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“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
The rise of Neo-Nazism and the so-called “Alt-Right” remained mostly in the shadows until 2016 and the election of Donald Trump; members of the fascist organization have hailed him as a savior who will bring their ideals into the spotlight. This is concerning to some for obvious reasons. After all, Hitler came to power legally as well. As the various names for this movement imply, it is a re-emergence of the Nazi ideology that came to power in Germany in the 1930s and sparked a World War in the 1940s. There are notable differences in the two movements, namely the surge of anti-Muslim sentiment that has accompanied politics in a post-9/11 world. Any person of color seems to be a target of the Alt-Right, as well as feminists, the educated, Democrats, and journalists; the latter of these largely due to President Trump’s repeated lies and falsehoods about the integrity of the media. There is no telling whether the Alt-Right will continue to rise to power with Trump ousted from office or retreat back into the shadows, lurking on the periphery of communities and in dark corners of the web, where it grew in the first place.
Background
The Alt-Right movement gained popularity through online sites that eventually raised them to mainstream media. 4chan in particular is notorious for the rise of the Alt-Right. The site was not originally created for this group to gather, but it became an outlet for members to share their thoughts and opinions. 4chan is purely an internet discussion board for various topics. The Alt-Right came together under the thread /pol/, or politically incorrect. /pol/ was a discussion board meant for political discussion along with other world news discussions, replacing a previous thread under the name of /new/, or 4chan’s previous news thread. (Hawley 2019, p.118). Originally, many people under the /pol/ thread shared strong libertarian views, but in the early-mid 2010s, the thread became highly influenced by far-right ideologies. The contributors to the thread turned to extremist views, allowing a platform for Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists on the site with topics of antifeminism, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and islamophobia. Many of these users supported Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and continue to grow their far-right views under his presidency. The anonymity of the website allows users to share these views without putting any personal information forth. By having this anonymity, extremists can spread their views easier and with less repercussions. The Alt-Right has spread beyond the platform of 4chan to other sites, but moderators of these sites can quickly shut down any user that brings about offensive material. However, censoring extremists’ views online brings up the controversy of violating the first amendment in the United States, since a lot of views are considered free speech. The Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that hate speech is legally protected under the first amendment. The use of memes on these threads also helped fuel the fire of the Alt-Right. Some memes can be considered extreme and dark, while others can be more subtle, while still sharing a far-right view, which is the political act referred to as “dog whistling.” (Hawley 2019, p.111) A notorious meme that became associated with the movement is Pepe the Frog. Pepe the Frog was originally a harmless cartoon that became the mascot of the Alt-Right when Donald Trump retweeted an image of himself depicted as Pepe the Frog. As this took off, Alt-Right internet users depicted Pepe in Nazi uniforms, and other racist contexts (Hawley 2019, p. 115). Many internet users today learned that, oftentimes, the Alt-Right “troll” others on the internet in order to incite a reaction from them. An online troll’s intention is to gain self-entertainment by inciting others. The Alt-Right will troll their victims in order to make them look bad in some cases as well. If a troll receives the attention they intended for, even negative, it constitutes a victory in their view. (Hawley 2019, p. 108)
Dark Minds of the Alt-Right
In the “Dark Minds of the Alt-Right,” readers are introduced to what exactly the Alt-Right is, with some research and further explanation on why this ideology is becoming an increasingly popular sub-section of main conservative thought. In 2017, the Alt-Right reached mainstream media with the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, South Carolina. The rally was made up of many far-right groups including the newly self-proclaimed Alt-Right. Since the term is still fresh, Associated Press has warned not to use the term because there is still ambiguity to it. The Alt-Right, as of now, can range from people who are white supremacists to economic populists. President Trump’s statements to the Unite the Rally sparked major controversy when he referred to the protestors as “very fine people.” This statement has been a continuing criticism even after years to come.
Patrick Forscher of the University of Arkansas and Nour Kteily of Northwestern University have put out a psychology paper analyzing the Alt-Right’s beliefs. They began to survey members of the Alt-Right with questions such as “What are your thoughts when people claim the Alt-Right is racist?” Members replied with responses such as wanting for themselves to live amongst their own “people,” those people being of European descent, or simply defined, white (Khazan 2015). Their responses also revealed that they feel like whites are at a disadvantage and see other religious and ethnic groups as subhuman, compared to the responses of people who are not part of the Alt-Right. The Alt-Right participants of the group differed in the research because they were much more likely to have a social dominance orientation – the desire that there be a hierarchy among groups in society. Men, whites, and Republicans amongst this group think that they are more discriminated against, while minorities and women were not (Khazan 2015). This find was similar to the victimhood mentality that white supremacists have, in which they believe whites are the real oppressed group in American society. In the study, participants were asked to rate groups on how “evolved” each group was. A lower score puts them closer to being ape-like, while a 100 is fully evolved. Groups seen as opponents, such as Muslims, Mexicans, blacks, journalists, Democrats, and feminists, were considered less evolved compared to whites in the eyes of members of the Alt-Right (Khazan 2015).
The researchers classified two subgroups within the Alt-Right. “Populists” were more concerned about government corruption and were less extremist, while “Supremacists” were seen as more extreme and racist (Khazan 2015). Populists were more likely to be radicalized as they met more Alt-Right members, which is not difficult to do in this age of technology. It only takes one click for people to fall into the rabbit hole of white supremacy. Contrary to the expectations of the researchers, economic anxiety was not a driving factor in the Alt-Right’s views, which is in line with studies that show that the Alt-Right is primarily made up of the rich and college-educated (Kyler 2020). Despite their education, the Alt-Right trusted media sources such as Breitbart and Fox News, resenting mainstream sources that they see as biased towards the left. In addition, Alt-Right members were more likely to engage in violent behavior and oppose Black Lives Matter.
Undercover with the Alt-Right
Studies like these are important because it is so difficult to understand the inner workings of the Alt-Right as an outsider. Knowing this, Hope Not Hate, a British anti-racist watchdog group decided to send Patrick Hermannson, a Swedish grad student undercover to discover the truths about the Alt-Right. He was chosen partly for his “Nordic” heritage, which gained him respect in the group, as Neo-Nazis are known to be obsessed with seemingly ‘pure’ heritage (Singal 2017). Hermannson marched at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, and while there, was pepper sprayed and witnessed the murder of Heather Heyer. While back in Britain, Hermannson met with a man named Greg Johnson, an extremist of the Alt-Right at a private dinner. Johnson exclaimed, “we need to bring the mainstream to us.” He expressed confidence that this tactic was working, and that the online movement is successful. This movement is defined by the far-right personalities who use videos, blog posts, and tweets to push the boundaries of the mainstream media to the right. This is also successful due to the anonymity that online platforms have and the fact that these tactics are likely to work successfully on young, white males, which is the target demographic of the Alt-Right (Singal 2017).
Hermannson met another prominent figure of the Alt-Right, Jason Reza Jorjani, founder of the AltRight Corporation. Jorjani expressed hope for a future for Europe with expulsions, concentration camps, and possible war. He took cues from Hitler, who he saw as a great European leader (Singal 2017). His corporation encourages the connectivity between American and European Alt-Right groups. The Alt-Right despises globalism, despite being a global network themselves with regular interaction between members across the globe. Jorjani made claims to having contact with Steve Bannon, a previous member of the Trump administration. Jorjani believed the Alt-Right could serve as a policy group for the Trump administration with connections to Bannon, but these hopes failed with Bannon being ousted (Singal 2017). Trump continued throughout his presidency to lend more legitimacy to white supremacy groups than was altogether proper for a world leader, but the group did not gain a foothold like Bannon again in his presidency.
A less extreme and more mainstream submovement within the Alt-Right has been termed the “Alt-Light.” The Alt-Light aims to defend “the west” against liberal-dominance and is not explicitly racist, which is why it is seen as the ‘lite’ version. This movement has denounced racism and antisemitism, but will agree to extreme immigration policies against Muslims, showing how the Alt-Right’s most extreme views now center on anti-Islam sentiment, compared to Hitler and the Nazi party’s predominantly Anti-Jewish sentiment. Because the Alt-Light is more moderate, it attracts more conservatives to the movement in larger numbers. Hope Not Hate describes the group as “less extreme, but more dangerous” (Singal 2017). Younger members of the Alt-Light who are fluent with the internet culture of memes have successfully been able to market the movement to more young people, creating more opportunity for them to be radicalized further. The rise in the use of the internet has made it easily accessible for people to get involved and find others in the community especially after taking the initial steps.
“Alt-Right” Groups Will “Revolt” If Trump Shuns White Supremacy
There raise concerns within white supremacy groups that Trump will denounce them as soon as he is sworn into office, contradicting some campaign promises that gathered interest from these groups in the first place. Trump denouncing these groups reassures liberals who feared the administration would be racist. The Alt-Right ultimately remains on the fringes of society instead of the spotlight of power since Trump does not go far right enough in enacting his policies. President Trump has backpedaled on a lot of promises, including the deportation of every illegal immigrant, although the border crisis is still an extreme situation that is at the hands of his administration. The Alt-Right starts facing fights within themselves as Trump starts making compromises in offices, and arguments such as “Trump betrayed us” vs. “You’re betraying us by saying that he did” start arising. Trump’s victory energized the Alt-Right and the movement is growing whether it is with or without him, though Trump did grow the Alt-Right base by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists, deporting undocumented immigrants, vowing to enact a Muslim ban, and build a wall. Richard Spencer, a key figure in the Alt-Right movement, celebrated Trump’s victory in a speech where he said “Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory!” The last phrase was a direct translation of the Nazi slogan, along with some audience members giving the Nazi salute. Members within the Alt-Right condemned Spencer’s speech, arguing that this was not an effective way to bring Americans to an effective understanding of race in their point of view. Eventually, President Trump disavowed the group in the beginning of his administration. Richard Spencer continues to give speeches and bring awareness to the Alt-Right and looks to run for Congress in the state of Montana. Jared Taylor, a prominent white supremacist, states the idea that both liberals and the Alt-Right had in regard to Trump is a result of media distortion. Trump is an American nationalist, but not a Neo-Nazi (Carroll 2016). Taylor has hopes and urges patience within the Alt-Right movement that someday racial nationalism will triumph in America.
Chalmers Johnson
Chalmers Johnson expanded on the theorists before him to create Process Theory, which examines the causes of revolution through the understanding that change precipitates change. Revolution is a constantly changing environment, and Johnson’s theory acknowledges that changes occur as a revolutionary situation is taking place. Johnson recognizes three stages of revolution: structural distortion, conscious political choice, and strategy and tactics (Johnson 1982, p. 187). Structural distortion and conscious political choice are both stages which can be moved between, as a movement determines the political saliency of their cause and the direction, they will be moving in. However, the final stage of strategy and tactics leads to a movement becoming solidified. Johnson argues that once violence has been used, the group’s ideology has been solidified and the movement is no longer able to operate at the level of structural distortion or conscious political choice.
This case study portrays an example of a social movement as a reaction against social change and progression itself. The use of technology and the adaptation to the modern situation is an important part of Johnson’s theory. The Alt-Right has acknowledged the importance of media today in gaining support and growing their movement, and through their use of the media have been able to find niches online. The growth of this movement through the internet, the use of 4chan and Reddit, and the translation of its ideology into a digestible form targeted at young white men through humor and pop culture depicts the continuity of the movement and its ability to change with the use of technology. The Alt-Right has targeted this demographic and made itself more accessible through the use of pop culture, including the Pepe the Frog meme, and the distillation of extremism through euphemisms such as “race realist” or “human biodiversity.” This discourse has made the extremist ideology of the Alt-Right more palatable to the Americans they are attempting to win over. Johnson discusses the flexibility of movements and the continuity of changes of a movement. This is seen as the Alt-Right has adapted their use of technology and found their niche in online forums to where their extremist viewpoints are repeated back to themselves.
In some ways it is difficult to define clear goals of the Alt-Right, which operates more as an ideology than a single group. By not defining itself as a clear organization, the Alt-Right is able to resonate as a more individualized ideology than an association with an organization. While some members of the Alt-Right have clearly defined their own organizations, such as Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, many exist more loosely in internet discussions and forums, lacking an organizational hierarchy and making them more difficult to condemn as a group.
The anger driving the Alt-Right speaks to a level of structural distortion in which this portion of the population feel strongly enough about these beliefs to attempt social change. However, this perspective of structural distortion is based on the skewed view of the attack on the “white race” and is built on a culture of victimization and reallocation of blame towards minority groups. The Alt-Right is motivated through a victimization culture, repeating rhetoric such as “white genocide,” “cultural continuity,” and Spencer’s goal of “peaceful ethnic cleansing.” As one of the most prominent advocates for the ideology, Spencer’s demand for a “white homeland,” and calls for racial separation have become a key concept in the movement (Spencer).
The Alt-Right, while growing its online base, has become more and more a part of the mainstream conversation, with connections to many visible personalities such as YouTubers and far-right news organizations. This has allowed for a spread of the ideology while not becoming explicitly active. However, violent actions committed in the name of the Alt-Right have become more and more common, and they have become more visible through physical protests and events. The events of the Unite the Right rally shocked the country, not only because of the violence and clear racist displays taking place but also by the rhetoric surrounding the events afterward from prominent public figures, particularly Donald Trump. Through Johnson’s model, at the level of strategy and tactics, the group in question becomes visible and is unable to operate again under the levels of structural distortion or conscious political choice. Once the group becomes violent, their declaration of purpose and political saliency becomes solidified (Johnson 1982, p. 192). Many theorists discuss the role of terrorism in revolution, and how the rhetoric around violence can determine the public’s reaction. The article “‘Alt-Right’ Groups Will ‘Revolt’ If Trump Shuns White Supremacy,” discusses some of the Alt-Right’s reactions against Spencer’s blatant references to Adolf Hitler, with the use of “Hail, Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory!” The concern from some within the Alt Right is that blatant terrorism or racism will remove the Alt-Right from mainstream conversation and isolate them from the people. Richard Spencer describes the desire to have a movement that does not look “crazed or ugly or vicious or just stupid,” in order to continue gaining recruits.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx presents an analysis of the way in which capitalist structures perpetuate social conflicts, through his discussion of dialectical materialism and thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. These two concepts analyze the contradictions created by material needs and desires, and the reaction to change in a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis relationship. Marx focuses his analysis on the philosophical perception of the world through materialism, and the socioeconomic reality created through the assignment of material value. He argues that instead of attempting to mend perceptions of social discontent, the structure itself must be changed to acknowledge the disconnect created by the material perception of reality.
Marx’s discussion of dialectical materialism emphasizes the conflict of unmet material needs leading to discongruence and contradictions in social expectations (Marx). In the case of the Alt Right, this discongruence is created because of the victimhood mentality many members hold. This perception of oppression is created from social movements towards equality, away from social structures which favor white people, leading to those in the Alt Right to feel as if they are losing what they see as their rights. As another aspect of this discongruence Ted Gurr describes the concept of relative deprivation as the difference between material expectations and material capabilities, leading to relative deprivation when expectations are not met by capabilities (Gurr 1970, p. 27). In the case of the Alt-Right, this perceived deprivation has been blamed on minority groups. Relative deprivation gives an explanation to the discontent felt by the Alt Right when viewed through the perspective of dialectical materialism.
Marx’s identification of the importance of class in revolutionary movements is also applicable to the Alt-Right, in examining the rhetoric created about the ingroup and out group. Besides economic concern, the Alt-Right boasts racial purity and takes on a victimization culture, seeing themselves as defenders of their race, protecting themselves against attack from diversification. An aspect of the relation to class struggle has been the outburst of Alt-Right anger not just to minorities, but also Democrats and the so-called ‘bourgeoise,’ often with ties back to the support of social programs and globalization. A major motivation of the Alt-Right is the reaction to globalism. The Alt-Right’s fear of this “globalist elite,” returns back to this deferral of blame for their position. The personification of the constructed fear of being overtaken as a “white race,” has taken on the image of a global conspiracy of progressive politicians and has become one of the cornerstones of Alt-Right fear.
Marx’s analysis of the faults of capitalism, through both “Das Kapital,” and “The Communist Manifesto,” analyze the structures in which the proletariat unifies into a revolutionary class, as well as breaks down the exploitive qualities of capitalism and the circumstances for revolutionary situations. Understanding the situations in which rebellion occurs, specifically in a socialist or communist uprising, is an important aspect of understanding how the fear of these movements have been co-opted by far-right movements, such as Hitler’s rise to power and rhetoric today surrounding the Alt-Right.
Marx’s theory of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis states that knowledge is created from knowledge by locating internal contradictions and finding conclusions. Marx applied this theory to observe revolutionary change by defining thesis as the status quo, antithesis as the mechanism for change, and synthesis as the outcome of the interaction between the two. The Alt Right emerged as an antithesis to social changes towards equality and operates as a reactionary force to what they believe to be oppression towards themselves. Marx acknowledges thesis, antithesis, and synthesis as a process, highlighting the cyclical nature of change. The synthesis of the reaction of the Alt Right to advancement of equality will be seen in how society adapts to their demands, and whether or not it addresses the structural aspects which promote them.
Conclusion
The growth of the Alt-Right movement has come about through the increasing polarization in America, and the ability for extremism to find a platform on the internet. This combined with connections to Donald Trump and the Republican party, has in the past few years enhanced a kind of “legitimacy” of the group that promotes hatred and fear. Tactics of deplatforming and identifying members of the Alt-Right have become an important aspect of breaking down the ideology, however in order to fully address the issue a conversation must be started around why this extremist ideology has found such a firm grip on American culture. The Alt-Right movement has perpetrated violence, xenophobia, and hatred, and must be addressed.
Works Cited
“’Alt-Right’ Groups Will ‘Revolt’ If Trump Shuns White Supremacy, Leaders Say.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, December 27, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/27/Alt-Right-donald-trump-white-supremacy-backlash.
Gurr, Ted. Why Men Rebel. Routledge, 1970.
Hawley, George. The Alt-right: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Khazan, Olga. “The Dark Minds of the Alt-Right.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, August 18, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/the-dark-minds-of-the-Alt-Right/537144/.
Kyler, Anna. “Alt-Right as a Social Movement: Ethnic Competition Theory and Internet Searches for Online Content.” Arizona State University, 2020.
Johnson, Chalmers. Revolutionary Change. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Workers’ Educational Association, 1848.
“Richard Bertrand Spencer.” Southern Poverty Law Center, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/richard-bertrand-spencer-0.
Singal, Jesse. “Undercover with the Alt-Right.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 19, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/Alt-Right-white-supremacy-undercover.html.
Image Attribution
Charlottesville “Unite the Right” Rally by Anthony Crider is licensed under CC BY 2.0