The “libertarian to alt-right” phenomenon refers to an internet tendency of ex-libertarians to come out as Nazis, fascists, and ethno-nationalists.
Many have wondered why they do so. To my knowledge, there have been no serious studies undertaken on this so far; only people’s own off-the-cuff musings. Here are ours:
Many libertarians obviously have a self-image of being edgy free thinkers — provocative outsiders who nevertheless entertain some truths the political mainstream intuitively denies or closes itself off from. Fascist and ethnocentric totalitarianism is similar in a sense and has become more appealing to some, as the problems with Islam and the nihilism of purposeless consumption have become more pronounced.
Access to women also seems to play a role here. A theme that repeats itself is the fantasy of being a virtuous, handsome, chaste, and dedicated woman, which, of course, is one’s right as an ethno-nationalist. Libertarians have only Ukrainian teenage courtesans in a jacuzzi.
Here is another thing. Professor of Developmental Psychology at Cambridge University, Simon Baron-Cohen, has identified neurological differences between systematic and empathic thinking. He connects systems thinking with high testosterone. Professor of Social Psychology Jonathan Haidt’s paper “Understanding Libertarian Morality” shows that libertarians have the highest systems thinking of all political groups. And we know that most libertarians at all times and in all countries are men. Both libertarianism and right-wing totalitarianism are, in a sense, characterized by high systems thinking. With both ideologies, everything has a rightful and clearly-delineated place according to the ideology. For libertarians everything is either handled by the night-watchman state, also called the minimal state, or the free market. For fascists, it is the corporate state that controls all affairs of society. Nothing is left to the provisional compromises and “we’ll make it up as we go along”-like solutions that characterize liberal democracies.
Fascists, however, are usually not as systematic as libertarians in their thinking. It is unlikely that there are many fascists who are latent libertarians, but certain libertarians are nevertheless potential fascists.
Also, one should not underestimate the power of pure chance. There are and were libertarians who became all-right independently of 4chan, but much of the libertarian apostasy has taken place on the underground messaging board 4chan. Three or four years ago, the people on 4chan competed over who could be the most libertarian anarcho-capital in a hypermasculine, cynical, and condescending way. At some point, certain of them began ironically pretending that they were Nazis and fascists to seem even more edgy and condescending. And after a time — it is difficult to be precise here — some of them started to become actual Nazis and fascists.
It is like the undercover cop in classic American films, who is dispatched to keep an eye on a motorcycle gang, a native-American tribe, or whatever. He starts out feeling that he is the police in his heart. But after a time, he discovers that at some point he has gone native without even knowing it. He has legitimately started identifying with the new tribe he initially just pretended to be a part of. He discovers that he has become quite proud of this new identity, which he initially just assumed. The change was not at any time a conscious one. It tip-toed its way to supremacy.