num_pages: 218
description: During the 2016 election a new term entered the mainstream American political alt-right short for alternative right. Despite the innocuous name the alt-right is a white-nationalist movement. Yet it differs from earlier racist it is youthful and tech savvy obsessed with provocation and trolling amorphous predominantly online and mostly anonymous. And it was energized by Donald Trumps presidential campaign. In Making Sense of the Alt-Right  George Hawley provides an accessible introduction and gives vital perspective on the emergence of a group whose overt racism has confounded expectations for a more tolerant America.Hawley explains the movements origins evolution methods and core belief in white-identity politics. The book explores how the alt-right differs from traditional white nationalism libertarianism and other online illiberal ideologies such as neoreaction as well as from mainstream Republicans and even Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. The alt-rights use of offensive humor and its trolling-driven approach based in animosity to so-called political correctness can make it difficult to determine true motivations. Yet through exclusive interviews and a careful study of the alt-rights influential texts Hawley is able to paint a full picture of a movement that not only disagrees with liberalism but also fundamentally rejects most of the tenets of American conservatism. Hawley points to the alt-rights growing influence and makes a case for coming to a precise understanding of its beliefs without sensationalism or downplaying the movements radicalism.
language: English
title: Making Sense of the Alt-Right
publisher: Columbia University Press