Volume 3, Number 121 October 19, 2017
Week 1 primarily deals with the Alt-Right, its origins and how it has developed.
Like most of us, I was only vaguely aware of the Alt-Right, before candidate Trump and the summer of 2016. Then it seemed it was all we were hearing about. All the publicity was coming because “The Donald” was the candidate of choice of Breitbart, a blog of the Alt-Right, edited by Steve Bannon. Mr. Bannon went on to the White House and then was dumped by Trump, but he is still a force to be reckoned with. The four remain inexorably linked: Alt-Right, Breitbart, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, truly the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
The origins of the term Alt-Right are vaguely discussed by Richard Spencer, who is said to be its father: “A movement of consciousness and identity for European people in the 21st century.” While seeming to avoid identifying with it, he is generally considered to be the man who coined the term. It is understood as being to the right of conservatism. Others are not so kind, indicating it stands for “white supremacy.” In other words it is a way of rebranding, since the Civil Rights movement made the term “white supremacy” a social no-no. What they want is to be legitimized as separate from, but a part of, the conservative coalition.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a group that specializes in tracking hate groups, defines: “The Alternative Right, commonly known as the Alt-Right, is a set of far-right ideologies, groups and people 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. Characterized by heavy use of social media and online memes, Alt-Lighters eschew “establishment” conservatism, skew young, and embrace white ethno-nationalism as a fundamental value.”
Actually the term has been around only since 2008, when the same Richard Bertrand Spencer of the white nationalist think tank National Policy Institute used it to describe a loose set of far-right ideals centered on “white identity” and the preservation of “Western Civilization.” Then in 2010 he formed an Alt-Right blog with the intent of refining his ideological tenets. He sought to put under one tent all the people who support the return of traditional values. That appealed to those who find the Conservatives of the Republican Party too tame, such as neo-reactionaries, nativists, populists, fascists and white supremacist groups such as skin-heads and the remnants of the Klux Klan.
It was as if someone had created a big new umbrella to fit them all under, and take them out of the rain. But he wouldn’t admit to racism, merely defining his concepts as being concerned with nation, civilization, race and culture. He rejected the notion of racial supremacy, but called for the creation of a separate, racially exclusive homeland for white people. It seems hard to imagine how you can have one without the other.
The Alt-Right seeks to be intimately connected to an American identity that accepted migration from only people of European birth, to ensure we maintain our cultural and racial homogeneity. It goes so far as to reject the Conservative political movement in the United States that was exemplified by Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, which it characterized as placing the emphasis on liberty, freedom, free markets and capitalism.
By implicitly aligning itself with older forms of white racism, the Alt-Right viewed itself as liberation from the left-right dialogue. Spencer worked hard to separate his movement from the Conservative wing. The Alt-Right worked to identify with younger people who are recent college graduates. Targeting this group, they sought to castigate Republicans who align themselves with Conservative values, saying they are “traitors to their people by their support for globalism and certain liberal ideals.” Recently they opposed resettlement of Syrian Refugees in the U.S. and Europe, the Black Lives Matter movement and immigration reform.
How big a threat is the Alt-Right? Judging by their size alone, they are not much of a threat. Some experts put the Alt-Right group at only 1 percent of the population. Another estimate, based on the viewership of Breitbart, shows there are about 11 million or 4 percent of the population viewing.
But since maybe one-half of those are just curious, that cuts it down to 2.0 percent. Granted not all Alt-Right advocates watch Breitbart, so we’ll up it by a factor of 1.5 which gets us to around 3 percent of the population being Alt-Right adherents.
Another sign of its insignificance is the polling. When David Duke, former head of the KKK and an out-and-out “white supremacist,” ran for the Senate in Louisiana in 2016, even on Donald Trump’s coattails, he pulled just 3 percent of the votes in the primary in a field of 24 candidates. This was in, of all places, Louisiana, famous for its Southern heritage. He failed to make the cut-off of 5 percent needed to go to the next stage of the primary.
But there may be a new wrinkle in the alt-right movement, by a latecomer. According to the New York Times of September 19, 2017, “The extreme alt-right are benefiting immensely from the energy being produced by a more moderate– but still far-right– faction known as the “alt-light.” The alt-light promotes a slightly softer set of messages. It figures. such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson and Mike Cernovich, generally frame their work as part of an effort to defend “the West” or “Western culture” against supposed left-liberal dominance, rather than making explicitly racist appeals… This apparent moderation partly explains why they tend to have much bigger online audiences than even the most important alt-right figures.”
However, as low as their numbers are, Breitbart and the Alt-Right have an important influence on the person of Donald Trump and vice versa. Donald Trump is a hero to the Alt-Right. Under the guidance of Steve Bannon, he fits right in to their philosophy by regularly beating up on Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans and others, and professing a strong sense of nationalism with his “Make America Great Again” slogan. The four: Alt-Right, Breitbart, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, regularly slurred every other Republican candidate and were vitriolic in condemning them.
Next week, Part 2, deals with the history of Breitbart and Steve Bannon, his early years, what shaped him to take over the helm of Breitbart and how he hooked up with Donald Trump.
