Alt-right

The alt-right (short for alternative right) is a far-right movement that opposes tolerance, humanism, multiculturalism, and social justice (items they file under "Cultural Marxism" and "SJW"). Their racist ideology, including Social Darwinism, eugenics, and ecofascism, is rooted in the ideology of white supremacists (and birth control activists) Madison Grant and https://newrepublic.com/article/154971/rise-ecofascism-history-white-nationalism-environmental-preservation-immigrationhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/15/anti who their hate-ridden websites frequently extol.https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/stoddard-t-lothrop
The movement is largely internet-based, made up of selfish, black-hearted, frustrated late-blooming teens-to-twenty-somethings, and is the merger of traditional white nationalists, neo-Nazis, right-libertarians, and neo-Confederates overlapping the neoreactionary movement, Gamergate, and the manosphere. The alt-right consensus of the day generally rests at the juncture of those three groups. The term originated with Richard Spencer's white nationalist magazine/blog Alternative Right, nicknamed "AltRight".
The alt-right wholeheartedly embraces the overt racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and homophobia typical of neo-Nazi affectations — in Twitter-paced combination with the shitposting, bullying, doxxing, and trolling of 4chan/8chan culture as a lifestyle. You'll find them on /pol/, The Daily Stormer, My Posting Career, Gab, Voat, The Right Stuff, and (most notably) in every unmoderated comment field on any decent website where wholesome and inclusive news reports may go otherwise unprotested.
The frothing vanguard of manufactured outrage, executive producers, and core demographic of fake news-driven social media hysteria, perpetually in search of today's new bar for "edgy", they're also the ones who popularized "cuckservative" as a term of abuse for anyone on the right that they consider not racist enough.
Whether they are primarily neoreactionaries who are into white nationalism, or white nationalists dressing their ideas up with neoreactionary jargon, is probably a distinction without a difference. The term "alt-right" has come more generally to signify "Trump supporters who think swastikas are good". In this context, it's just a hip alias for "white supremacists" — with all the extra PR-savvy granted by its plausible deniability for when the need arises. 
The Associated Press recommends:https://blog.ap.org/behind-the-news/writing-about-the-alt-right
 
==Origins==
The press has been calling it an online phenomenon, even though some factions pre-date the internet. 4chan and vloggers are the online element, with others having one foot in the real world and the other online. You can trace it back to father's rights and mythopoetics in the 1980s,Blake, Mariah, "Mad Men: Inside the Men’s Rights Movement—and the Army of Misogynists and Trolls It Spawned", Mother Jones January/February 2015.Futrelle, David, "Warren Farrell’s notorious comments on date rape: Not any more defensible in context than out of it", We Hunted the Mammoth 3 May 2013.Lorentzen, Christian, "How Poet Robert Bly Unleashed ‘Iron John’ and Started the Drum-Thumping Men's Movement of the '90s", NY Mag (8 June 2016, 11:00 am). which had some crossover with Christian Identity/Quiverfull in the 1990s.Risen, James, "Christian Men Hold Huge Rally on D.C. Mall", NYT 5 October 1997.Anderson, Dianna, "MRAs for Jesus: A Look Inside the Christian ‘Manosphere’", Rewire (30 September 2014, 5:26pm). Over time, it became more myopic and selfish, with Men's Rights, Ladder Theory, PUA, and the Red Pill.Laudsbaum, Claire, "Men's-Rights Activists Are Finding a New Home With the Alt-Right", The Cut (14 December 2016, 11:30 AM). Gamergate was the debutante ball for much of the reaction, which had been building but had no central ladder.Romano, Aja, "Notorious men’s rights troll launches 'safe space' for Gamergate", Daily Dot (12 Nov 2014, 8:23AM).Amano, Aja, "How the alt-right’s sexism lures men into white supremacy" Vox (14 Dec 016, 2:20pm EST).
The paleoconservative wing is perhaps the oldest (hence paleo):Alberta, Tim, "‘The Ideas Made It, But I Didn’t’", Politico May/June 2017. Pat Buchanan (himself a Nixon aide) founded the news journal which produced Richard Spencer, and you have guys who were once mainstream like Peter Brimelow,Weigel, David, "Four lessons from the alt-right's D.C. coming-out party", The Washington Post 10 September 2016. who was an aide to Orrin Hatch and editor of Forbes. Then you have the Clinton-era militia groups like the Oath Keepers,Sharrock, Justine, "Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason", Mother Jones March/April 2010. who are in or out depending on who you talk to."'Alt-Right' Declares Flame War On Oath Keepers", Southern Poverty Law Center (15 June 2017). There's the Silicon Valley neoreaction wing made up of techies and businesspeople, where some have considerable weightPiggot, Stephen, "PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel to Address White Nationalist-Friendly “Property and Freedom Society” Conference in September", SPLC (9 June 2016). (see Peter Thiel advising Trump), and others are just extremely prolific bloggers (Mencius Moldbug).Gray, Rosie, "Behind the Internet's Anti-Democracy Movement", Atlantic 10 February 2017. There's the academic HBD/eugenicist wing made up of professors, grad students, and their followers, some of whom are affiliated with neo-Nazi parties like Kevin MacDonald. The internet didn't cause these things so much as it allowed consolidation into the loose coalition of the alt-right. There are even more sects, but the point of things like "Unite the Right" is to try to hold all of them together.
Who exactly brought the movement to the mainstream? Richard Spencer, who is best described thus:Meet the White Nationalist Trying To Ride The Trump Train to Lasting Power: Alt-right architect Richard Spencer aims to make racism cool again by Josh Harkinson (Oct. 27, 2016 5:00 AM) Mother Jones.
The correct response to Spencer and the alt-right is, "Wow, that's some fucking cringey racialist bullshit."
But behind Spencer and other key members of the alt-right was funding from old-guard racists: members of the particularly a failed businessman and heir to Regnery Publishing fortune.This Man Used His Inherited Fortune To Fund The Racist Right by Aram Rostom & Joel Anderson (July 23, 2017 at 8:10 am) BuzzFeed News.Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics by Elle Reeve (2024) ISBN 1982198893. After Spencer left the alt-right, he said of its funders:
===The dawn of shitposting===
Although the alt-right has only become prominent in recent years, the truth is that random people using the internet to spread cringey white supremacist propaganda is nothing new. Perhaps the first example of such would be the 1995 Usenet essay The Long March by Ian P. McKinney of the neo-fascist National Alliance.http://www.panix.com/~lan/crusader/spam/racist.html This essay was infamous not only for its extreme bigotry and logic that would best be described as being not even wrong but also for being spammed everywhere on the internet.
The essay begins with a plea, supposedly to those who care enough about the fate of Western civilization, to heed the author's words. The essay then attacks Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh for not being racist enough for McKinney's liking (one can assume that, if the word "cuckservative" existed at the time, McKinney would have used it).
From there, the author proceeds to rattle off a painfully long diatribe in which he fusses about IQ scores, religiously cites The Bell Curve, and uses all other manner of disproven statistics, half-truths, stereotypes, and condescending pseudo-intellectual jargon to reach his main "conclusion": that African Americans are developmentally inferior to Caucasians and that the only reason anyone believes otherwise is because of the fiendish machinations of Jewish communists who have successfully infiltrated the cultural anthropology departments of major universities as part of their sinister plot to overthrow Western civilization.
McKinney argues that racial equality is a "false religion" promoted by fanatical sheeple consisting of liberals and moderate conservatives (and yes, he counts people like Gingrich as "moderates"), and there's also a brief mention of immigration causing white genocide. At least the knowledge that McKinney clearly has a lifetime's supply of tinfoil is of some use should we need to borrow some for baking.
==Major themes==
Superstructure taken from "Dismantling the Alt-Right Mythology".Dismantling the Alt-Right Mythology. Archived from whitemansturban.wordpress.com, 10 December 2016.
===Whites are under attack===
The subbreddit /r/AltRight defined itself thus:
===Men are under attack===
In journalist Mike Wendling's book Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House, the alt-right's views on women's rights are explained thus:
===Language is under attack===
The alt-right has effectively co-opted common complaints about "political correctness" into their agenda, using the assumed overzealousness of "politically correct" people and movements to demonize everyone on the left and make their own far-right ideals look palatable in comparison. On this, Wendling writes:
===Ethnostates===
While not much different from views expressed by more traditional white nationalists like Tom Metzger, the alt-right often aims to create ethnostates, such as a "white homeland" and the potential division of the continental United States into ethno-"regions". For example, noted alt-right leader Matthew Heimbach has called for the white region to be named "Avalon".https://www.tradworker.org/2015/03/a-nation-once-again/
===On religion===
The alt-right's thoughts on religion are all over the place, but still decidedly intolerant of religious minorities, as Wendling explains:
===Rebranding ideas from past losers===
Any one of these alt-right leaders is basically just taking the ideas of past idiots like David Duke, Tom Metzger, and George Lincoln Rockwell (who was such a joke in his day that he was murdered by a bunch of fellow neo-Nazis in 1967 at a laundromat), dusting them off and updating a few words here and there. Then when shit gets crazy, much like alt-right figurehead Gavin McInnes, they abandon the alt-right ship and say the whole thing was just a joke anyways. Nice dodge, guys.
Most who are involved in the alt-right movement are who will latch onto anything to get a press agent. When judged on accomplishments alone, someone like Milo Yiannopoulos, who can't seem to figure out how to properly book a room at UC Berkeley, stands shoulder to shoulder with a complete nutjob like David Duke, who can't get through an interview without frothing at the mouth about his fake PhD and disavowing his past KKK affiliation. 
On substance, they put forth the same vile tenets of white extremism, Nazi ideology, and ethnic division as part of their modern agenda. They share the same laughable ineptitude as their forefathers when making the most basic logical case for their point of view when challenged with the most simplistic line of rational questioning. Some may try to come up with a semi-coherent argument in support of their socio-political position that "white people are good, period"… but then they will flail uselessly when someone brings up the obvious counterargument that there is a hell of a lot of unjustifiable atrocities committed by whites against non-whites and that, no, you really can't blame all that on "Cultural Marxism" or immigrants or the "liberal media" or "the Jews".Unless, of course, they take it as a badge of honor and claim that "the kikes and niggers deserved it". Realistically, this is an argument that no white supremacist would ever concede, as it goes against their ideology to take personal responsibility for any wrongdoing whatsoever.
===The need for attention===
For whatever reasons, most of the leaders that have emerged from this new movement have shared the same trait as their glorious forefathers in so far as needing attention from traditional and non-traditional media outlets, especially the former. This might also be what separates them from your average brainrot neo-Nazi and KKK members who have, up until now at least, only really managed to be able to produce typo-strewn monthly publications and random acts of violence, mostly on their fellow race warriors™.
In being able to actually put a sentence together, traditional media outlets have raced to interview, profile, and "examine" this group of "new voices" emerging on the fringes of the right-wing. The major issue with this development is that, at the end of the day, they are just rehashing the tenets of the same old racist propaganda for their own gain.
The other problem is, by giving these alt-right figureheads a platform, traditional media outlets have allowed them to spread a damaging underlying message of hatred to many more ears than their incompetent predecessors could have ever dreamed possible and have potentially lent them an air of legitimacy. This has tragic consequences, as witnessed by some alt-right-inspired mass shootings. Even when the alt-right tries to walk back from these events as they usually do, they rarely miss an opportunity to take credit for these tragedies by blaming their behavior on black people once the dust has settled.
===Doublethink===
For the alt-right's massive number of conspiracy theories, slurs, and insults to make any sense, obscene use of doublethink is basically required. Jonathan Weisman notes:
===Alt-tech===
Alt-tech refers to a recent phenomenon of various "free speech" internet websites and companies which serve as alternatives to mainstream websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Wikipedia, Patreon, GoFundMe, and dating sites. In many cases, these websites are overflowing with typical alt-right content, and while many of these websites do not necessarily support the views of the alt-right (with a few exceptions), they tend to have plenty of users who post or upload content that is explicitly in line with the alt-right. "Alt-tech" websites have included PewTube, Gab, WrongThink, Voat, Hatreon, Rightpedia, Goyfundme, Rumble, and WASP Love. One New York Times reporter had used various "Alt-tech" outlets and found them to be a mess in his own eyes.
The alt-right idea of "free speech" is the protected right to call for the deportation or death of non-whites,Siegel, Jacob, "Dylann Roof, 4chan, and the New Online Racism", Daily Beast (29 June 2015, 5:25 AM ET). trying to get a feel for those who agree with you,Op Sea Lion, Stormfront. Retrieved from Pastebin 19 February 2014.Savvy, Brad, 29 Mar 2018 Tweet, Twitter. coordinating efforts to disseminate and refine the ideas espoused in the name of "free speech",Park MacDonald and Jason Willick, "The Man Who Invented Identity Politics for the New Right", NYMag (30 April 2017 8:55 pm). public events to spread the ideas outside of one's social circle,Harkinson, Josh, "Cashing in on the Rise of the Alt-Right", Mother Jones (16 June 2017, 6:00 AM). and lobbying from a political standpoint to have those ideas brought into the public discourse."Steve King tweet backing Geert Wilders sparks social media backlash", BBC 13 March 2017.Bernstein, Joseph, "Here's How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream", Buzzfeed (5 October 2017, 3:28 p.m.).Hayden, Michael Edison, "It's OK to be white: How Fox News is helping to spread Neo-Nazi propaganda", Newsweek (19 November 2017, 10:00 AM).Lenz, Ryan, "Racists roam the halls of CPAC, and the conservative conference ends in controversy over racist comments", SPLC 26 February 2018. All of this is legal as long as it is done through the magical lens of probable deniability.Fulbright, Alexander, "Nazi imagery on full display at alt-right event in Washington", Times of Israel (21 November 2016, 12:44 pm).
==Unite the Right==
On August 11–12, 2017, various alt-right white nationalist, white supremacist, and antisemitic groups held a "Unite the Right" (UtR) rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they protested against the Jews and their supposed plan to replace the white race with non-white immigrants.Ostensibly, the rally was about maintaining a Confederate monument in the city, though it became clear that was only one uniting factor. Also in attendance were right-wing militia groups such as the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters.(August 14, 2017). "White nationalists see violent Charlottesville rally as successful turning point". PBS NewsHour. Somewhat presciently, the Proud Boys officially skipped the rally, citing the planned attendance by explicit neo-Nazis as a factor.Alan Feuer (August 14, 2017). "Far Right Plans Its Next Moves With a New Energy". The New York Times.Some members nonetheless attended in defiance of P.B. leadership, for which they were kicked out of the organization.
Cries of "Jews will not replace us" and "You will not replace us", followed by "White Lives Matter" and the Nazi-era slogan "Blood and Soil" were heard. Unfortunately for the protesters, Antifa counter-protesters were standing in their way, and what was a simple protest soon turned to violence when a neo-Nazi named James Alex Fields Jr. killed a woman named Heather Heyer during the rally, for which he received a sentence of life in prison. This wasn't the only act of violence: a protester was seen shooting a gun, a black man ( was assaulted by six white men resulting in Harris suffering a concussion and four of the white men receiving jail sentences, and League of the South Florida members led by Craig Tubbs shoved their shields at counter-protesters.
===Aftermath and "optics"===
The organizer of the rally, Jason Kessler, was denounced and later sentenced to 50 hours of community service for punching James Taylor. The Daily Stormer insulted the victim killed in the rally during the subsequent media frenzy, resulting in the website being expelled from Google and GoDaddy.com. Many social media platforms (especially those where the event was planned or promoted) began policing alt-right accounts and content more aggressively following UtR. Members of the movement were also doxed, fired by their employers, or removed from payment processors."Charlottesville: One Year Later". Anti-Defamation League.Christine Lagorio-Chafkin (September 23, 2018). "How Charlottesville forced Reddit to clean up its act". The Observer.
Meant to be a "rally the troops" showing that might further galvanize the movement, the rally ultimately achieved precisely the opposite, despite initial appearances to the contrary. It was essentially a real-world culmination for the various sub-movements of the alt-right which had been bubbling up for several years, and many within the movement considered it a catastrophic failure in terms of political optics (that is, public relations). That was especially because of a combination of: the widely-noted presence of explicit neo-Nazis and Klansmen, the arrests of several prominent alt-right activists (like Richard Spencer and the ensuing violence, national-scale media coverage, and a general failure by the alt-right to impress its desired narratives about the event onto the public.Leighton Akio Woodhouse (September 21 2017). "After Charlottesville, The American Far Right Is Tearing Itself Apart". The Intercept.
Thus, many sought to adjust their tactics from then on accordingly. This internal "optics war", among other internal divisions inflamed by the inflection point which the Unite the Right rally represented, helped fuel the relative disunity of the movement over the next few years.Elle Reeve (November 19, 2021). "The Unite the Right trial is exposing the chasm between who plans White nationalism’s battles and who does the fighting". CNN Kessler (among others) would go on to promote more "sanitized", optics-focused strategies along the lines of the It's Okay to Be White poster campaign.Cristina López G. (February 26, 2019)."White supremacist behind Charlottesville Unite the Right rally blames fellow racists for failure of his extremist crusade". Media Matters for America. Others within the alt-right would reject optics-focused strategies. In one striking summary of this division within the alt-right, the perpetrator of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting would declare online immediately before committing the massacre: "Screw your optics, I'm going in."Alex Amend and the Network Contagion Research Institute (November 1, 2018). "On Gab, domestic terrorist Robert Bowers engaged with several influential alt-right figures". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center.(November 6, 2018)."Tree of Life Shooting Revives 'Optics' Debate Among White Supremacists". Anti-Defamation League.
Another example of such splitting occurred with the far-right Vanguard America group, which James Alex Fields Jr. had marched with at UtR. As a direct result of UtR and the resultant optics war infighting, the group splintered, with taking a more euphemistic approach and a more explicit approach to the goal of promoting neofascist ideology."Vanguard America". Anti-Defamation League. Members of the alt-right who are overly concerned with optics (if to an even greater extent than the examples cited above) might be categorized as alt-lite; these fellow travelers would tend more towards eschewing open association with the alt-right in the succeeding years whether or not they shared the same goals. It is, after all, only a difference of style rather than substance.
===Similar events===
Just one week after the UtR rally, a "Free Speech Rally" in Boston drew only a few dozen attendees, who were drowned out by some 15,000–30,000 counter-protesters.Julia Glum (August 19, 2017). "Boston Free Speech Rally Ends Early After 15K Counter-Protesters Drown It Out". Newsweek. This could be seen as a direct manifestation of the American public's rejection of the alt-right immediately following UtR.
Another "Unite the Right" event (dubbed "Unite the Right 2") was held a year later, in Washington, D.C. — and it had nowhere near the broad attendance by a wide variety of alt-right groups and individuals that the original event did. Instead, it was overwhelmed by a massive crowd of counter-protesters.Dakin Andone, Mallory Simon and Sara Sidner (August 13, 2018). "White nationalists dwarfed by crowds of counterprotesters in Washington". CNN.Allie Conti (August 16, 2018). "How the Alt-Right Is Spinning Their Humiliating 'Rally' in DC". Vice News. Seeing as this event was also organized by Jason Kessler, it was illustrative of the movement's loss of trust in him and its renewed focus on optics (at least for the time being).Luke Barnes and Joshua Eaton (June 29, 2018). "Charlottesville rally organizer is lonely, desperate for mainstream acceptance in leaked chat logs". ThinkProgress.
The 2021 U.S. Capitol riot would later represent a similar occurrence to the Unite the Right rally, with some attendance by extreme alt-right individuals (e.g. Nick Fuentes) and groups. However, it can't be understood as a manifestation of quite the same contexts, especially because the Capitol riot was primarily spearheaded by a relatively more "mainstreamed" pro-Trump conservatism than it was by the most racially-focused and explicitly neofascist elements of the alt-right.
==US presidential politics==
===Trump cult===
The full spectrum from neoreaction to the alt-right came out solidly for Donald Trump as the 2016 presidential nominee. In an interview with MSNBC, Republican strategist Rick Wilson characterized Trump supporters as an online movement of antisemites and "childless single men who masturbate to anime," noting the "Hitler iconography in their Twitter icons and names."Heather, GOP Strategist Calls Trump Supporters 'Childless, Single Men Who Masturbate To Anime', Crooks and Liars, Jan. 19, 2016. Elements of the alt-right have also been sympathetic to Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin,Everett, Chris (August 4, 2016). "The 'alternative' right has a Putin problem". Comment Central. and Brexit — although some white nationalists call for a European superstate built along ethnic lines,Gais, Hannah (June 28, 2016). "Alt-Right Emboldened". The Washington Spectator. not unlike Oswald Mosley's policy or the Third Reich.
Steve Bannon, the former CEO of the Trump campaign who was briefly Trump's chief political strategist in the White House, is also tied in with the alt-right and anti-"establishment" populism; he was the former executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC and "turned Breitbart into Trump Pravda for his own personal gain", according to former Breitbart employee Ben Shapiro. Under his leadership, Breitbart embraced "the white supremacist alt-right", and the website "[became] the alt-right go-to website", according to Shapiro.Shapiro, Ben."I Know Trump's New Campaign Chairman, Steve Bannon. Here's What You Need To Know.". The Daily Wire. Bannon once openly bragged about Breitbart: "We're the platform for the alt-right".Sarah Posner (August 22, 2016). "How Steve Bannon Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists". Mother Jones.Alex Altman (November 14, 2016). "How Donald Trump Is Bringing the Alt-Right to the White House". Time. Ultimately, however, Bannon, like so many others who had worked in the administration, was dropped.(January 9, 2018). "Steve Bannon leaves Breitbart News amid Trump row". BBC News.
Stephen Miller, another Trump adviser, was arguably even worse: leaked emails showed his affinity for white nationalist publications (like VDARE and American Renaissance) and the broader alt-right.Joel Rose (November 26, 2019). "Leaked Emails Fuel Calls For Stephen Miller To Leave White House". NPR.Michael Edison Hayden (November 12, 2019). "Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. In another instance of possible alt-right involvement in the Trump team, social media director Daniel Scavino for Trump selected antisemitic imagery (originally from 8chan) to attack Hillary Clinton with in 2016.Chris Moody and Alexander Rosen (July 5, 2016). "How a golf caddie became Trump’s campaign confidant". CNN. Another alt-right figure in the administration was Sebastian Gorka, a follower of the antisemitic and who was a Trump adviser for seven months.Jessica Estepa (March 17, 2017). "Democratic senators call for investigation into Trump aide Sebastian Gorka". USA Today.Joe Concha (March 4, 2019). "Gorka, Fox part ways". The Hill.Tina Nguyen (April 4, 2017). "Far-Right Trump Adviser Tied to Anti-Semitic Paramilitary Group". Vanity Fair.
Aside from direct links by some Trump staffers or advisers to the alt-lite and alt-right, however, various aspects of his political career and campaigning style made him appealing to these groups. This includes his rhetoric, his authoritarianism, and his policies. Because these have often promoted political incorrectness, anti-intellectualism, and prejudice, all of which disrupted mainstream political norms in a way that benefited the far-right, his 2016 campaign received broad appeal among the alt-right.Ben Mathis-Lilley (August 14, 2017). "How Trump Has Cultivated the White Supremacist Alt-Right for Years". Slate. In turn, Trump himself has occasionally offered some direct cover for the alt-right movement, for example when he attempted to morally equate them with an "alt-left".William Cummings (August 15, 2017). "Trump spoke of the 'alt-left.' Is that a thing?". USA Today.
===Yang gang===
In early 2019, the American alt-right had a schism, with many members bizarrely defecting from Trump to Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang.Nicole Einbinder (March 26, 2019). "White nationalists and the alt-right are disillusioned with Trump — and some are joining the Yang Gang". Business Insider. The alt-right's increasing disillusionment with Trump was partly due to his failure to get his flagship Build the Wall policy passed despite his attempts to blackmail Congress into rubberstamping it, using a government shutdown; his very pro-Israel policies; his support for even a limited level of legal immigration; and his authorization of the in Syria.Eddie Kim. "Getting Yang-Pilled by the #YangGang". MEL Magazine.
The attraction to Yang was based on:
# One possibly completely innocent Yang tweet mentioning falling white birth rates.
# Another tweet, calling Americans underdogs in their own country — a sentiment that ZOG conspiracy theorists would agree with. However, his tweet was alluding more to the idea that the deck is stacked against the average American economically.
# His opposition to circumcision, as it is a religious requirement in both Islam and Judaism (neither of which the alt-right tend to be fond of). However, Yang has said he would not oppose circumcision for religious or cultural reasons and would not attempt to ban it by law, instead wanting parents to be better informed rather than having the practice "pushed" on them — as is common in the US.J.K. Trotter (March 26, 2019). "Anti-circumcision activists are angry with Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang over his stance on the procedure". Business Insider.Jeremy Hobson (March 26, 2019). "The Pros And Cons Of Circumcision: Democrat Andrew Yang Resurfaces The Debate". WBUR-FM. How this would manifest itself in the form of federal policy was unclear.
# Probably most importantly, his policy to give $1,000 a month to every American ("Freedom Dividend"), which has nothing to do with alt-right beliefs but is attractive to many people regardless of their other views.
Yang formally disavowed the alt-right's support — as would be expected by any presidential candidate that wanted to have a shot at winning an election, even Donald Trump did this (reluctantly). But he also said that he found their support hilarious, in part because of their use of surrealist Internet meme imagery.Dylan Matthews (June 15, 2019). "Andrew Yang, the 2020 long-shot candidate running on a universal basic income, explained". Vox.Russell Brandom (March 9, 2019). "Presidential candidate Andrew Yang has a meme problem". The Verge. Their frequent use of such imagery (e.g. in the vaporwave style) drew easy parallels to Trump's online supporters during the 2016 election. Despite Yang's disavowal of the alt-right, an argument in response by white nationalist Greg Johnson summarized why they may not have cared: "he will still cash our checks". In this way, many alt-righters argued that neither Trump nor Yang would help advance their political goals, but that at least with Yang, they would have gotten $1,000 a month.
People should have no illusions that this flip to a Democrat for cynical reasons indicates any fundamental political realignment. After Yang's deputy chief of staff tweeted that the Freedom Dividend was feminist, angry alt-righters sought her social security number and other personal details to dox her.Ryan Broderick (March 14, 2019). "Andrew Yang Wants The Support Of The Pro-Trump Internet. Now It Is Threatening To Devour Him." BuzzFeed News. Likewise, some on the alt-right began accusing Yang himself of being a "Manchurian candidate"-esque Chinese socialist spy. This racialized attack was despite the fact that Yang, more precisely, descends from Taiwanese immigrants.
Although the "Yang gang" phenomenon was relatively brief (especially because lost the Democratic primary), it may be seen less as reflective on Yang himself, or on some move away from racist ideology by the alt-right, but instead more reflective of a wider disillusionment with Trump that had been growing across the alt-right ever since the 2016 election. Yang gang represented a desperate search by the alt-right for any kind of alternative — to the responsibility of attaching themselves to anyone who was actually in power, and the complex political realities that entails.
==See also==
*Alt-right glossary
*Classical antiquity — includes misrepresentations and appropriations by the alt-right
*Distinction without a difference
*Neo-Nazism, of which some of the more hardcore elements of the alt-right are associated with
*Identitarianism, a European white nationalist movement that is followed by some members of the alt-right such as Identity Evropa and Richard Spencer
*Pepe the Frog, one of the many things that were appropriated by the alt-right
*4chan and 8chan, two of the hubs of the alt-right
*Gab, alt-right alternative to Twitter
*BitChute, "free speech" alternative to YouTube used by the alt-right
*Breitbart News, a news service which many in the alt-right follow
*Alt-lite, a ever so slightly more moderate version of the alt-right
*Netto-uyoku (Japanese internet far-right nationalists)
==External links==
* Alt-right, Britannica
* I’m not Sith, I’m Alt-Jedi, clarifies Darth Vader
* Clinton mentioned the alt-right, and they went berserk. Meanwhile the "alt-light" (the Gamergate-esque subset of the alt-right who didn't quite know what they were getting into) mocked Clinton for suggesting that Pepe had anything to do with fascism.
* Alternative Right (Southern Poverty Law Center)
* Vox explainer on the alt-right
* How they describe themselves, as per Reddit. DON'T BELIEVE THE MSM SHILLS!
* Cyanide and Happiness explains: Neo-Nazi Simulator 2016
*Reddit:
:*/r/AltRight - Banned on February 1, 2017 (for doxing). The mods took away the subs that let them torment black people/fat people, "investigate" a fictitious pedophile ring, or share such baubles as "the end goal of feminism is lesbianism". Truly a dark day for America.
:*/r/theNewRight
*Are Jews White? The Atlantic on the Alt-Right's hatred of Jews
*Salon's Alt-right series:
:*"A history of hate: How the alt-right became racist (Part 1)"
:*"How the alt-right became racist, Part 2: Long before Trump, white nationalists flocked to Ron Paul"
:*"Rise of the alt-right: How mainstream conservatives’ obsession with purity fueled a new right-wing radicalism"
*What 'uyoku dantai' and Japanese alt-right groups want
*The alt-right playbook - a by-the-by in-depth exploration of how the alt-right fundamentally works.
==Notes==
==References==
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