Understanding the Rise of Milo Yiannopoulis—and What his Political Opponents Could Learn From Him

Like a younger, gayer Winston Churchill, Milo Yiannopoulis (known as “Nero” on Twitter) has made a (long, hard-to-spell) name for himself charging his way ever further into the many present-day crises regarding the frailty and endurance of liberal culture; a culture by whose standards his politics are already far backwards, and nevertheless become a celebrated figure, his witticisms, perkiness and near impenetrable refinement charming even opponents.

However, there is more to the cult of Milo than simply charisma.  These days, your rank-and-file political pundits—right or left—do their best to be amusing, but usually cater only to those whose views they share.  Why, after all, should people pay attention to a political opponent who can turn a phrase when there are political allies to care about who can do it too?  The answer, in the simplest terms, is that Milo is happy to return the favor, and in the process, he has become more than your rank-and-file political pundit.

Despite having become one of the most infamous public faces of the GamerGate movement, the irony is that Yiannopoulis is,

by his own admission, an outsider to it.  As a conservative journalist, he’s not obligated to take a side in what he sees as a civil war among liberals, as a man without a history of playing video games, he wouldn’t seem to have a stake in arguing how they ought to be made, as a Catholic, he’s hardly mandated to stand against the constant charge that the pursuit of pleasure is making modern people sinful, and as a rather flamboyant, immaculate and cushy-living gay Englishman, he’s an odd candidate to defend hot-blooded hyper-masculinity.  Yet in a world of political activism whose big consistency is becoming disgusted at any perceived slights or opponents, characterized by people who are all too willing to assume the worst of those that offend their personal sensibilities and throw up walls against them, Milo has opted instead to build bridges, to jet all over the political landscape in search of conversation, and this breath of fresh air has paid off.

These days, demonization of political opponents has gone so far that it’s even led to scaremongering character-attacks on people like Bill Maher for having slightly different opinions than their technical political allies, and “disinvitation” is halting discourse, but Milo has no such crippling fear and flight. 

As reported by the Los Angeles Times’ David Ng, he was so eager to debate GamerGate with opponent Anita Sarkeesian that he even offered to pay her or donate to a charity of her choice. (Although according to Milo, he actually offered twice the amount Ng declared; maybe there’s an error in conversion rates somewhere?)  Sarkeesian didn’t accept the offer, but some others one would expect to be bitter foes to Milo haven’t just talked to him, but become friends.  

One of these is Carl Benjamin,

better known by his screenname, Sargon of Akkad.  Sargon’s webseries features “This week in stupid” videos, Jon Stewart-esque comedic jabs at absurdities on both the Left and the Right (along with more serious philosophical videos), but also like Stewart, there’s little doubt that he’s a liberal leftist, having taken a survey declaring himself such, railed against the Conservative Party’s misdeeds and proclaimed a desire for cottage industry to return and seize the economy back from large corporations.  One would expect the worst if someone with such views ever chatted with an outspoken conservative, but he and Milo have gotten on fine.  

More recently, Milo reached out to feminist filmmaker Cassie Jaye, whose views on gay marriage and undoubtedly other things are against his.  Jaye had been working on The Red Pill, a documentary investigating the Men’s Rights Movement, her former benefactors had abandoned her once the subject matter was getting too controversial and potentially offensive, and the film was at risk for cancellation.  It is said that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but Milo had learned the ropes from his experiences with GamerGate, and

signal-boosted Cassie Jaye’s fall out of the good-graces of fellow feminists, as well as the last resort crowdfunding she’d begun for the movie.  Within a few days, the film’s minimum was funded, reaching stretch goals soon after, mainstream feminism lost a battle, and Milo and his allies admitted another member to their textbook case of the axiom that politics make for strange bedfellows.

The specific political bed that unites these uncommon allies is their common opposition to censorship and no-platforming.  For certain blowhards, of questionable number but undeniable volume, ensuring the success of their contemporary political goals trumps reverence to the broader liberal democratic traditions of free speech and impartial debate, but Milo’s rise to prominence has led many back to that exciting political climate of the early enlightenment, where political ideas were not yet social axioms, not yet laws, often not even discussed by actual politicians yet, but the source of many interesting philosophical discussions by hobbyists in salons, coffee shops, and fraternal lodges, and as Breitbart Tech launched,

he took to YouTube and hosted a conversational stream lasting over seven hours, to which people from all over the political spectrum were invited.  There were disagreements to be had, and Milo even argued with fellow conservatives over the merits of Donald Trump, but throughout it all, the participants maintained an atmosphere of civility, the likes of which some on college campuses these days might think impossible.

Meanwhile, even as Milo has gone out of his way to find common ground with people who would once be assumed his enemies, he has also upheld his anti-censorship principles by calling to task his nominal allies.  When GamerGate fell into Milo’s lap and gave him a rare opportunity to be a conservative inductee into the ultra-modernist world of electronic entertainment, he could have used the fervor of the moment just to slam left-wing activists who’d run afoul of many people; after all, a huge part of political campaigning is playing up the misdeeds of one’s opponents, while sweeping one’s own side’s dirt under the rug.  Instead, though, he’s acknowledged the Right has a history of anti-pleasure moral crusaders, such as in an

article where he pointed out the similarities in rhetoric and tactics between feminist Anita Sarkeesian and Christian-Rightist Jack Thompson.  Later, as he reflected on more time with the movement, he explained, “The Right hates gamers because it blames games for real-world violence. The Left now hates them because progressives have come to accuse video games, bizarrely, of somehow being able to make people sexist.”  

What this bipartisan criticism represents is, once again, a commitment to freedom of expression—which protects both speech, and the creation of media, like video games--and standing up to all who oppose it, whatever their justification.  This is a value many liberals share, even while some prominent members of the left have gone the other way.  While the press has been willing to characterize GamerGate’s attitudes as right-wing because the people GamerGate harshly criticizes are

left-wing, it should be remembered that they’re left-wing journalists, and it’s questionable how much they represent the overall soul of the left when no less a figure than President Barrack Obama himself has also come out against the alarming trend of no-platforming one’s political opponents.  Does that mean he’ll agree with Milo Yiannopoulis and even the more liberal wings of GamerGate on everything?  Of course not, but agreeing on everything isn’t the point.  The point is to preserve a western culture built on diverse ideas, fight back against presumptuous claims that some of those ideas are not just distressing, but dangerous to some people, and assert that the best policies arise out of dialectic between ideas.  E pluribus unum is a canonized statement in America for a reason.

With all of this overwhelming promotion of Milo Yiannopoulis and his adventures in culture warfare, one may be tempted to believe I am a gung-ho supporter who hangs on and repeats his every word.  This is not the case; in fact, I am a social liberal, economically left-of-center and I share none of his religious ideals.  I cannot co-sign on his regressive tax proposals, and I found it embarrassing to watch him on

The Rubin Report trying to rationalize his Catholic opposition to gay marriage as being in the best interests of the gay community.  Yes; I will share Milo’s articles and retweet his tweets when I think he has a point, but the experience is, rather like a rollercoaster, a twisted mix of empowering and scary.  I’d be lying if I said that at times, I didn’t resent having a man with a fair amount of openly reactionary attitudes fighting on my behalf for what I and many other see as a liberal value, and there are no-doubt people on the Left (or even on the Right) who suspect that Milo is simply trying to carpetbag nerds into becoming more right-wing.  

However, those who allege Milo’s carrying out some diabolical, terrifyingly effective conspiracy hatched in secret are, in fact, giving him far too much credit.  Milo’s “recruit the ronin” policy really depends on the existence of ronin, and in many cases, that existence is due to their being disowned by former left-wing allies on the basis of far lesser disagreements than Milo has with them.  The most disturbing thing about the runaway success of Milo Yiannopoulis is that there’s nothing about his successful modus operandi that liberals couldn’t do themselves, and given their far greater alignment with modern culture, it’s very arguable they could be even more effective at gaining support—and yet, many have opted not to do it.  Speaking as a liberal leftist (though admittedly becoming more uncomfortable with the latter designation), who does, in fact, have a vested interest in promoting my politics, I openly declare that the Left could use a lot more people like Milo Yiannopoulis.  By this, I do not mean people opposed to gay marriage, abortion, feminism, and progressive taxes, but simply people who don’t treat their own political bias as so high and mighty that it warrants a dehumanizing and silencing embargo against anyone who disagrees, even when they disagree only a little bit.  To be sure, there are plenty on the Left who agree with that, but not enough of them in high places.  A few have stepped up, such as David Pakman and Jonathan Chait, but we need more; including, preferably, people who up until now have engaged in counter-productive othering.

The following is a challenge to all the high and mighty on the liberal left alarmed by the rise of Milo Yiannopoulis: Open the gates.  If your positions are so obviously correct, intelligent and broadly-supported as you maintain, then surely you wouldn’t have anything to lose from meeting with those people you’re currently ostracizing and starting to discuss things.  Your zero-tolerance tactics have backfired and more and more people are sick of them.  If you keep your ideals on this self-destructive course, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Is "Meritocracy" An Irreparable Talking-Point? Only if You Let it Be One.

This was inspired by a series of Twitter posts, although one was also inspired by a rather long Facebook post made by famous Dirty Jobs host, Mike Rowe.  Then, as with other times, Mike has come off as potentially controversial for taking a stand to suggest that an individual's success in life is equivalent to the burden he or she is willing to bear--a view many have come to suspect is ignorant and essentially right-wing.  To that, I have a few things to say.

First, I get it; okay?  I get it not just as somebody who considers himself somewhere left-of-center economically, but as someone who, like many other autistic men, has known tremendous discrimination in the job world, and who knows that my group is not unique; in some states, it's still legal to discriminate against homosexuals in the workforce.  Unfair bosses are a reality.  It's understandable that people are skeptical when someone of a political bent talks of meritocracy; political people, after all, have their beliefs, their vision of what beliefs and characteristics makes a better or worse person, and it's hard to buy such people put aside such biases to base their definition of a hard worker strictly on objective qualities like efficiency, precision and tenacity.  Furthermore, there's no doubt that some prominent people on the right, among them Margaret Thatcher, have become well-known, and variously-regarded (depending on one's own political bias) for promoting a meritocracy as the solution to all society's woes; nor is there much doubt as to why.  The existence of that outstanding worker who can grab the bull by the horns, and go from rags to riches of his or her own device, is a talking-point for those who allege that no compassionate help from above is necessary, and no major hindrances to worker advancement are built into companies.  Are such workers and their inspiring success stories typical?  Expect that question to be argued for decades to come, with very little hope of a satisfying answer arising, as that would hinge on the absurd presumption that all workers and all employers are equally as ethical or corrupt as their peers.

The second thing that must be said, however, is that following this healthy skepticism through to preemptively belittling anyone who dares to stress the value of hard, meaningful work, is, as Rowe suggested, doing people no favors.  Leftists may be correct in identifying why more Right-leaning thinkers place a high value on hard work--because it puts the burden of proof on workers, rather than their wealthy constituents--but to presume this is the case with every person who says such things is not in actuality reigning in unfair considerations; it is merely allowing the political Right, with its comparatively low respect to the underdogs, to be the exclusive venue wherein such things are discussed, with all the bias that entails.  Today, vocal people on the Left are making the same mistake with "meritocracy" as vocal people on the Right have been making for decades with "liberalism"; that is, surrendering the term to the opposition, to be fed back to people in skewed form, when both ideas as they were originally conceived contributed to tremendous citizen growth on a sub-political level.

It is important to note that while politicians are frequently obnoxious for the things they spout over and over again, sometimes the issue isn't that those things aren't true, so much as that they're almost never the whole truth.  The unfortunate factor underlying this trend is that their career depends on appealing to certain sorts of people and convincing those people to look down on other sorts, and that means playing up some people's faults while sweeping others under the rug.  Most people outside of politics, though, should have the ability to think about things more deeply.  Most of us by now have come across (among many other types of people) both obnoxious finaglers in high places who place unreasonable demands on people in lower places, and irritating slackers who don't even put demands on themselves that most others see as no-brainers.  We should be able to make multi-factored analyses based on such experiences, but too often people who are passionate about things fall prey to what could be called "political cooties"; that is, knee-jerk reactions against the sort of ideas they deem hostile to their interests, and in this case, the real victims will be workers, unable to form a whole picture of the world important to them when led by people who only focus on select parts of it.

What the work world (including that part of it concerned with why certain types of people are lagging behind others) actually needs are dialogue and analysis by people who aren't so full of themselves that they let mere words get to them and shut them down.  Before the reductive binary bore of Right Vs Left got involved, our culture's politics had already embraced the more meaningful idea that there is wisdom in crowds, and none of us is as smart as all of us.  Let's try to bring that back and face these problems together.