The GOP has not hit bottom yet [updated]

"Has the Right Hit Bottom Yet?" That was the debate question back on Feb. 19, 2009 at one of the Lolita Bar events organized by Todd Seavey. I argued the right's comeback was already under way; Ryan Sager thought it had further to fall. There was a guy in the audience, whom I later learned was Richard Spencer, who asked a question suggesting the Republican Party should devote itself to championing the interests of white people rather than trying to win over minorities (except Asians, whom he thought natural allies with whites). I responded with something like "If the Republican Party takes that approach, it will curl up and die." Ryan was similarly dismissive.

Now, over seven years later, I'm an ex-Republican, and Spencer (now a prominent leader of the "alt right") is in Cleveland crowing "It's amazing. We've taken over the right." And it's true enough. Spencer lives in Montana now and has argued for a whites-only "ethno-state" in the Northwest; and while that may take some time to make it into the GOP platform, the party has moved in his direction by nominating Trump, to an extent I never imagined possible back at Lolita Bar.

In that long-ago debate (which I lost by audience vote), I may have been correct that a political comeback for the right was under way (the Tea Party was just starting to brew then) but I was certainly dead wrong in thinking that the right did not have further to fall--much further--morally and intellectually.  I differ with those, including some anti-Trump friends of mine, who see something worth preserving in the GOP.  So, I stand by my "curl up and die" prediction; what's different now from 2009, though, is that I'm looking forward to seeing it happen.

UPDATE 7/24: Spencer evidently no longer advocates a whites-only homeland in the Northwest but rather the more expansive goal of expelling blacks, hispanics and Jews from the United States.

I'm pretty sure this guy is right. But by November that mistake is likely to be corrected. https://t.co/RpFsm7vlNH pic.twitter.com/SmNSv1l8bk

— Jonathan V. Last (@JVLast) July 24, 2016

UPDATE 10/8: Trump is melting down and the GOP is in chaos, but I'm updating this post mainly for this:

My dream is a Northern hemispheric empire, with an autarkic economy, natural conservation, and the projection of power on a global scale.

— Richard B. Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) October 8, 2016

Now (or it turns out) it's the entire Northern Hemisphere Spencer wants. For recent posts on some immanent flaws in the alt-right vision, see here and here.

UPDATE 11/7: I'd been expecting to write more about the alt-right, probably focusing on Spencer's writings--but then I read this about Trump and Jesus Christ, and honestly don't think it's worth the bother.