If you haven’t heard by now, Donald Trump ate dinner with racists and anti-Semites. The Leftmedia have been hyperventilating over that for days now. Not entirely without reason — Trump should have better taste in dinner guests. Furthermore, when he was exposed, even if he was ignorant as he says, he should have owned up and apologized.

In any case, political analyst Jack Hunter takes a crack at analyzing alt-right phonies like white nationalist Nick Fuentes, “the artist formerly known as Kanye West,” and Milo Yiannopoulos. The “key to their extremist thinking,” Hunter explains, is “plain old contrarianism.”

When the alt-right movement emerged during the 2016 presidential election, Yiannopoulos wrote a lengthy description and defense of the alt-right. …

Alt-righters aren’t really racist, Yiannopoulos insisted at the time. They were inherently contrarian. They trolled. They were intentionally outlandish. He even compared them to heavy metal-loving teenagers in the 1980s pretending to be devil worshippers because it was edgy and dangerous.

“Part of this is down to the alt-right’s addiction to provocation,” Yiannopoulos explained six years ago. “The alt-right is a movement born out of the youthful, subversive, underground edges of the internet… For years, members of these forums — political and non-political — have delighted in attention-grabbing, juvenile pranks.”

Fuentes is clearly a racist and antisemite and revels in it. But the reveling is also key. It’s what they do. I can’t really figure out if Fuentes thinks the Holocaust didn’t happen or knows it’s the most outrageous thing he can say, with his likely primary interest being the latter.

The obvious problem with using white nationalism and antisemitism to be provocative for its own sake is that it’s very easy for impressionable minds, particularly younger people who are drawn to these figures, to become bigots themselves, thus damaging their reputations and careers long before they reach intellectual maturity. These are weighty issues your average 21-year-old might not be equipped to wrap his head around.

Hunter recounts the episode of Ye and crew “storming out” of an interview with YouTuber Tim Pool after being challenged on anti-Semitic comments. The storming out was almost certainly staged for shock value and attention.

In any context, the basic racism and antisemitism Ye and his new friends spew is bad. But when observers wonder why a white nationalist like Fuentes is in league with a famous black man, well, what could be more contrarian than that? His name and brand are being promoted more than ever. Just ask Donald Trump.

Hunter concludes:

The most believable of this alt-right bunch, or at least alt-right adjacent, is Ye. A rich and famous man who needs zero brand promotion or attention but seems addicted to it anyway, he has been seemingly abandoned by those who know him and loved him. It’s sad. It’s also likely entirely his fault.

But let’s face it: Kanye West has been trolling everyone for years, at least since he bizarrely interrupted Taylor Swift during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

Forever starved for attention, Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannopoulos are getting the most they ever have by riding Ye’s coattails. They will no doubt echo any horrible thing he says to keep that spotlight burning for as long as possible.

These are horrible people. They’re also phony.

Read the whole thing here.