What is the Alt-Right?

Evangelicalhumanist said:

Stephen Bannon (who will soon be a major "strategy advisor" for Trump) boasted that Breitbart (which he's Chairman of) is "the platform for the alt-right"). If you look closely, what it seems to be is, as defined by the NY Times, "mostly young men who believe in white supremacy; oppose immigration, feminism and multiculturalism; and delight in harassing Jews, Muslims and other vulnerable groups by spewing shocking insults on social media."

Yeah, I think we know who they are. And the US President is going to be taking strategic advice tainted by that? You poor people. Our poor (soon to be sorrier) world. !

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Revoltingest said:

Bear in mind that the NYT (which cooperated with Hillary's campaign) is expressing an agenda driven opinion.
Do they offer you any evidence, eg, exact quotes clearly demonstrating their claims?

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Evangelicalhumanist said:

Everybody's got an agenda -- even you and I. And we all have opinions, too, while we're at it. But I try, as much as I can, to base my opinions on what I see, hear, read, and what I've been hearing for years now, from the Tea Party to The Promise Keepers to Alt-Right all seems to point in a direction that I find deeply troubling. There is much hate, very little love, increasing us-v-them, increasing need to control other people's lives (to make them conform to your own). Do you really think I can quote all that I've seen? I can't. But I read voraciously and don't think I'm entirely on the wrong track -- even though I do indeed have my own agenda.

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Revoltingest said:

Of course bias abounds everywhere. But some are worse than others, & one should be particularly skeptical when a source reports about someone they strongly oppose. That's why I ask if they just offer their opinion about Bannon's racism, or if they offer more objective evidence. There's been a paucity of the latter regarding him & Breitbart.

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Rowan said:

1 Person controlling an economy is not socialism.
Socialism is the worker's control over the means of production.


That's not how that works. A singular party controlling production is not socialism.



Whether or not they are the same as Hitler's nazis.
They subscribe to the ideology of "National socialism" and said themselves that it was not an economic term.
If you wish to ignore that that is on you.

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Evangelicalhumanist said:

Then I'm sorry, but I won't be able to recall all my "evidence." As I said, it's largely reading widely and trying to assess what I'm reading (which I do through my own filters, of course).

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Sunstone said:

I agree. Trump is doing an admirable job showing his lack of support for extremists. Case in point: Steve Bannon. Making a white supremacist your chief strategist and special counsel says "I disavow extremism" like nothing else does.

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Lyndon said:

They're not called the alt left, that part is made up.

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Valjean said:

Could this apply to anyone we know?:

Hitler as His Associates Know Him(OSS report, p.51)

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Kathryn said:

http://billmoyers.com/story/now-word-alt-left/
https://altleft.com/
http://modernliberals.com/conservatives-alt-right-liberals-alt-left/
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/2016/05/09/is-there-an-alt-left/
I could go on but you get my drift.

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Lyndon said:

Your links don't prove anything other than some commentator is calling people alt left, the far right wing actually calls themselves alt right, practically no one on the left calls themselves alt left.

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Kathryn said:

Why do you say that Brannon is a white supremacist? I mean, honestly - I'm asking why you personally believe that. What do you base this assertion on? I see a lot online about it, but when I track it down, it doesn't seem substantiated.

Is he a jerk? Probably. I can think of a lot of public figures who are probably jerks. Is he abrasive? Probably - and so is Harry Reid, and so is Trump, and so are lots of other public figures.

But a white supremacist - that's a whole other category, and a lot more serious charge. I'd like to see more proof than hearsay.

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fantome profane said:

Bannon did head Breitbart which he called a platform for the alt-right. The alt-right defines themselves as a white nationalists movement. (this is not me defining them this way, it is not the critics who define them this way, this is how they define themselves).

If Bannon is not a white supremacist, he is certainly sympathetic to white supremacists.

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Revoltingest said:

No matter what Bannon says, I've never seen anything suggesting white supremacy on Breitbart.
The "alt right" might like what they see there, but this doesn't make'm racist.

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fantome profane said:

Bannon did head Breitbart which he called a platform for the alt-right. The alt-right defines themselves as a white nationalists movement. (this is not me defining them this way, it is not the critics who define them this way, this is how they define themselves).

If Bannon is not a white supremacist, he is certainly sympathetic to white supremacists.

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Kathryn said:

Can you please give me a source in which the "alt right" defines "alt right" as being white supremacists? Now - you may be able to find some white supremacists who define themselves as alt right, but that's not the same thing - that's about like radical Islamists defining themselves as mainstream Muslims - that doesn't make mainstream Muslims radical Islamists.

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1. Racism is not a fringe element of the Alt-Right; it’s the movement’s central premise. The Alt-Right comprises disparate ideological backgrounds, but at the heart of the movement lies white identity. Richard Spencer, publisher of AlternativeRight.com, describes the Alt-Right as essentially “trying to build a philosophy, an ideology around identity, European identity.” Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance who recently co-hosted an Alt-Right press conference with Spencer and VDARE editor Peter Brimelow to describe the movement, explained, "The alt right accepts that race is a biological fact and that it’s a significant aspect of individual and group identity and that any attempt to create a society in which race can be made not to matter will fail."

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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.

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An Accurate History of the Alt-Right
Roughly four years ago, a new type of White nationalist movement began to form on the internet. This was mostly made-up of young people who were formulating ideas with minimal influence from prior White nationalist movements.

It was a situation of different online subcultures (some of which were influenced by older offline movements) coming together. These groups collided, based on their having reached common conclusions, and the result is what is now called the Alt-Right.

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The alt-right has no formal ideology, although various sources have stated that white nationalism is fundamental. It has also been associated with white supremacism, Islamophobia, antifeminism, homophobia, antisemitism, ethno-nationalism, right-wing populism, nativism, traditionalism, and the neoreactionary movement. 'Alt-right' is a recently coined umbrella term, with no clear criteria of membership yet agreed upon.The movement has been associated with multiple ideologies from American nationalism, neo-monarchists to men's rights advocates and people who oppose mainstream conservatism.

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fantome profane said:

Even if you don't think Breitbart was a platform for the alt-right, the point is Bannon saw it that way. And he though it is a good thing to give white nationalists a platform.

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