Milo Yiannopoulos is so singular that he needs a list of adjectives to sum him up: gay, Catholic, conservative, pro-life, vulgar, offensive, provocative, funny, smart… English. He is often dismissed, disdainfully, as an internet troll (he’s been permanently banned from Twitter). Yet anybody that pays attention to what he actually says, and the arguments he makes, cannot fail to notice that he is doing something the Left has traditionally adored among its own social warriors since the era of Marcuse, Abbie Hoffman and (still, unfortunately) Noam Chomsky: counter-cultural criticism. The difference is that the culture that Milo is countering is not the patriarchal white military-industrial-capitalist complex but the neo-Marxist, post-modernist social justice warrior (SJW) Left.
Arguments against the SJW movement/world-view are not new. Yet Milo has become likely the most popular and well-known critic of SJWs in recent memory. Part of the reason can be explained by social media. Milo has certainly seized on a unique time in American politics where the massive expansion of social media has fueled the rise of acerbic political commentators popular as much for their sarcasm and wit as their ideological arguments (the Left has Jon Stewart and John Oliver, amongst others). But it is more than that. Milo’s true success comes from the fact that he appears, on the surface, to be a representative of what the Left champions (gay, hip, flamboyant, impolite, and unafraid of confrontation), while in reality he transgresses their own rules in his personhood. Milo powerfully breaks the link between personal identity and politics, a link the SJWs (and increasingly, the Democratic Party) insist on strengthening. Along the way he has a grand time using the Left’s own weapons (identity-politics and a disdain for polite conversation) against them. Milo couldn’t be a more perfect conservative weapon against SJWs if you designed him in a secret lab.
Milo, furthermore, is far more interesting from a cultural perspective than a political one. For all his shock value, Milo’s politics, which dove tail with Trumps’, is old school Pat Buchanan American nationalism. What’s more, if all he did was issue internet fodder, he might quickly fade from view once his provocations had become routine. Milo endures, however, because he goes after his adversaries in person, on their own turf: the American college campus. Milo calls his campus speaking tour “The Dangerous Faggot” tour. During his speeches, he welcomes SJW protestors and thoroughly enjoys taking apart their arguments while insulting them. After you listen to Milo enough times (like, twice), you realize he really enjoys using expletives. He’s not the type of cultural critic you bring home to mom, unless your mom wants to hear Milo talk about having sex with black men.
All of which is to say that Milo occupies a strange place in American conservatism. The vulgar, sophomoric qualities that a George Will or a Charles Krauthammer would abhor are the very same qualities that make him a sensation among anti-PC culture warriors. He dishes back to the SJW elite what they like to serve, and gives them a middle finger for dessert. Some might argue that for all his success, Milo only helps to further coarsen our political culture rather than elevate it. Fair enough. It is unfortunately true that the line between personal attacks and political debate gets thinner all the time. Yet for all his vulgarity, Milo actually engages in principled argument, which is far more than the SJW crowd bothers with.
In the end, it could be also fairly argued that Milo and Trump share another quality that has been sorely lacking among conservative commentators, and politicians in particular: gumption. Fear of media backlash has been the ultimate weapon of the Left. Nothing seems to horrify a conservative more than being labeled an angry racist. The conservative craves respectability (see, e.g., NY Times columnist David Brooks, whose anti-Trump position seems entirely based on his fear of being associated with angry, hateful, white people). As such, most cower before the liberal onslaught of SJW accusations rather than fight back. Milo shares with Trump an admirable disregard for the media elite’s opinion. Respectability be damned, if they’ve got the better argument. If anything, conservative politicians and cultural critics should follow Milo’s example, if not profane antics. There is something of fresh air with Milo. Conservatives should welcome it.
