Politics

Is Milo Yiannopoulos The Face Of Tomorrow’s Political Right?

Scott Greer Contributor
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WASHINGTON — “Fuck your feelings.”

That was the response Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos gave to a hostile questioner at American University Thursday night. The female accuser wanted to know why Yiannopoulos “invalidated” the experiences of minority students, which the conservative provacteur found to be an unserious question full of “buzzwords.”

“I’m tired of the generation that’s been raised to think everyone should feel sorry for them,” Yiannopoulos added to the roaring applause of a crowd of over 300. (RELATED: BRACE YOURSELF — This Is What An Anti-Milo Yiannopoulos Protest Looks Like)

That was only of many moments that characterized the raucous atmosphere of the Breitbart tech editor’s speaking event at the D.C. university. After delivering a short speech railing against social justice warriors and campus political correctness, Yiannopoulos opened the floor to questions. One of the first was from a young freshman who claimed to be both a cancer survivor and a feminist. She wanted to know how Milo could ask people if they would rather have cancer or feminism.

“If you can take a dick, you can take a joke,” he replied. Supporters of Milo had previously dotted the campus with “Feminism is Cancer” posters to promote his event. Nearly all of those signs were taken down by triggered students.

One angry audience member took his time at the mic to just call Yiannopoulos a “fucking prick” for expressing his opinions. The writer shot back that his adversary was a “cuck,” short for cuckold, which has become a popular slur among Milo’s fanbase to sling at opponents. The audience roared in its approval and chanted “cuck” as well.

The final questioner was a self-professed Black Lives Matter supporter who charged from the back and went through fellow students to yell at Yiannopoulos for claiming the BLM movement supports “black supremacy.” Milo calmly took control of the situation and shut down his opponent by simply saying the agitator was rudely disrupting the activities.

These episodes characterized the sometimes raunchy, nearly always combative spirit of the night, but most of the attendees and questioners were on Milo’s side. And nearly all of them were under 30.

It was not your grandfather’s conservative convention, that’s for sure.

Boasting over 200,000 Twitter followers and thousands of YouTube subscribers, Milo has become a popular, yet controversial figure on the Right. (RELATED: How One Conservative’s Lost Twitter Badge Spells Trouble For Free Expression)

However, Yiannopoulos, a native Briton, may cut an odd figurehead for any right-wing movement. He’s very open about his gay sexuality, even bragging at one point during his speech about how many black men have been “inside” him. His speaking schedule of college campuses is called “The Dangerous Faggot Tour.” He frequently deploys four-letter words and nearly spit as much venom against conservatives — in particular the religious right — as he did against the Left.

The young audience — many of whom were decked out in “Make America Great Again” hats — ate it up, nonetheless.

Yiannopoulos’ act is equal parts comedy routine and serious political commentary — which may help explain why he has so many young fans. During his speech, he says he offers “fun” in contrast to the supposed drabness of conservative speakers. The rowdiness and excitement among Thursday’s audience gives some basis to his claim.

But the main reason for Milo’s appeal among right-leaning college students and other young people is his war on political correctness, a phenomenon that has dominated college campuses.

“There’s a movement happening on campuses against the bullying, nannying, authoritarian pearl-clutchers just as there’s a movement in the wider American electorate against progressivism,” Yiannopoulos told The Daily Caller in an interview prior to his talk. “It’s happening on campuses because finally the Left has pushed it too far. People have realized their nice ordinary lives are being threatened by crazy politics with no basis in facts.”

Yiannopoulos said his “cultural libertarianism” is a natural reaction to liberals labelling everything racist and hateful and “overplaying their hand.” Now, people are fed up and are more willing to speak out.

“People are starting to be more confident in saying so [about p.c. culture] and I’ve become kind of a crucible for that movement which is beginning to express itself,” he added.

It’s for this reason that Yiannopoulos believes he attracts such aggressive protests from all corners of the campus Left.

“They don’t like me because I beat liberals in arguments, unlike the last 30 years of conservatism,” he told TheDC. “They don’t like me because they can’t write me off as a bigot, as a homophobe, as a misogynist, as a racist because I’m a sassy, gay Brit who never shuts up about black dick.”

Being a “sassy, gay Brit who never shuts up about black dick,” according to Yiannopoulos in all his humility, gives him an edge which other conservatives don’t have in their respective fights against the Left.

“I’m younger, I’m hotter, I’m more successful and I’m more dangerous to them [than the average conservative],” he said. “I represent an existential threat to identitarian leftist politics because I shouldn’t exist according to their laws of the universe.” The gay author believes “it blows a massive, gaping hole in the central tenet of their philosophy.”

The Breitbart writer, by shattering the supposed stereotypes of left-wingers, thinks he destroys their primary weapon against those with whom they disagree with.

“For the [past] 30 years, the Left has just said ‘oh if there’s an argument we don’t like, they’re a hateful bigot so don’t listen to anything they have to say,'” he told TheDC. “They seek to delegitimize the speaker instead of actually presenting an argument while I force them to bring their A-game. They just realized they don’t have one.”

Yiannopoulos, while focusing most of his criticism on social justice warriors and their like, also shows scorn for the conservative movement, a political force which he feels has failed miserably.

“I have a message for the conservative establishment,” he declared in his speech, “you fucked up big time… The assorted, well-fed, burbling lunatics, idiots and losers of the conservative media establishment and in conservative circles in general… These useless, fat blubbering losers!”

“You [conservatives] made all the right noises but you have no appetite whatsoever to fix anything. You allowed the Left to continue to gain ground and gain ground and gain ground until a point at which — and I don’t think this is an exaggeration to say — the fabric of western culture is now at risk. From immigration, from multiculturalism, from the lies the Left tells.”

In contrast, Yiannopoulos believes he can actually “win” in his fights and puts his political opponents on their backfoot. He also shares a marked affinity for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a man he refers to as “Daddy.” He believes both he and the flamboyant billionaire absolutely terrify the Left.

“Trump and I represent something that scares the Left — the utter, wholesale rejection of political correctness. Total defiance. The idea you don’t back down, you double down. When somebody comes to my event and says they’re offended by a joke, I rack my brain for a more offensive one… Trump does the same thing,” he said.

“He has shown the one thing that no conservative politician or pundit or anybody really on the political Right in American public life has done for some 30 years. He has shown fearlessness, he’s not afraid of [the Left]. And that inspires terror in their hearts and I’m the same, I like to think.”

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