“The Alternative Right, commonly known as the 'alt-right,' is defined as a set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals whose core belief is that 'white identity' is under attack by multicultural forces using 'political correctness' and 'social justice' to undermine white people and 'their' civilization.”
– Southern
Poverty Law Center
The term “alt-right”
emerged in 2010 and started to gain widespread traction in 2016.
White supremacist Richard Spencer, President and Creative Director at
the National Policy Institute, a tiny white supremacist organization,
coined the term “alternative right” in August 2008 in an
article in Taki’s Magazine, a far-right publication.
The term encompasses
diverse groups of people, some of whom engage in online trolling as a
way to spread inside jokes, hate speech and inspire anger. Some are
media personalities and influencers who espouse racist, misogynistic
and/or anti-multicultural views. The desire to return to a past when
diversity wasn’t embraced and white culture and power was the
unquestioned norm is the one belief that unites the alt-right.
“Martin Luther King
Jr., a fraud and degenerate in his life, has become the symbol and
cynosure of White Dispossession and the deconstruction of Occidental
civilization. We must overcome!”
– National Policy Institute column, January 2014
Why even discuss the
existence of such a far-right ideology? Aren't these people just one
more isolated group of kooks with limited influence who must be
tolerated in a free-speech democracy? In truth, many feel the white
power movement is surging. Evidence shows this significant growth of
the alt-right coincides with the election of Donald Trump. Whether he
likes it or not, Trump is a hero to the alt-right.
Richard Spencer believes
white and black people should live separately and has condoned a
"peaceful ethnic cleansing." He has said that the U.S.
"belongs" to white people. Not longer after Trump was
elected, Spencer led a group of white nationalists in celebrating
Trump's victory with a Nazi salute in a moment that was caught on
video that went viral.
Alt-right activists
applied the “cuckservative” slur to every major Republican
primary candidate except Trump, who regularly rails against
“political correctness,” Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans, Chinese
and others. The activists coined “cuckservative” (a combination
of “cuckold” and “conservative”) to castigate Republican
politicians who are seen as traitors to their people. They think
these so-called cuckservatives are selling out conservatives with
their support for globalism and certain liberal ideas. They have also
worked hard to affix the alt-right brand to Trump through the use of
hashtags and memes.
The alt-right believes in
the uselessness of mainstream conservatism. They oppose immigration
such as the resettlement of Syrian refugees in America, and they
oppose the Black Lives Matter movement. Most tend to blame Jews for
the perceived plight of white culture. And, their propaganda
campaigns also have been organized around hashtags such as
#WhiteGenocide, a reference to the myth that white people are
being subjected to an orchestrated eradication campaign.
“Immigration
is a kind of proxy war—and maybe a last stand—for White
Americans, who are undergoing a painful recognition that, unless
dramatic action is taken, their grandchildren will live in a country
that is alien and hostile.”
-- National
Policy Institute column, February 2014
Bernard E. Harcourt,
professor of law and political science at Columbia University and the
author of The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War
Against Its Own Citizens, explains how Trump fuels the Fascist right
…
“President Trump
makes constant use of the language and logic of the 'new right,' a
toxic blend of antebellum white supremacy, twentieth-century fascism,
European far-right movements of the 1970s, and today’s
self-identified 'alt-right.' And his words and deeds have empowered
and enabled an upsurge of white nationalists and extremist
organizations – from Atomwaffen to the Proud Boys to the Rise Above
Movement – that threatens to push the country into violent social
conflict. Amplified by social media, this new right rhetoric is
inciting unstable men to violence through pipe-bomb mailings and
temple shootings. It is crucial for the American people to identify
and oppose this radicalization, in order to steer the country back to
a steadier path.”
(Bernard
E. Harcourt. “How Trump Fuels the Fascist Right.”
New York
Review Daily. November 29, 2018.)
Harcounrt explains that
when Trump repeatedly accuses a reporter of “racism” for
questioning him about his embrace of the term “nationalist,”
Trump is deliberately drawing from the toxic well of white
supremacist discourse and directly addressing that base.
Also, Trump's use of the
term “globalist” is a is a knowing use of an anti-Semitic slur.
And, Trump’s self-identification as a “nationalist,” especially
in contrast to “globalists” like George Soros, extends a hand to
white nationalists across the country. His pointed use of the term
“politically correct,” especially in the context of the Muslim
ban, speaks directly to followers of far-right figures such as
William Lind, author of “What is ‘Political Correctness’?”
George Shaw, an editor at
a leading new right publishing house and the editor of A Fair
Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders
(2018) – a collected volume intended to give voice to the
self-identified “alt-right” – says the main goal of the
American new right is to discuss “the one topic that white
conservatives are not allowed to discuss,” namely “race.”
How
does Trump respond to allegations he may be enabling racist behavior.
This exchange occurred during questioning by Yamiche Alcindor of PBS
Newshour, when she asked President Trump whether calling himself a
“nationalist” might embolden white nationalists. Here is the
exchange:
Alcindor: “On the
campaign trail, you called yourself a ‘nationalist.’ Some people
saw that as emboldening white nationalists. Now people are also
saying…”
Trump: “I don’t
know why you say that, that is such a racist question.”
Alcindor: “There are
some people who are saying that the Republican Party is now
supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric.”
Trump: “Oh, I don’t
believe that, I don’t believe that, I don’t believe that. Why do
I have my highest poll numbers ever with African-Americans? Why do I
have among the highest poll numbers with African-Americans? That’s
such a racist question.”
[Alcindor tries to
speak.]
Trump: “Honestly, I
know you have it written down and everything. Let me tell you, that
is a racist question.”
(Bernard
E. Harcourt. “How Trump Fuels the Fascist Right.”
New York
Review Daily. November 29, 2018.)
Empowered
by President Trump, the new right is being dangerously radicalized.
They support such violent means as “physically removing”
leftists. The alt-right leadership deliberately encourages and
mobilizes extremists, and thus those who pander to their movement
help normalize the group as a crucial political constituency.
Richard Spencer, the
notorious former leader of the alt-right says …
"Trump did become
kind of a messianic figure and it was cool and edgy to like Trump.
There’s no question that he was a vehicle for us … There is no
question that Charlottesville wouldn't have occurred without Trump.
It really was because of his campaign and this new potential for a
nationalist candidate who was resonating with the public in a very
intense way (May 2019).”
(John
Haltiwanger. “CNN faces backlash after interviewing white
nationalist Richard Spencer about Trump's racist tweets.” Business
Insider. July 17, 2019.)
While many of the key
figures and groups associated with the alt-right have turned on
Trump, others have not. Former Trump advisor
Roger Stone even asked the Proud Boys – a far-right neo-fascist
organization that admits only men as members and promotes and engages
in political violence – to work as his security detail at a
political conference in Oregon in March 2018.
Racism is not a fringe
element of the Alt-Right; it’s the movement’s central premise. At
the heart of the movement of white identity is hatred – hatred of
anything that is not white. Steve Bannon, who refashioned the website
of conservative icon Andrew Breitbart into “the platform for the
Alt-Right,” has encouraged activists to “turn on the hate” and
“burn this bitch down.”
The alt-right rejects
American exceptionalism – the notion that America’s unique
founding on a idea rather than a people gives it a special character
and role in the world. Trump's failure to distance himself from the
alt-right speaks to his desire to maintain part of his base no matter
their sick, racist beliefs. Trump can never be the architect of unity
and equality because he cannot deny his own aversive racism – his
personal negative feelings and beliefs about blacks.
“The
Alternative Right asks conservatives to trade God for racial
identity,
liberty
for strongman statism, and the unique American idea that 'all men
are
created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights'
for a cartoon Nazi frog.”
– Michael
J. Knowles, author of Reasons to Vote For Democrats
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