are what it means. Doesn’t matter what we mean when we say the word, so long as you can find some reference or other that puts it the way you want to spin it.

Nationalism, incidentally, is pride in one’s nation, and the desire for one’s nation to maintain its identity and not disintegrate or be subsumed into some larger polity. The Jews who fought the Romans were nationalists. The Kurds who fought Iraq and Turkey and are now fighting ISIS are nationalists. Americans who don’t want America to be subject to the laws of other nations are nationalists.

Like all groups, nationalism has its fringes. There are white nationalists, who believe that the paleness of their skin constitutes a nationality. They are stupid, but getting rid of them is like trying to get rid of cockroaches in NYC or cats in Israel. The best you can do is ignore them when they aren’t causing trouble, and step on them when they are. There are similar idiots on the left, like college lecturers who preach that whiteness is a disease, or mobs that call publicly for the murder of police.

The alt-right has been leftsplained all over the place in recent weeks. The term, short for “alternative right”, refers to those on the right who feel disenfranchised by the establishment right wing, and want an alternative. That’s not really hard to understand. And there’s a wide variety of people who feel that way. Some are libertarian-oriented, and want the right wing to focus primarily on limiting (or in extreme cases ending) the power of government, to a degree that the establishment right would never consider. Some are primarily interested in economics. Others are primarily interested in immigration, or religious tradition or any number of other areas. And some are foul racist and antisemitic bigots like David Duke and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer.

Spencer has been credited (wrongly) as the “founder” of the alt-right. As though a disparate group like the alt-right could have a founder. He created a group called “Alternative Right”. He also created a group called the “National Policy Institute”. But Richard Spencer did not invent the idea of national policy, and he didn’t invent the alternative right. He is merely a pustulent sore on the skin of the alt-right.

Still, leftsplainers will call anyone who has ever espoused support for the alt-right a racist or racist enabler, and will point to creatures like Spencer as their proof. Never mind what people who identity with the alt-right believe. The fact that they have embraced a label which has also been embraced by scum like Spencer is enough, in their minds.

But they don’t really believe this kind of argument. Not really. During the Democratic primary race, we heard over and over that socialism is not what was practiced by the totalitarian empire calling itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). That it bears no relationship to the evil doctrine of National Socialism (Nazism). They are capable of making such distinctions when it suits them. It simply doesn’t suit them right now.

Watch the news and see if you can spot the leftsplaining. It’s not hard.