Due to suspected long-term subversive trolling, this article is currently under construction.
The Alt-right, or alternative right, was a short-lived, loosely defined, conspiracy theory that began in 2008, and allegedly reached prominence from 2015 to 2017 in connection to the rise of President Trump, the 2016 Presidential election, and the 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, organized to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue.
At the Charlottesville protests, many racial hate groups were present, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis which President Trump unequivocally condemned.[2] The event resulted in much violence between protestors, counter-protestors, and police, culminating in self-identified white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. intentionally ramming his car into a crowd of people, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 other people.[3]
The movement is said to not have many set stances or positions aside from opposition to multiculturalism, immigration, and globalism.[4][5] According to the mainstream media, the alt-right supposedly emerged as one of the central opponents of the Establishment, and was also oft hostile to mainstream conservatives. Although originally intended to refer to nationalists and anti-establishment conservatives, liberals have used the term to describe white supremacists and Neo-Nazis. Despite the alt-right as a movement being long dead in the last few years, mainstream leftists seem to insist on using the term as one of their many inaccurate weaponized pejoratives to scare more moderate people in the political sphere away from certain figures.
The term "alt-right" was popularized by Richard Spencer, supporter of the 2020 Biden/Harris ticket and organizer of the 2017 Unite The Right Charlottesville rally, who claims to have created the term.[6] Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and founder of The Alternative Right web magazine,[7] advocates voting a straight Democrat ticket. Regardless of the definition(s) of "alt-right," the Left's extreme beliefs and behaviors are the cause of the alt-right's growth, not conservatives.[8] The Alt-Right supposedly is synonymous with Hillary Clinton's "deplorables".
The alt-right movement's central theme is as follows:[Citation Needed]
“ | The alt-right is not defined by any particular school of thought, but by the neoliberal school of thought it rejects. The alt-right, in the simplest terms, is an unapologetic purging of liberal idiocy. | ” |
As Milo Yiannopoulos writes, "The origins of the alternative right can be found in thinkers as diverse as Oswald Spengler, Joseph Sobran, H.L Mencken, Julius Evola, Sam Francis, and the paleoconservative movement that rallied around the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan.[9] The French New Right also serve as a source of inspiration for many leaders of the alt-right.".[10]
Leading alt-right websites include Radix Journal, Countercurrents Publishing, The Unz Review, Taki Mag, The Right Stuff, and Red Ice.[11][12][13][14][15][16] More mainstream "alt-lite" websites include Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit.
Alt-right as a term appeared in November 2008 when Paul Gottfried addressed the H. L. Mencken Club about what he called "the alternative right", or a rejection of traditional conservativism. In 2009, two more posts at Taki's Magazine, by Patrick J. Ford and Jack Hunter, further discussed the 'alternative right.'
The alternative right has alternately been called libertarian nationalism, "neo"-paleoconservatism, "evolutionary" conservatism, "scientific" conservatism, and the post-religious right.[17]
The alt-right seeks racial "identitarianism" through a largely monocultural state; and cultural cohesion over economic interests.[18] The alt-right does not explicitly seek genocide of non-white races. It views national borders as a proxy for racial segregation, but does not support de facto racial segregation. Mainstream alt-righter members support skilled immigration.
Relationally, neo-nazism is a component of the alt-right (big-tent movement); the alt-right is NOT a component of neo-nazism. The alt-right heavily employs principles from Italian fascism which is the racially-agnostic predecessor of Nazism (German fascism).
Currently, there are growing tensions between the mainstream alt-right and the neo-Nazi wing. In September 2015, mainstream Alex Jones and neo-Nazi David Duke have also exchanged barbs, the former calling the latter a "Democratic plant" and the latter referring to his news organization, Infowars, as being "infiltrated" by Zionists.'In November 2016, a feud broke out between neo-Nazi Richard B. Spencer (who, as previously stated, was one of the coiners of the term "alt-right") and Mike Cernovich, one of the most prominent alt-right meme-makers, after Cernovich publicly condemned Spencer and accused him of being controlled opposition for including the use of Nazi salutes at a pro-Trump victory party he held. Meanwhile, Paul Joseph Watson was harassed on Twitter by neo-Nazis after he posted a tweet that claimed that there were two alt-rights (the mainstream and the neo-Nazis), and that the neo-Nazi alt-right were "right-wing SJWs." [7][8] In December 2016, Mike Cernovich again got into a clash with the neo-Nazi wing after he banned Tim Treadstone from attending a pro-Trump victory party after Treadstone posted multiple purportedly anti-Semitic tweets on Twitter.[9]
Metapedia, an alt-right online encyclopedia, has attacked President Donald Trump for having Jewish allies, acquaintances, friends, and family members, whom the wiki lists under the title, "Donald Trump's Jewish Friends and Associates." This list is under the "See Also" section in their article about the President, who is listed under the category, "Zionists." Note that Metapedia is fervently anti-Zionist. These are attempts to demonize Trump by linking him with a malicious, destructive Jewish plot which doesn't exist.
In light of such ideological differences, it is important to debate how often the term "alt-right" should be used by those who claim to follow the mainstream version of it. On one hand, the term is an accurate description (the mainstream "alt-right" are an alternative to RINOs). But on the other hand, since the term is most commonly attributed to neo-Nazi Richard B. Spencer, it might not be smart to proclaim to belong to a term associated with him unless you actually agree with his core positions, and doing so could be considered as ideologically dishonest as the left's hijacking of the term "liberal."
Currently, the two neo-Nazi alt-right wikis, Metapedia and Rightpedia (the latter which was created by neo-Nazis that think Metapedia isn't racist enough) portray Conservapedia in an extremely negative light. Just to be clear how deranged those websites are, at least one of them, and in many cases both of them, do the following:
The style of the alt-right is to reject the approaches of the mainstream media, and use the internet rather than traditional avenues of communication preferred by moderates.[19]
The alt-right employs a "culture jammming" approach to its opposition with memes on Reddit, 4chan, 9gag, and Facebook.[20] This involves using modified artifacts of popular culture, specifically characters such as Pepe the frog, Moonman or anime characters to demonstrate the non-falsifiabile attributes of the neoliberal mantra of social change driven by global capitalism.[21][22]
Breitbart news editor Stephen Bannon joined the Trump campaign in August 2016.[23]
The alternative right holds neoliberalism responsible for the decimation of national borders and national identity. It views the rise of left-leaning governments as an effect of multicultural amalgamation caused by large business interests run amok. Libertarian (anarcho-capitalistic) elements of the alt-right oppose Keynesianism as well which, paradoxically, is the national (as opposed to global) predecessor of neoliberalism.
Due to the alt-right's equation of globalized capitalism with Marxism, the movement has been compared to national anarchism (anarcho-fascism) on Wikipedia.[24]
The alt-right distrusts large (anti-tribal) financial institutions as corrupt and rejects the open-borders aspect of mainstream libertarianism while affirming new allegiances, such as supporting gays by encouraging firearm ownership or giving support to unaffiliated Independent candidates that are anti-establishment, regardless of their political leanings.
The alt-right has seen its membership ranks swell exponentially with libertarians that reject weak national (non-tribal) leadership within their movement. Although they are not part of the original alt-right, ex-libertarians make up a plurality of this emerging grassroots movement.
See also: Atheism and the alt-right and Secular right
Professor George Hawley of the University of Alabama and author of the book Making Sense of the Alt-Right said in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) about the alt-right movement:
“ | I would say it is definitely a young movement. I'd say that it is predominantly white millennial men. It is not sort of stereotypically conservative in its profile. I'd say that probably it is a more secular population than the country overall. That is, there are a lot of agnostics and atheists or people who are just generally indifferent to religion. And I think that it is a fairly well-educated movement on average, that as I think that probably the model alt-right member has at least some college education.[25] | ” |
In the Western World whites and males are both majorities within the atheist population (see: Demographics of atheism and Western atheism and race and Atheism and women).
The alt-right leader Richard Spencer is an atheist who calls himself a "cultural Christian".[26]
The alt-right emphasizes the crypto-polytheistic aspects of Christianity and links it to Greco-Roman and pan-European polytheistic history and "Western" accomplishments. The alt-right views Christianity as a religion distinct from Islam and Judaism in its polytheistic elements and "special" relationship to European history. The alt-right accepts the study of evolution and global warming as a product of Western polytheistic science. It rejects the faction of evangelical Christianity for its pro-immigration stance (for proselytization purposes) although it views Europe's history of colonization and Christian proselytization as having a positive effect on those respective colonial countries. Evangelical Christianity has moved to the right in recent times when it comes to immigration. Evangelical - especially white Evangelicals -overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. However, the alt-right has not made significant inroads among evangelicals due to many alt-right individuals being irreligious or not very religious. In addition, many evangelicals have a sense of solidarity with their fellow Christians from other races.
Due to its pro-"Western science" views the alternative right has on occasion called itself "evolutionary" conservatism or "scientific" conservatism.
The alt-right views Israel as a model for white nationalism and/or Christianism. While opposing Jewish 'hypocrisy' on white identity issues, the alt-right admires the Jewish unity and tribalism manifested in a Zionist state [27] In keeping with its isolationist approach, the alt-right opposes an EXCLUSIVE alliance between America and Israel.
A large chorous of authors and activist in the alt-right view the Constitution as subordinate to nationalism, and some view the Constitution as completely outmoded, including mainstream alt-right publications such as Radix Journal, Counter-Currents, and The Right Stuff.[28][29][30][31][32] When the former advocate of alt-right ideology Vox Day wrote a journal entry saying that he believes that "the constitution has failed us",[33] one single author on Red Ice came to the defense of the Constitution.[34]
Some college students are coming to resent the ideals of Progressivism, which seemingly pushes them toward the right. However, having a deep dissatisfaction for the perversion of "equality" (which is actually re-packaged sameness) that has come as a part of Postmodernism, this leads them to reject "equality" outright and no attempts to describe the difference between equality and the push toward sameness have any effect. As such, these students are not progressives, but they wholly reject Christianity,[35] the Christian Reformation, the resulting age of Enlightenment, and finally the United States Constitution.[36]
The movement is smeared by elitists of society that thinks it knows better. However, the usual liberal scare tactics and other social engineering schemes are rejected. The alt-right moves to its own beat. The alt-right opposes Feminism, and masculinity is promoted. Anything liberal and the views held by RINOs: immigration, political correctness, cultural appropriation, misogyny, "homophobia", etc. are fiercely rejected.
Where the Establishment or modern conservatives shy away from a fight for fear of being called "racist", "bigoted" or "ignorant" by liberals projecting their own attitudes and beliefs onto them, the alt-right unapologetically fights against this notion.
Extremist leftwing progressives at the Southern Poverty Law Center have taken notice, recently commenting about Breitbart and their inclusion to the SPLC hate-list[37]
“ | The outlet has undergone a noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas. Race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-Immigrant ideas –– all key tenants making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.' | ” |
While the term has been used in specialized writing about politics and ideology for years, the term gain mainstream usage following a speech by Hillary Clinton attacking Donald Trump's connections to the Alt-Right.[38]
We've hijacked your -isms.
We've hijacked your -phobias.
We've hijacked your divisive rhetoric.
We've Pepe'd/meme'd/gif'd/video edited it all into oblivion.
You can censor/flag/ban us, we'll come back stronger. We always do.
We won't be silenced.
We won't go away.
We're just getting started.
Paul Gottfried argues that the alt-right brand has been permanently damaged due to the alt-right leader Richard Spencer and others ruining the brand of the alt-right and the movement is now associated with neo-nazism and racism (Richard Spencer made some allusions to Nazism and gave a Nazi salutes at an alt-right gathering and it was caught on film. Spencer claimed he was only joking and it was a display or irony and exhuberance. At the alt-right gathering, many alt-righters joined him in his Nazi salutes).[39][40]
The alt-right is heavily dependent on white nationalism. In Europe, the fertility rate of whites is below a sub-replacement level.[41] In the United States in many areas, whites have a sub-replacement levels of fertility while racial minorities are growing thanks in part to their higher fertility rates (this is particularly true among Hispanics).[42]
See also: Atheism vs. Christian revival and Christian apologetics and Revival
Evangelicals have not been very receptive to the alt-right. If there was a substantial growth of evangelicalism in the West (due to a revival, their higher fertility rates, immigration and other factors), it likely would not benefit the alt-right.
In addition, a significant growth of evangelical Christianity in the West is due to American Hispanic evangelicals and evangelical European immigrants.
Categories: [Politics] [Marxist Terminology]