Alt-right

White supremacy and white nationalism

The alt-right is a white nationalist movement and is fundamentally concerned with white identity.^[75] Not all members of the alt-right, however, actively embrace the term "white nationalist" in reference to themselves.^[76] Hawley commented that the alt-right is, "at its core, a racist movement";^[77] similarly, the historian David Atkinson stated that the alt-right was "a racist movement steeped in white supremacist ideas".^[78] Attitudes to non-white people vary within the alt-right, from those who desire tighter restrictions on non-white immigration into the U.S. to those who call for a violent ethnic cleansing of the country.^[79] The alt-right promotes scientific racism, making the claim that—in contrast to the majority of scholars, who regard race as a socio-cultural construct—racial differences represent distinct biological differences. For the alt-right, this view is referred to as "race realism".^[80] Unlike earlier forms of racist thought—such as those of the interwar fascists—the alt-right foregrounds the idea of racial difference above that of racial superiority, leaving the latter either implicit or secondary in its discourse.^[81]

A protestor at the 2017 Unite the Right rally which was promoted by the Alt-Right. One carries the logo of Vanguard America while a man recording has a t-shirt praising German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler

Some elements of the alt-right are anti-Semitic but others are tolerant of Jews.^[82] Many in the alt-right believe that there is a Jewish conspiracy within the United States to achieve "white genocide", the elimination of white people as a racial group and their replacement with non-whites.^[83] They believe that a Jewish cabal controls the U.S. government, media, and universities, and is pursuing its aim of white genocide by spreading anti-white tropes and encouraging African-American civil rights groups.^[84] As evidence for this supposed white genocide, these far-right figures point to the depiction of mixed-race couples or children on television and the publication of articles discouraging women from having children early in life.^[85] They also cite apparent instances of white self-hatred using Rachel Dolezal – an American woman of European descent who identifies as black – as evidence.^[86]

This anti-Semitic conspiracy theory is not new to the alt-right, but has recurred among far-right groups in Western countries since the 19th century; it was the reason for the Holocaust and various anti-Semitic pogroms in European history.^[84] Andrew Anglin, one of the most prominent alt-right ideologues and a member of its neo-Nazi wing, stated that "the core concept of the movement, upon which all else is based, is that Whites are undergoing an extermination, via mass immigration into White countries which was enabled by a corrosive liberal ideology of White self-hatred, and that the Jews are at the center of this agenda."^[87] He added that for the alt-right, "the goal is to ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government. Many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated."^[88][89][90] Other alt-rightists, like Spencer, welcome the involvement of Jews within their movement.^[91]

White supremacist^{[29][92][93][94]} Richard B. Spencer coined the term in 2010 in reference to a movement centered on white nationalism and has been accused by some media publications of doing so to excuse overt racism, white supremacism and neo-Nazism.^{[61][30][95][96][97]} Spencer has described the alt-right as "identity politics for white Americans and for Europeans around the world".^[98]

While the label of white nationalism is disputed by some political commentators, including Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos, alt-right figures such as Andrew Anglin of neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer and Marcus Halberstram of Fash the Nation have embraced the term as the core philosophy their movement is based on.^[99][100] In response to a Washington Post article that portrayed the movement as "offensiveness for the sake of offensiveness", Anglin said: "No it isn't. The goal is to ethnically cleanse White nations of non-Whites and establish an authoritarian government. Many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated".^[89][90]

Many alt-right figures have expressed the desire to push white nationalist ideas into the Overton window: the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse.^[101] The alt-right has served as a bridge between white nationalism and traditional conservatism and as a tool used by white nationalists to try and push their rhetoric into the mainstream.^[102] For instance, prominent alt-right figures on Twitter have used hashtag activism focused on the white genocide conspiracy theory, combined with more mainstream-oriented alt-right hashtags, to try and bring more radical white nationalist beliefs into the mainstream.^[103]

Many leaders of the alt-right movement, including include Spencer, Andrew Anglin, Mike Cernovich, John Derbyshire and Kyle Chapman are married to, or romantically involved with, women of Asian descent. Writing in The New York Times, Audrea Lim quotes an alt-right commenter writing that "'exclusively' dating Asian women is practically a 'white-nationalist rite of passage'" and speculates that the trend may be "at the intersection of two popular racial myths", the first that Asian-Americans are a "model minority" that works hard, is high-achieving and behaves itself. The other is that Asian women are subservient and hypersexualized.^[104]

Anti-interventionism and opposition to neoconservatism

Particularly when it comes to foreign policy and international politics, the alt-right is fundamentally opposed to neoconservatism, a standpoint the alt-right shares with paleoconservatism. This was particularly reflected by Spencer's reaction in the wake of the Shayrat missile strike. This anti-neoconservative stance is informed by their strong nationalist ideology as well as through their non-interventionism and isolationism, hence the rallying around the slogans "Make America Great Again" and "America First".^[105][106]

The alt-right sought to hasten the downfall of U.S. conservatism,^[107] and conservatives were often the main target of alt-right wrath.^[108] The prominent alt-right ideologue Brad Griffin stated that "Alt Right is presenting itself as a sleek new challenger to mainstream conservatism and libertarianism... Alt Right was designed to appeal to a younger audience who reject the Left, but who don't fit in on the stuffy or banal Right either."^[109] Anarcho-capitalist Jeffrey Tucker has said the alt-right is opposed to libertarianism because the alt-right focuses on group identity and tribalism instead of individual liberty.^[110]

The alt-right has no specific platform on U.S. foreign policy.^[111] Generally, it opposes established Republican views on the issues and alt-rightists typically opposed President Bush's War on Terror policies.^[111] The alt-right has no interest in spreading democracy abroad and opposes the U.S.' close relationship with Israel.^[111] The alt-right often looks favorably on Russia's President Vladimir Putin, viewing him as a strong, nationalistic white leader who defends his country from both radical Islam and Western liberalism.^[112] The far-right Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin is also viewed positively by the alt-right;^[113] Spencer's wife, the Soviet-born Nina Kouprianova, has translated some of Dugin's work into English.^[114] Many alt-rightists also regard Syria's President Bashar al-Assad as a heroic figure for standing up to rebel groups in the Syrian Civil War.^[115]

Anti-feminism and sex-related issues

A placard criticising the alt-right displayed at the 2017 Women's March.

The alt-right is anti-feminist and favors a more patriarchal society.^[116] Unlike many U.S. conservatives, it does not argue this point from traditional Christian perspectives, but claims its position is rooted in what it calls "sex realism", arguing that as a result of their biological differences, men and women are suited to different tasks in society.^[111] Lyons commented that the alt-right was misogynistic and presented women as irrational and vindictive.^[117] The Daily Stormer for instance banned female contributors and called for reduced female involvement in the white nationalist movement, producing an angry response from various white nationalist women.^[117]

Though more popular among men than women, in part due to its gendered rhetoric, the movement does include some women who support white nationalist and anti-feminist stances.^{[118][119][120]} Some women who have risen to prominence within the alt-right have been subject to harassment and abuse from within the movement.^[119][118]

The alt-right intersects with the manosphere, an online anti-feminist subculture.^[121] There is overlap between the alt-right and the Men's Rights Activist movement, a part of the manosphere which believes that men, rather than women, face more oppression in Western society.^[111] It also adopts the Men's Rights movement view that feminism has undermined and emasculated men, and believes that men should aggressively reassert their masculinity so as not to become "beta males" or "cucks".^[80] There has been some clear influence between the two movements; prominent manosphere ideologue RooshV for instance attended an NPI conference and quoted anti-Semitic material from white nationalist sources in his articles.^[122] Some alt-right figures have distanced themselves from the manosphere and its proponents; Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Publishing was of the view that "the manosphere morally corrupts men" because it does not promote "the resurgence of traditional and biologically based sexual norms" but rather encourages rape culture.^[122]

On social issues like attitudes to homosexuality and abortion, the alt-right is divided; in contrast to the great attention U.S. conservatives have given these issues, they have been of little interest to the alt-right.^[123] Hawley suggested that the alt-right was more broadly pro-choice than the conservative movement.^[124] Many on the alt-right favored legal abortion for its eugenic purposes, highlighting that it was disproportionately used by African-American and Hispanic-American women.^[124] Some on the alt-right consider homosexuality to be immoral and a threat to the survival of the white race.^[125] Others adopt a more tolerant stance and have praised gay white nationalists like Jack Donovan, an early contributor to Spencer's AlternativeRight.com.^[126] This reflects a broader trend among white nationalists to denigrate gay culture while being more tolerant of gay writers and musicians like James O'Meara and Douglas Pearce whose views they sympathize with.^[125]

Religion

The alt-right is broadly secular.^[127] Many of its members are atheists,^[128] or highly sceptical of organized religion.^[129] Some alt-rightists identify as Christians;^[130] The Right Stuff for instance hosted an alt-right Christian podcast called "The Godcast".^[131] There are also individuals in the movement who do not believe in Christian teachings, but identify as cultural Christians, admiring the Christian heritage of Western society.^[128] Others on the alt-right oppose Christianity entirely, criticizing it for its Jewish roots, for being a universal religion that seeks to cross racial boundaries, and for encouraging what they see as a "slave morality" that they contrast with perceived ancient aristocratic values.^[132] Some elements pursue modern Paganism.^[128][133] The alt-right typically despises the Christian Right, regarding it as a hindrance to the white nationalist cause; despite the Christian Right's conservative stance on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, white evangelical leaders of the Southern Baptist Church have angered the alt-right by expressing support for refugees entering the U.S., calling for measures to help undocumented migrants gain legal status, and urging members not to display the Confederate Battle Flag.^[134] Other elements of the movement strongly embrace Christian fundamentalism and overlap with the American Christian right.^[135][136]

Wendling stated that alt-rightists viewed Islam as a fundamental threat to Western society.^[128] Hawley expressed the view that "ironically, people on the Alt-Right are less Islamophobic than many mainstream conservatives".^[137] He observed that many U.S. conservatives criticized Muslim migration to the United States because they regarded Islam as a threat to liberty; the alt-right has made little use of this argument. For them, migration from Islamic-majority countries is undesirable not because said migrants are Muslims, but because they are (mostly) non-white; it is equally opposed to non-white migrants who are Christian or non-religious.^[138]

Influences

The alt-right had various ideological forebears.^[139] The idea of white supremacy had been dominant across U.S. political discourse throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. After World War II, it was increasingly repudiated and relegated to the far-right of the country's political spectrum.^[140] Far-right groups retaining such ideas—such as George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party and William Luther Pierce's National Alliance—remained marginal.^[141] By the 1990s, white supremacism was largely confined to neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan groups, although its ideologues wanted to return it to the mainstream.^[140] That decade, several white supremacists reformulated their ideas as white nationalism, through which they presented themselves not as seeking to dominate non-white racial groups but rather as lobbying for the interests of European Americans in a similar way to how civil rights groups lobbied for the rights of African Americans and Hispanic Americans.^[142] Although white nationalists often officially distanced themselves from white supremacism, white supremacist sentiment remained prevalent in white nationalist writings.^[143]

The American white nationalist ideologue Jared Taylor became a revered figure among the alt-right, and the events organized by his American Renaissance group were attended by many alt-right members.^[144]

U.S. white nationalists believed that the United States had been created as a nation explicitly for white people of European descent and that it should remain that way.^[145] Many called for the formation of an explicitly white ethno-state.^[143] Various neo-Nazi and KKK groups adopted the term "white nationalism" and its associated rhetoric.^[146] Seeking to distance themselves from such groups' violent, skinhead image, various white nationalist ideologues—namely Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, and Kevin B. MacDonald—sought to cultivate an image of respectability and intellectualism through which to promote their views.^[147] Hawley later termed their ideology "highbrow white nationalism", and noted its particular influence on the alt-right.^[148] Taylor in particular became a revered figure in alt-right circles.^[144]

Under the presidency of the Republican Party candidate George W. Bush in the 2000s, the white nationalist movement focused largely on criticising mainstream conservatives rather than liberals, accusing them of betraying white Americans.^[149] In that period they drew increasingly on the conspiracy theory ideas that had been generated by the Patriot movement since the 1990s; online, the white nationalist and Patriot movements increasingly conversed and merged.^[149] Following the election of Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008—making him the first black president of the country—the world-views of a range of right-wing movements, including white supremacists, Patriots, conspiracy theorists, and Tea Partiers, increasingly began to coalesce, in part due to a shared racial animus against Obama.^[150]

The alt-right drew upon several older currents of right-wing thought. One was the Nouvelle Droite, a far-right movement originating in 1960s France.^[24][151] Many alt-rightists adopted the Nouvelle Droite's views on pursuing change through "metapolitical" strategies;^[152] it thereby shares similarities with European identitarianism, which also draws upon the Nouvelle Droite.^[153] The alt-right also exhibited similarities with the paleoconservatism movement which emerged in the U.S. during the 1980s. Both opposed neoconservatism and expressed similar positions on restricting immigration and supporting an openly nationalistic foreign policy, although unlike the alt-right, the paleoconservatives were typically closely aligned to traditional Christianity and wanted to reform the conservative movement rather than destroy it.^{[154][155][156]} Certain paleoconservatives, such as Samuel T. Francis, moved far closer to the white nationalist position of the alt-right.^[157]

There were also links between the American libertarian movement and the alt-right, despite libertarianism's general repudiation of identity politics.^[158] Many senior alt-rightists previously considered themselves libertarians,^[159] and the libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard has been cited as a particular link between the two movements due to his staunch anti-egalitarianism and support for ideas about differing IQ levels among racial groups.^[160][161] Also cited in connection with the alt-right was the Dark Enlightenment, or neo-reactionary movement, which emerged online in the 2000s, pursuing an anti-egalitarian message.^[162] This movement intersected with the alt-right;^[163] many individuals identified with both movements.^[164] The Dark Enlightenment however remained distinct in not embracing white nationalism, deeming it too democratic.^[165]

Origins: 2008–13

Richard B. Spencer claimed to have coined the term "alternative right" in 2008

The alt-right began in 2008.^[166] In November that year, the paleoconservative ideologue and academic Paul Gottfried gave a talk at his H. L. Mencken Club in Baltimore; although titled "The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right", it did not contain the phrase "alternative right" itself. Gottfried observed that, as the paleoconservative movement declined, a new cohort of young right-wingers were rising to take its place in challenging the neoconservative ideology then dominant in the Republican Party and broader U.S. conservative movement.^{[167][53][168]} One of those endorsing this idea was Richard B. Spencer, a fellow paleoconservative.^[169] Born to a wealthy family and raised in Dallas, Texas,^[170] in 2007 Spencer had dropped out of his PhD programme at Duke University to take up a position at The American Conservative magazine.^[171][172] Spencer claimed he coined the term "alternative right" for the lecture's title, although Gottfried maintained that they were its joint creators.^[173] As "alternative right" became associated increasingly with white nationalism in subsequent years, Gottfried distanced himself from it.^[174]

After Spencer was fired from The American Conservative, in 2008 he became managing director of Taki Theodoracopulos's right-wing website Taki's Magazine.^[175][176] The website initially contained contributions largely from paleoconservatives and libertarians, but under Spencer also gave space to white nationalists like Taylor.^[177] In 2009, Spencer used the term "alternative right" in the title of an article by white nationalist Kevin DeAnna;^[178][179] by 2010, Spencer had moved fully from paleoconservatism to white nationalism.^[169] Spencer left Taki's Magazine and in March 2010 launched The Alternative Right webzine.^[180][181] Early issues featured articles by "highbrow" white nationalists like Taylor and MacDonald as well as the Heathen Stephen McNallen.^[182] Spencer noted that "if you look at the initial articles for AlternativeRight.com, that was the first stage of the Alt-Right really coming into its own".^[182]

AlternativeRight.com consisted primarily of short essays,^[183] covering a range of political and cultural issues.^[184] Many of these reflected the influence of the French Nouvelle Droite, although this declined as the alt-right grew.^[185] Spencer later stated that he wanted to create a movement distinct from the explicit white power image of neo-Nazi and KKK groups, noting that their approach to white nationalism was "a total nonstarter. No one outside a hardcore coterie would identify with it".^[78] In 2011 Spencer became the head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute and launched the Radix Journal to promote his views;^[186] in 2012, he stepped down from the AlternativeRight website and took it offline in December 2013.^[187] By that year, Spencer was expressing ambivalence about the "alternative right" label;^[188] he preferred to be called an "identitarian".^[170]

Emergence: 2014–16

Under Steve Bannon, Breitbart News came to be seen as a gateway to the alt-right, although did not openly endorse white nationalism itself.

It was on the Internet that Spencer's term "alternative right" was adopted and abbreviated to "alt-right";^[178] according to Slate magazine, the abbreviation "retains the former phrase's associations—the mix of alienation and optimism embedded in the act of proudly affirming an 'alternative' direction—but compacts them into a snappier package."^[168] The "alt-right" tag was created with public relations in mind, allowing white nationalists to soften their image and helping to draw in recruits from mainstream conservatism.^[189] Many white nationalists gravitated to the term to escape the negative connotations of the term "white nationalism".^[190] Spencer thought that by this point, the "Alt-Right" had become "the banner of white identity politics".^[191]

It was on websites like 4chan and Reddit that the term gained wider usage, and in 2015 began to grow in popularity.^[192] Although there had previously been a strong left-libertarian contingent to these online spaces, there was a gradual rightward turn in chan culture centred on 4chan's politics board, /pol/.^[193] According to Hawley, the alt-right was "an outgrowth of Internet troll culture",^[194] and its emergence was marked by the online Gamergate controversy of 2013.^[195][196] According to the journalist David Niewert, Gamergate "heralded the rise of the alt-right and provided an early sketch of its primary features: an Internet presence beset by digital trolls, unbridled conspiracism, angry-white-male-identity victimization culture, and, ultimately, open racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic hatred, misogyny, and sexual and gender paranoia."^[197] Gamergate politicized many young people, especially males, in opposition to the perceived culture war being waged by the cultural left.^[198] Through their shared opposition to political correctness, feminism, and multiculturalism, chan culture built a link to the alt-right.^[199] By 2015, the alt-right had gained significant momentum as an online movement.^[200]

Notable promoters of the alt-right included Spencer,^[201] Vox Day,^[202] Steve Sailer,^[203] and Brittany Pettibone.^[204] Earlier white nationalist thinkers were also characterised as alt-right thinkers, among them Taylor,^[205] and MacDonald.^[61] Another prominent alt-rightist was Brad Griffin, a member of the Neo-Confederate League of the South who founded the Occidental Dissent blog.^[206] Also prominent was the American neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, who established the Daily Stormer website—named after the Der Stürmer newspaper active in Nazi Germany—in 2013.^[207] By 2016, Anglin called the Daily Stormer "the world's most visited alt-right website".^[208] While some of the websites associated with the alt-right—like The Daily Stormer and the Traditionalist Youth Network—adopted neo-Nazi approaches, others, such as Occidental Dissent, The Unz Review, Vox Popoli, and Chateau Heartiste, adopted a less extreme form of white nationalism.^[209]

Breitbart News became a popular outlet for alt-right views.^{[210][211][212]} The journalist Mike Wendling termed it "the chief popular media amplifier of alt-right ideas";^[213] Spencer described Breitbart as "a 'gateway' to Alt Right ideas and writers".^[214] Breitbart had been launched by the conservative Andrew Breitbart in 2005, but after his death in 2012 came under the control of Steve Bannon, who took its coverage in a more aggressively right-wing direction.^[215] Bannon was a right-wing nationalist and populist;^[216] he was hostile to mainstream conservatism and referred to two prominent conservative publications, the National Review and The Weekly Standard, as "left-wing magazines" which he wanted to destroy.^[217] Although much of its coverage fed into racially charged white narratives, Breitbart did not promote white nationalism;^[216] its differences from the mainstream conservative press were more in tone than in content.^[216] In July 2016, Bannon told a journalist from Mother Jones that Breitbart had become "the platform for the alt-right";^[218][219] he may have been referring not to the website's official content but to its comments section—which is lightly moderated and contains more extreme views than those put forward by Breitbart itself.^[220] Hawley noted that whatever Bannon's motives for making this statement, it was untrue because Breitbart did not embrace the alt-right's underlying white nationalism.^[216]

In March 2016, Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos co-wrote a widely read article on the alt-right which downplayed its white nationalism. Commentators described it as apologetic, while alt-rightists claimed it misrepresented their ideas.

In March 2016, Breitbart writers Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos published "An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right".^[221] In that article, they described the alt-right as being derived from the U.S. Old Right and paleoconservatism, as well as the Nouvelle Droite and older right-wingers like Oswald Spengler, Henry Louis Mencken, and Julius Evola. Bokhari and Yiannopoulos' piece became "perhaps the most widely cited article about the movement" in the mainstream press;^[222] CNN described it as being similar to a manifesto.^[223] Wendling characterized the article as a work of apologetics for the alt-right, noting that it downplayed its more extreme elements and championed its counter-cultural value.^[224] Hawley described the article as "the most sympathetic portrayal of the movement to appear in a major media venue to date".^[225]

Many alt-rightists responded negatively to Bokhari and Yiannopoulos' article. The Daily Stormer referred to it as "the Product of a Degenerate Homosexual and an Ethnic Mongrel", with Anglin producing a response article titled "A Normie's Guide to the Alt-Right" in which he placed the 1488 scene at the centre of the movement.^[226] On Occidental Dissent, Griffin asked: "What the hell does Milo Yiannopoulos—a Jewish homosexual who boasts about carrying on interracial relationships with black men—have to do with us?"^[227] Various press sources termed Yiannopoulos "alt-right";^[228][229] although Hawley noted that Yiannopoulos was "not really part of the Alt-Right" himself.^[230] Observers have instead labelled Yiannopoulos "alt-light" or "alt-lite".^[231] The term "alt-lite" appeared in the alt-right's language in mid-2016, at which point it was used pejoratively for rightists who expressed some sympathetic views of the alt-right but did not share its white nationalism.^[232] As well as Yiannopoulos, other prominent figures associated with the alt-lite included Mike Cernovich and Gavin McInnes.^[233]

On September 9, 2016, several figures of the alt-right community held a press conference, described by one reporter as the "coming-out party" of the little-known movement, to explain their goals.^[234] They proclaimed racialist beliefs by stating: "Race is real, race matters, and race is the foundation of identity".^[235] Speakers called for a "white homeland" and expounded on racial differences in intelligence. They also confirmed their support of Trump by saying: "This is what a leader looks like".^{[235][236][237]}

Donald Trump presidential campaign: 2016

The alt-right largely rallied behind the presidential candidature of Donald Trump, although he later distanced himself from the movement

In June 2015, the multimillionaire New York businessman Donald Trump announced plans to campaign to become the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election, something that attracted the interest of alt-rightists as well as from white nationalists more broadly, neo-Nazis, KKK groups, and the Patriot movement.^[238] The alt-right was exceedingly vocal in support for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.^{[23][239][240][241][242][243]} The alt-right approved of Trump's hard attitude to immigration, his calls for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., and for a wall to be built along the border with Mexico to curtail illegal immigration.^[244] Niewert observed that "Trump was the gateway drug for the alt-right", with many individuals learning of the movement through their interest in Trump.^[245]

As noted by Hawley, "the Alt-Right is most definitely far to Trump's right".^[246] Many alt-rightists recognized that he did not share their white nationalist world-view and would not bring about all the changes they desired.^[247] They were nevertheless grateful that he had shifted the national conversation rightward,^[248] and that he had shown that it was possible to successfully challenge the conservative movement from the right.^[246] Griffin called on alt-rightists to "join the Trump campaign... to take down the hated cuckservative establishment".^[249] A small minority of alt-rightists were against supporting Trump; The Right Stuff contributor "Auschwitz Soccer Ref" complained that two of Trump's children had married Jews, suggesting that Trump was therefore loyal to Israel.^[250]

Trump was a keen user of Twitter, and in November 2015 he retweeted a graphic about African-American crime statistics which included the alt-right, white nationalist hashtag "#WhiteGenocide".^[251][252] The alt-righter RamZPaul rejoiced, retweeting Trump's piece with the comment: "Trump watches and is influenced by the Alt Right".^[253] Over coming months, Trump retweeted a second tweet that had "#WhiteGenocide" as a hashtag as well as sharing other tweets issued by white supremacists.^[254][255] The alt-right saw this as further evidence that Trump was their champion.^[254]

Breitbart's Bannon had been one of Trump's most enthusiastic backers, and in August Trump appointed him to lead his election campaign.^{[256][40][257]} That month, the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, criticised Bannon's appointment in a speech given in Reno, Nevada.^[258] She highlighted Bannon's claim that Breitbart was "the platform for the alt-right",^[259] attacking the alt-right as "racist ideas [...] anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women ideas" and accusing Trump of taking the alt-right "mainstream".^[260] In her speech, she said that while half of Trump's supporters were decent individuals "desperate for change", the other half were "what I call the basket of deplorables […] The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. […] He has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have eleven thousand people—now eleven million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric."^[261] Clinton referred to the alt-right as "an emerging racist ideology" and warned that "a fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party".^{[262][263][264]} After Clinton's speech, web traffic to alt-right websites rose and the mainstream media gave it increasing coverage;^[265] Spencer and other alt-rightists were pleased, believing Clinton's speech gave them greater publicity and helped legitimize them in the public eye.^[266][267] Many of Trump's supporters adopted the moniker of "deplorables" for themselves, and the term was widely used on memes that the alt-right promoted online.^[268]

As the election loomed, Trump claimed that Obama's government would rig it to ensure a Democratic victory;^[269] far-right websites widely promoted this notion and claimed they would resort to violence or civil war in the event of Clinton's winning.^[270] When Trump won the election in November, the alt-right's response was generally triumphalist and self-congratulatory.^[271] Many alt-rightists claimed responsibility for the victory. Anglin stated: "Make no mistake about it: we did this. If it were not for us, it wouldn't have been possible"; Spencer tweeted that "The Alt-Right has been declared the winner... We're the establishment now."^[272][273] Following his election, Trump announced that Bannon would be his chief strategist, a decision popular with the alt-right.^[274][275] Alt-rightists were generally supportive of Trump's other appointments, such as his decision to make Jeff Sessions his attorney general.^[276][277] While aware that Trump would not pursue a white nationalist agenda, the alt-right hoped to pull him further to the right, taking hardline positions that made him look more moderate, and thus shifting the U.S. Overton window in their direction.^[227]

After Trump's election: 2016–

The alt-right faced crisis under Trump's presidency

Wendling suggested that Trump's election signalled "the beginning of the end" for the alt-right.^[278] Celebrating Trump's victory, Spencer held a meeting in Washington D.C. in which he stated that he thought that he had "a psychic connection, a deeper connection with Donald Trump, in a way we simply do not have with most Republicans."^[279] He ended the conference by declaring "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!", to which various attendees responded with Nazi salutes and chanting. This attracted significant press attention. When questioned on the incident, Spencer stated that the salutes were given "in a spirit of irony and exuberance".^{[280][281][282]} Later that month, Trump was interviewed by The New York Times, during which he was asked about the alt-right. He responded that "I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group."^[283][284] Many alt-rightists were angered by the disavowal.^[285] In April 2017, many alt-rightists criticized Trump's 2017 Shayrat missile strike for being an apparent reversal of his policy towards war in Syria and the Middle East.^{[286][287][288][289]} Ann Coulter pointed out that Trump "campaigned on not getting involved in Mideast" and this was one of the reasons many voted for him.^{[286][290][291][292][293]}

In 2016, Twitter began closing alt-right accounts it regarded as engaging in abuse or harassment;^[294] among those closed were the accounts of Spencer and his NPI.^[295] In February 2017, Reddit then closed down the "r/altright" sub-reddit after its participants were found to have breached its policy prohibiting doxxing.^{[296][297][298]} Facebook followed by shutting down Spencer's pages on its platform in April 2018.^[299] In January 2017, Spencer launched a new website, AltRight.com, which combined the efforts of the Arktos publishing company and the Red Ice video and radio network.^[300][301]

A participant at the Unite the Right rally giving a Nazi salute in front of counter-protesters

In August 2017, the Unite the Right rally took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, bringing together alt-right activists with members of other white supremacist and far-right movements.^[302] Many alt-rightists thought that the rally would mark a turning point in the transformation of their movement from an online phenomenon into a street-based one.^[302] At altright.com, Vincent Law for instance predicted before the event took place that "People will talk about Charlottesville as a turning point".^[302][303] However, the event and its aftermath proved demoralizing for many in the movement.^[84] A right-wing protester rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19 others; this incident brought much negative publicity to the event and its participants.^[304] Trump claimed that there were "some very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesvile protests, stating that what he called the "alt-left" bore some responsibility for the violence.^[305] Spencer stated that he was "really proud" of the president for those comments.^[305]

Alt-rightists who attended the rally often found themselves facing personal and legal repercussions for their involvement, while Internet service providers and mainstream social media websites subsequently terminated many alt-right accounts and sites.^[84] Prominent figures like Spencer became reticent about organizing public protests of this kind in future.^[84] He experimented with the use of flash demonstrations, returning to Charlottesville with a much smaller group for an unannounced protest in October.^[78] Unite the Right exacerbated tensions between the alt-lite and more extreme elements of the movement.^[306] Breitbart distanced itself from the alt-right and criticized other media outlets that described them in such a manner,^[307] as did Yiannopoulos, who insisted he had "nothing in common" with Spencer.^[308]

Although the movement saw significant gains in 2015 and 2016, it began significantly declining in power and membership in 2017 and 2018. This has been due to multiple reasons, including the backlash of the Unite the Right rally, the fracturing of the movement, more effective banishment of hate speech and harassment from major social media sites and widespread opposition by the American population.^[309] There has been widespread concern that as the chance of a large-scale political movement dies out, that lone-wolf terrorist attacks from members will become common.^[309] In 2017, terrorist attacks and violence affiliated with the alt-right and white supremacy were the leading cause of extremist violence in the United States.^[50][310]

In April 2018, The Washington Post reported that the alt-right was in "disarray" and quoted Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center as saying that it was "imploding" while Marilyn Mayo of the Anti-Defamation League said that it was "on a downward spiral", but it indicated a possibility that the alt-rightists would "regroup". Chris Schiano of Unicorn Riot said that the movement was "basically done". The problems facing the movement included "lawsuits and arrests, fundraising difficulties, tepid recruitment, widespread infighting, fierce counterprotests, and banishment from social media platforms". The article cites the dissolution of the Traditionalist Workers Party, the fact that Andrew Anglin, founder of The Daily Stormer, was in hiding due to a harassment lawsuit and the canceling of a speaking tour for high-profile alt-rightist Richard B. Spencer as signs that the alt-right may have "peaked" as a political movement. On the other hand, at least one group which has taken steps to minimize their identification as being part of the alt-right, Identity Evropa, was reported as having increased their enrollment.^[311][312]

Several alt-right candidates are running in 2018 elections as Republican candidates, such as the holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Arthur Jones for an Illinois congressional seat and the white supremacist Paul Nehlen for the Wisconsin seat of Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House^[313] and neo-Nazi Patrick Little for the United States Senate election in California, 2018.^[314][315]

Use of memes

The flag of Kekistan, one of the memes utilized by the alt-right

The alt-right's use of Internet memes to express and advance its beliefs, often on websites such as 4chan, 8chan and The Daily Stormer and through the use of Twitter,^[329] has been widely reported.^{[12][330][331][332]} Among the most widely used are the following terms:

• "Cuckservative", a portmanteau of "cuckold" and "conservative".^[333][334]
• "Snowflake", short for "special snowflake", a pejorative for entitled people.^[335]
• Triple parentheses or "echoes" to identify and target Jews online, which originated on the neo-Nazi podcast The Daily Shoah.^{[8][12][336][337]}
• Variations of the Pepe the Frog and "Emperor Trump" memes popular in alt-right circles,^[338] leading to references of "Nazi Frogs" in the media.^[339][340] These variants of the Pepe the Frog meme attracted significant media attention after the meme was criticized in an article published on Hillary Clinton's campaign website.^[341][342]
• Satirical worship of the Ancient Egyptian frog-headed deity Kek has become associated with alt-right politics, as well as satirical nationalism of the nonexistent nation of "Kekistan".^{[343][344][345]}
• The use of alt-right music such as Trumpwave and Fashwave, which is a neo-Nazi, Neo-fascist subgenre of electronic music microgenre vaporwave.^[346]
• The use of "Deus Vult!" and various other crusader iconography as a means of expressing Islamophobia.^{[337][347][348]}
• Ironic support of the Black Egyptian hypothesis, often using stereotypical African-American vernacular such as "We wuz kangz n shieet."^[349]
• The use of the phrase "dindu nuffin", a bastardization of "Didn't do nothing", in reference to claims of innocence for African-American victims of police violence, especially about Eric Garner and Michael Brown.^[350]
• Usage of "helicopter ride" memes, which endorse documented cases of leftists being dropped from helicopters by Chilean and Argentine juntas. Similarly the term "Right-Wing Death Squad" (usually abbreviated as RWDS) also callbacks to the "helicopter ride" meme and to refer to far-right, fascist death squads.^[351][352]
• Usage of the Moon Man meme an alternate version of a 1980s McDonald's mascot named Mac Tonight who promotes terrorism, race war, and genocide.^[353][354]
• Usage of It's OK to be white as a way of expressing a supposed reverse racism towards white people by minorities.^[355]

The prevalence of memes in alt-right circles has led some commentators to question whether the alt-right is a serious movement rather than just an alternative way to express traditionally conservative beliefs,^[12][23] with Chava Gourarie of the Columbia Journalism Review stating that provoking a media reaction to these memes is for some creators an end in itself.^[65] The political scientist Marc Hetherington sees these memes as an effort to legitimize racist views.^[356]

Harassment

Wendling noted that campaigns of abuse for political ends were "a classic alt-right tactic".^[357] The Daily Stormer for instance targeted the British Member of Parliament (MP) Luciana Berger, who is Jewish, by encouraging its followers to send her photoshopped images in which a yellow star appeared on her head; the hashtag "Hitlerwasright" also featured on the images.^[357] Anglin termed this program of harassment "Operation: Filthy Jew Bitch".^[358] One UK-based alt-rightist was arrested and convicted for his involvement in the campaign.^[359] In another instance, Anglin commented on the June 2016 murder of British MP Jo Cox by a far-right activist by saying that "Jo Cox was evil and she deserved to die. Her death was not a tragedy, it was justice."^[360] While celebrating violence, The Daily Stormer is cautious to remain on the legal side of U.S. incitement laws.^[360]

In December 2016, artist Arrington de Dionyso, whose murals are frequently displayed at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, described the alt-right's on-line campaign of harassment against him in detail^[361] and averred of the attacks in general: "I think it's a very deliberate assault, which will eventually be a coordinated assault on all forms of free expression". The Pizzagate conspiracy theory which inspired said harassment has drawn comparisons with the Gamergate controversy.^[362] A wave of threats against Jewish Community Centers starting in 2017 were blamed on the alt-right in a January 2017 article by Slate's Elissa Strauss, who said members of the alt-right viewed them as "a practical joke".^[363]

Debate over classification

The alt-right movement has been considered by some political researchers a terrorist movement and the process of alt-right radicalization has been compared to Islamic terrorism by political scientists and leaders.^{[365][366][367][368][369]}

A paper on the subject stated that it clearly fell under an extremist movement, saying that "alt-right adherents also expressed hostility that could be considered extremist: they were quite willing to blatantly dehumanize both religious/national outgroups and political opposition groups".^[370]

Violence

In 2017, Hawley noted that the alt-right was not a violent movement, but that this could potentially change.^[371] Conversely, Wending noted that there were individuals on the extreme end of the alt-right willing to use violence.^[372] He stated that "the culture of the alt-right is breeding its own brand of terrorists: socially isolated young men who are willing to kill."^[373]

In February 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center assembled a list of 13 violent incidents between 2014 and 2018 perpetrated by alt-right influenced people, in which 43 people died and 67 people were injured. The earliest perpetrator listed is Elliot Rodger. The list also includes Dylan Roof. The perpetrators of these events were all white men between the ages of 17 and 37, with an average age of just over 25 years old (only three of them were over 30). All but one was American, the other was Canadian.^[374]

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center:

[T]he dark engine of the [alt-right] movement is reactionary white male resentment. Alt-right propaganda is designed to nourish the precise grievances recited by the disillusioned and indignant young men that dominate its ranks. It provides a coherent – but malicious – worldview. For a recruit, the alt-right helps explain why they don't have the jobs or the sexual partners or the overall societal and cultural respect that they believe (and are told) to be rightfully theirs [...] The alt-right worldview, this rebranding of old hatreds, will remain compelling to disaffected white males and those who claim to speak for them for the foreseeable future. Worse, as this study suggests, punctuated violence will continue. For the same vision of society that the alt-right promulgates—its externalization of blame that lands on a host of enemies seen to be in the ascendancy—also aligns with the indicators of mass violence.^[374]

The Southern Poverty Law Center's analysis of these violent alt-right incidents leads it to believe that the killings it studied are not isolated events, but that the alt-right is structurally responsible for them by alienating those it attracts from participation in their communities and giving them reasons to continue to be disaffected and indeed to increase their alienation to the point where they can perform acts of violence without concern about the consequences to themselves or others:

The sprawling networks the alt-right has built around its poisonous, racist ideology have violence at its core in its pursuit of a white ethnostate. The white, male grievance culture that the leaders of the alt-right are incubating has already inspired more than 40 deaths and left more than 60 people injured.

And unfortunately, the alt-right seems likely to inspire more, as it moves further into the real world. Its leaders continue to abdicate all responsibility for the violence their ideology inspires and are becoming increasingly recalcitrant in the face of widespread condemnation.

[...] After a year [2017] of escalating alt-right violence, we are probably in for more.^[374]

Notable incidents

Unite the Right rally

Main article: Unite the Right rally

After the aborted rally at around 1:45 p.m.,^[408] a man drove his car into a crowd of counter protesters, hitting several and slamming into a stopped sedan, which hit a stopped minivan that was in front of it. The impact of the crash pushed the sedan and the minivan further into the crowd. One person was killed and 19 others were injured in what police have called a deliberate attack. The man then reversed the car through the crowd and fled the scene.^{[409][410][411]}

The ramming occurred at a pedestrian mall at Water and Fourth streets, about four blocks away from Emancipation Park (38°01′46.17″N 78°28′46.29″W / 38.0294917°N 78.4795250°W / 38.0294917; -78.4795250).^[412] Heather D. Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal from Charlottesville, was fatally injured in the attack and pronounced dead at the University of Virginia's University Hospital.^{[413][414][415]} Video footage recorded at the scene showed a gray 2010 Dodge Challenger accelerating towards crowds on a pedestrian mall, hitting people and sending them airborne, then reversing at high speed, hitting more people.^[416] The moment when the car was driven into the crowd was captured on video by bystanders and in aerial video footage taken by a drone.^[417] A photographer present at the scene said the car "plowed into a sedan and then into a minivan. Bodies flew. People were terrified and screaming". According to The Guardian, Bystanders said it was "definitely a violent attack".^[418] Of the 19 injured survivors, the University of Virginia Medical Center reported that five were initially in critical condition.^[416] By the afternoon of August 14, ten patients had been discharged from the hospital and the nine remaining patients were in good condition.^[419]

Police block the site of the vehicular crash

Shortly after the collision, James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old from Ohio who reportedly had expressed sympathy for Nazi Germany during his time as a student at Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky,^[420] was arrested.^[409][421]

Fields had been photographed taking part in the rally, holding a shield emblazoned with the logo of Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi, antisemitic, white supremacist organization. Vanguard America's leaders later stated he was not a member and that "[t]he shields seen do not denote membership" as they were "freely handed out to anyone in attendance".^[422] On August 14, Fields was again denied bail.^[423] He is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville County Regional Jail.^[421]

National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and several Senators described the alleged ramming attack as an act of domestic terrorism as did various commentators.^[424][425] Late on the night of August 12, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Department of Justice would open a civil rights investigation into the incident, with federal investigators investigating whether the suspect "crossed state lines with the intent to commit violence".^[426][427] Later, Sessions said the ramming meets the definition of "domestic terrorism" and that it was "an unacceptable, evil attack".^[428]

Heyer's mother said she wanted Heather's name to become "a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion".^[429] Heyer's memorial service was held at Charlottesville's Paramount Theatre on August 16 and Heyer's mother spoke to hundreds of mourners, asking them to honor Heyer by acting against injustice and turning "anger into righteous action".^[430]

Separate GoFundMe pages were set up for the Heyer family and for those injured in the crash, with the latter being organized by the Anchorage co-chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America.^[431] The UVA Health Foundation created a fund for medical expenses of "patients at UVA Medical Center and Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital who were injured and impacted by this unwanted violence in our community."^[432][433]

Two motorists injured in the vehicle incident have sued the organizers of the event and the driver.^[434] Fields was charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop following an accident resulting in death and held without bail.^[421][418] On August 18, Fields was charged with three additional counts of aggravated malicious wounding and two additional counts of malicious wounding.^[435] The murder charge was changed to first-degree murder on December 14.^[436]

Additionally, other acts of domestic violence committed at the Unite the Right rally were an African-American man named DeAndre Harris assaulted by white supremacist members and a Klansman named Richard W. Preston (an Imperial Wizard for the Maryland-based Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan) shooting a gun towards counterprotestors including Corey A. Long (who was black).^[437][438] In January 2018, a court hearing was held in which November 26, 2018 was set as the date for Fields' trial to begin. Trial is anticipated to take three weeks.^[439]

During the rally, Vasillios Pistolis, a U.S. Marine and a member of the terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, was recorded chanting "White Lives Matter" and "You will not replace us!" with his fellow torch-bearing protestors on the first day. On the second day he beat up a transgender woman named Emily Gorcenski with a modified version of the Confederate flag which incorporated the neo-Nazi Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) symbol in the center, even bragging about the beating in private chats in which he said "So to sum it up what I did Friday, dropped kicked that tranny that made video crying", "Today cracked 3 skulls open with virtually no damage to myself", and "I drop kicked Emily gorcenski". Pistolis had promoted the Unite the Right rally on Twitter under the account of @Gopnik_Gestapo, and posted an image of a car running over a left-winger with the caption "Good Night, Left Side". He also mocked the death of Heather Heyer calling her "a fat cunt who died of a heart attack. She wasn't even in the way of the car".^[440][441] Although Pistolis denied that he attended the rally or committed an act of violence, he was investigated by the Marine Corps and was court-martialed in June 2018 for disobeying orders and for making false statements.^[442]

Causal factors

The political scientist Philip W. Gray proposed several reasons as to why the alt-right emerged in the period in which it did. Some of these were linked to technological changes: an increasing focus on research into genetics, as reflected by the popularization of the Human Genome Project and the growth of private genetic testing services, helped to foreground the idea that genetics has a determining effect on human behaviour, a notion that the alt-right could politicize.^[452] Rapid changes in telecommunications and the emergence of new media since the 1990s meant that the conservative movement was unable to self-police its ideological borders as successfully as it had during the Cold War, allowing far-right voices to gain an increasing audience.^[453] The growing distance of the Second World War may also have been a factor, with pride in the U.S. victory over Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy providing less of a barrier to the American far-right than it had when there were still large numbers of people who remembered the conflict.^[452]

The Black Lives Matter movement and the vilification of whiteness by some on the "intersectional Left" has been cited as a causal factor in the growth of the alt-right.^[454]

The growing racial and social agitation within U.S. society was also a likely contributing factor, in particular the more militant activities of those whom alt-rightists labelled "social justice warriors". The Black Lives Matter movement, race riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, the shooting of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, the harassment of Trump supporters, and the shouting down of speakers at universities were all, Gray argued, contributing factors.^[454] The popularization of concepts from the "intersectional Left" such as white privilege, male privilege, and mansplaining, as well as the increasing use of the terms "masculinity" and "whiteness" in explicitly negative ways, also contributed to the alt-right's growth.^[454] Gray argued that it was the American left's increasing use of identity politics as the basis of its mobilization that "helped open space for increased popularity of an identity-based politics from the Right", and that the "intersectional Left's" vilification of whiteness as a source of oppression created the atmosphere for a far-right response exulting whiteness as something positive.^[455] The commentator Angela Nagle suggested that "the hysterical liberal call-out" culture of the 2010s, in which "everyone from saccharine pop stars to Justin Trudeau [was called] a 'white supremacist' and everyone who wasn't With Her a sexist" made it more difficult for people to recognize when a far-right movement really emerged online; she compared the situation with the tale of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.^[456]

The scholar of American studies Annie Kelly argued that the alt-right was "both inspired and defined by a discourse of anxiety about traditional white masculinity", a discourse which was "dominant in much of the political and cultural mainstream". In her view, much of the "groundwork" for this discourse was set forth by the conservative movement in the years following the September 11 attacks in 2001.^[457] Hawley concurred that American conservatism was "at least somewhat responsible for the rise of the Alt-Right" because some individuals within the conservative movement, such as Ann Coulter, had "effectively delegitimized complaints about hate speech and racism" as part of their attacks on political correctness in the years before the alt-right's appearance.^[458] This is something acknowledged by some conservatives, like columnist Matt K. Lewis.^[459] Nagle articulated the view that should the alt-right grow to generate great violence, those on the right who helped to make the alt-right look attractive, such as Yiannopoulos, "will have to take responsibility for having played their role".^[62]

Conservatives

U.S. conservatives were generally quick to condemn the alt-right as a racist movement.^[137] However, condemning it in this way placed conservatives in an awkward rhetorical position; for several years, conservatives had widely presented themselves as the challengers of liberal political correctness, but in condemning others for racism they opened themselves to the accusation that they too were upholders of political correctness.^[137]

Writing in The Federalist, Cathy Young stated that the website Radix Journal had replaced the Alternative Right website and describes a Radix Journal article on abortion which proclaimed that the pro-life position is "dysgenic" since it encourages breeding by 'the least intelligent and responsible' women".^[473]

In The Federalist, conservative political scientist Nathanael Blake stated that Christianity and Greco-Roman philosophy, rather than race, are the foundations upon which Western Civilization was built and that the alt-right is actually attacking Western Civilization rather than defending it.^[474] Writing for National Review, David A. French called alt-right proponents "wanna-be fascists" and bemoaned their entry into the national political conversation.^[475] Writing for The Weekly Standard, Benjamin Welton instead described the alt-right as a "highly heterogeneous force" that "turns the left's moralism on its head and makes it a badge of honor to be called 'racist,' 'homophobic,' and 'sexist'".^[476]

In National Review in April 2016, Ian Tuttle wrote:

The Alt-Right has evangelized over the last several months primarily via a racist and antisemitic online presence. But for Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos, the alt-right consists of fun-loving provocateurs, valiant defenders of Western civilization, daring intellectuals—and a handful of neo-Nazis keen on a Final Solution 2.0, but there are only a few of them, and nobody likes them anyways.^[205]

Liberals

Writing for The New Yorker, Benjamin Wallace-Wells described it as a "loosely assembled far-right movement", but he said that its differences from the conventional right-wing in American politics are more a matter of style than of substance: "One way to understand the alt-right is not as a movement but as a collective experiment in identity, in the same way that many people use anonymity on the Internet to test more extreme versions of themselves".^[23]

In Newsday, Young called the alt-right "a nest of anti-Semitism" inhabited by "white supremacists" who regularly use "repulsive bigotry". Chris Hayes on All In with Chris Hayes described alt-right as a euphemistic term for "essentially modern-day white supremacy".^[477] BuzzFeed reporter Rosie Gray described the alt-right as "white supremacy perfectly tailored for our times", saying that it uses "aggressive rhetoric and outright racial and anti-Semitic slurs" and that it has "more in common with European far-right movements than American ones".^[478][479]

Writing for Haaretz, Yishai Schwartz described the alt-right as "vitriolically anti-Semitic", saying that "[t]he 'alternative' that the alt-right presents is, in large part, an alternative to acceptance of Jews" and warned that it must be taken seriously as a threat.^[480] Also writing for Haaretz, Chemi Shalev has observed that alt-right supporters of Trump "despise Jewish liberals with same venom that Israeli right detests Jewish leftists".^[481]

Gray suggested that an examination of the alt-right would open up "the intersectional Left and its allies" to greater self-criticism given that it would highlight the similarities that their "left-identitarian" approach had with the alt-right's own world-view and encourage them to critique the theoretical basis on which identity politics is built.^[482]