The alternative right or alt-right movement is a new incarnation of white nationalism that has coalesced in recent years. The alt-right has gained attention over the past year because of its support for Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and promotion of the #cuckservative meme to attack mainstream conservatives.
I was recently interviewed by radio journalist Dan Young for a program about the alt-right that he produced for WFHB-FM, a community radio station in Bloomington, Indiana. The program, entitled “Racist Revolutionaries: The Alt-Right Uprising?” was broadcast on May 10th on WFHB’s Interchange series. It’s available as a podcast here. Using clips from speeches and articles by alt-right figures such as Richard Spencer, Keith Preston, and Matthew Heimbach, the program offers an excellent analysis of the movement’s ideology, branches, activities, appropriation of anti-colonial and anti-oppression themes, and relationship with the Trump campaign. Here’s an excerpt from the description on the WFHB website:
“You’ll hear in what follows how the ‘Alt-Right’ often takes liberal or
left terminologies and turns these upside down to serve a racist,
segregationist, and white supremacist agenda. You’ll hear terms like ‘race realism’ and ‘identitarian’ and even ‘peaceful ethnic
cleansing’–words and phrases crafted to sound sensible, thoughtful,
civil. At one point you’ll hear a 19th century canard coming out of the
mouth of one of these ‘conversos’ to ‘race realism’–that ‘people of
color’ are not sufficiently advanced in civilization to ‘handle’
freedom. It doesn’t take a village; it takes a white master.”
(My interview was mostly used as background for the segment, but there’s a short clip of me speaking about 32 minutes in.)
For more about the alt-right, see the excellent coverage at AntiFascistNews.net, such as “Alternative Internet Racism: Alt Right and the New Fascist Branding” and “Going Full Fash: Breitbart Mainstreams the ‘Alt Right’.” See also my 2010 article “AlternativeRight.com: Paleoconservatism for the 21st Century,” about the online journal that gave the alt-right its name. I didn’t realize back then that AlternativeRight.com was already moving beyond paleoconservatism, but otherwise the article holds up pretty well.
“Ethnic cleansing” is an euphemism for the mass expulsion or killing of an unwanted group. Scores of ethnic cleansings in the list below were unjust, immoral, uncivilized, cruel, or criminal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_cleansings
There is no defense for advocacy of a national policy that normalizes mass expulsion or mass murder.
Is such arrogance in the “advanced” USA for real?
The failure to condemn the inappropriate oxymoron of “peaceful ethnic cleansing” potentially misinforms any discussion of such a public policy. Mass expulsion and murder are never benign for the victims. Public discussion in any nation “sufficiently advanced in civilization to 'handle' freedom” would build generic awareness of, and strong resistance to, mass murder and expulsion, in any context.
What the U.S.A. did to the indigenous American Indians should not be repeated.
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Indian-Should-America/dp/0806151749
What some Zionists did to Palestinians must not be further enabled by the U.S.A.
mondoweiss.net/2014/10/ethnic-cleansing-israeli/
Since January 2116, the alt.right movement has had its own Wikipedia page here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right
Dan Young's podcast is additionally linked here:
https://www.mixcloud.com/interchangewfhb/interchange-racist-revolutionaries-the-alt-right-uprising/
Young's critique initiated some genuine interchange. Matthew Heimbach, from TradYouth, responded, in part: “Free Trade and globalism hurt our people.”
http://www.tradyouth.org/2016/05/nprs-racist-revolutionaries-the-alt-right-uprising/
Bernie Sanders agrees that free trade hurts U.S. workers. So there is this common ground:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/29/so-called-free-trade-policies-hurt-us-workers-every-time-we-pass-them
Keith Preston responded, in part: “concerns [about mass immigration] ought to at least be heard and considered” “I don’t adhere to theories of racial determinism.”
https://attackthesystem.com/2016/05/16/interchange-racist-revolutionaries-the-alt-right-uprising/
Immigration policy is controversial. Let's hope the search for common ground continues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muw22wTePqQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
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Do we agree on these facts?
Some men in the U.S. suffer real economic hardship. Good jobs have gone overseas, and won't come back. The new jobs here are insecure and underpaid. Pensions and unions have disappeared. “Real wages” are lower. The U.S. middle class is shrinking. Some feel that Neoliberalism has failed. In decades, whites in the U.S. will be the new minority.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/29/news/economy/us-manufacturing-jobs/
https://newrepublic.com/article/133603/trump-cant-bring-back-jobs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/11/the-middle-class-is-shrinking-just-about-everywhere-in-america/
http://www.alternet.org/environment/neoliberalism-destroying-almost-everybodys-lives-how-many-people-even-know-what-it
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/06/26/is-the-civil-rights-era-over/a-civil-rights-movement-for-white-people
With these facts as background, a few are developing a new synthesis for the alt.right. The creative process is more chaotic than controlled, and more spontaneous than linear. But, hopefully, new political and economic insights will emerge over time.
Three Way Fight utterly rejects any effort to seek "common ground" with alt-rightists, white nationalists, or fascists of any stripe. All such efforts simply lend legitimacy to far rightists' supremacist and exclusionary politics, which — despite their claims to the contrary — are predicated on the belief that human equality is a myth and some groups of people are superior to others. For decades, far rightists have used points of superficial agreement with leftists, such as "free trade hurts workers," to seek alliances with leftists or recruit leftists to their cause. Anti-fascists have addressed this dynamic extensively, but two useful resources are Chip Berlet's essay "Right Woos Left" (http://www.politicalresearch.org/1999/02/27/right-woos-left/#sthash.7img5NiF.dpbs) and the book My Enemy's Enemy, which is available from Kersplebedeb Books (http://kersplebedeb.com/posts/myenemy-2/).
The alt.right does NOT seek alliances, consensus or “common ground.”
I am sorry if some egalitarians are provoked, insulted or offended by some parts of the alt.right. But I doubt if many egalitarians understand the alt.right. Apparently, the alt.right does reject egalitarianism; its reasoning is new and complex (and in a dark way).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Right#Alt-right
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11434098/alt-right-explained
Bernard, you're the one who brought up the idea of seeking common ground with alt-rightists, not me. And what do you mean by "I am sorry if some egalitarians are provoked, insulted or offended by some parts of the alt.right"? Do you mean you are sorry that alt-rightists make jokes about the Nazi genocide? Do you mean you are sorry that alt-rightists think Muslims are evil, violent, and dangerous? Do you mean you are sorry that alt-rightists routinely talk about black people as stupid, lazy animals? Or do you mean that egalitarians should look at this ideological garbage and not be offended?
What do I mean by “I am sorry”?
Say, for example, I see some 2003 photos of torture from Abu Ghraib. I might respond emotionally by writing “I am sorry,” i.e., sad, regretful, sympathetic to the victims.
http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=8560
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Anonymous Internet abuse is found on alt.right sites, but that's because verbal abuse on the Internet is pervasive, including on sports and game sites.
http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-racism-2012-5
http://www.gosugamers.net/hearthstone/features/4980-enough-is-enough-confessions-of-a-twitch-chat-moderator
http://www.toptiertactics.com/16743/abuse-in-games/#axzz4CPxjVAII
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The alt-right is primarily thousands of unpoliced blogs, podcasts, and social media accounts. The Breitbart article below is noteworthy, because Breitbart.com “mainstreams” some of these alt-right views. Three critiques target this article:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/
https://antifascistnews.net/2016/04/05/going-full-fash-breitbart-mainstreams-the-alt-right/
http://thefederalist.com/2016/04/14/you-cant-whitewash-the-alt-rights-bigotry/
http://neoneocon.com/2016/04/14/who-are-the-alt-right-and-what-do-they-want/
Still other perspectives of the alt.right:
https://therationalists.org/2016/03/23/an-honest-look-at-the-alt-right/
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-American-alternative-right