At this point, it can only grow. No one in the movement is going to leave, and obviously quite a few are going to join. All of the people appalled by them were never going to sign up anyway. They have a lot of publicity now and they will only get bigger in the future. A couple of other comments follow.
The question seems to be worded as though those things were synonyms. They are not. The Dark Enlightenment (DE) is a scientific critique on the fundamental premises of The (so-called) Enlightenment: specifically that human liberty and equality are unalloyed goods. Since it is obvious that human (racial, sexual, religious and ethnic) equality is patently false, and that liberty is not an unalloyed good (e.g., offering fertile opportunities for the rapacious to profiteer off the poor impulse control or future time orientation of others), the DE is not going to go away. While politically inconvenient truths about matters may be suppressed for a time (cf. heliocentrism), it is expensive and indeed a sign of collapsing legitimacy.
The “Alt-Right” has really come to mean the non-mainstream Dissident Right. It is a loose, often tumultuous, alliance of a wide variety of anti-progressive particularists—including paleoconservatives, paleolibertarians, neoreactionaries, anarcho-capitalists, separatists, southern nationalists, white nationalists, ethnic nationalists, identitarians, and even a few national socialists. It has no essential nature, therefore, to conform to, no central control, and cannot act in a coherent manner.
Various arms of the Dissident Right have their own plans to create institutions, and propagate their ideas in various ways. Some seek power within the existing political structure. Others see themselves primarily as Samizdat organizers.
If the progressive neoliberal establishment continues to collapse both the psycho-social and economic health of Western nations, dissident movements of all sorts may be expected to continue to attract followers, financial backing, and a modicum of power.
An excellent overview of the Dark Enlightenment, although I suspect he is whitewashing it. From what I know about the Dark Enlightenment as envisioned by Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land, British “accelerationist” British philosopher, it is not something I want anything to do with. In fact, it seems like my and hopefully most of your worst nightmare. I would say that if the Alt Left is about anything, it is about Enlightenment values, so this would right away put us at odds for opposing the Dark Enlightenment.
Dim obscurity. While a few events recently have brought them to the front, their ideology is toxic to the majority of people, and that will lead to them back to the fringe. There’s no real future, especially as more and more people learn that “alt-right” is largely a synonym for white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The new branding will not change the outcome.
I expect they’ll remain a nuisance online. But any sort of intellectual or cultural influence? Extremely unlikely.
This fellow seems to feel that the Alt Right will become a collapsing star and black hole of hatred and nihilism after burning so bright after a brief flash in the spotlight and the camera clicks. I am not so sure about that. How many Alt Righters will say, “Whoa, this movement is neo-Nazi! I never knew that. I’m out of here!” About zero. Everyone involved in this movement knows exactly what it is all about and none of them are taking off. I assume that there are quite a few newbies out there who would love to sign up. They ain’t going away anytime soon I am afraid.
