I like that it includes the word "right" and can therefor be used in place of "right" or "conservatives" or even "Republicans." It perfectly encapsulates all that the GOP has become-racist, sexist, xenophobic, white nationalists, white supremacists. Not since "neocon" have we had a term with such negative connotations to use to describe the GOP and this is a far more accurate term to describe their current state under Trump.

The key is to make sure people know that "alt-right" includes the KKK, white supremacists, MRA, etc and that's easy to do because online definitions make it pretty clear that that is who the they are. I use the term all the time anymore: "Trump and his alt-right supporters," "the alt-right has taken over the GOP," etc. It's a gift horse-a perfect way to encapsulate all the ugliness in the GOP right now.

This is why the GOP always wins the messaging/branding game. They come up with a word for the left and run with it-repeating it over and over until it sticks. We come up with a word, debate it, suggest better words, etc, and the moment passes. This one is sticking for once and I couldn't be happier. Let the GOP choke on it. It's exactly who they have become.

Alt-right were the gamergate asshats.

Alt-Right includes Stormfront.

They've been around for a couple of decades now.

Last edited Fri Aug 26, 2016, 10:56 PM - Edit history (1)

Racists, hate groups, and even misogynistic terrorists hide behing the "alt-right" dog whistle, which serves no other purpose but to try to mainstream hatred, paranoia, bigotry, and prejudice. They hide behind the 1st Amendment to peddle their subversive ideologies, and then turn around and play the victim card when mainstream media calls them out on their extremism, trying to pretend that there's some sort of "white genocide" going on because they have to share power with whom they regard as their inferiors.

In fact, Trumpanzees are just sore because they're no longer socially absolute lords and masters. Trump has given them not only a voice, but a megaphone and now those terrorists they have a license to scream out loud their prejudiced views which are not socially acceptable.

We should be calling them the "terrorist right", but no one in the media has the political will to call those extremists what they really are: traitorous terrorists out to overthrow the legitimate government and turn the United States into a totalitarian hellhole overnight.

we're not legitimizing them, we're exposing them. They used to be a bit of a shadow force, lurking in the dark places of the internet, only coming out to attack people, like the vicious cyber assault on Leslie Jones.

Having a convenient name for them actually helps for the "mainstream" to recognize who they are and what they really do.

They thought they could take over a major political party. What they've done is expose their true motives and goals.

Now they can't hide behind a seemingly innocuous name and that's what they have been doing. Now they can't do it anymore. They are the AltRigbt/KKK/Storm Front bigots they have always been and trying to rename themselves to cover up the stench is over. The mask is off.

It's an effective way of putting a thousand words of description into one or two. It's the way to encapsulate a concept and sum it up in one word. If we know what the 1% means, and what the 99% means, then calling them the Alt-Right should do the same. It actually helps the sum them up.

From now on anyone who hears someone say the Alt-right will be understood.

Can't agree more.

to create lesbian farmers who are invading red states.

Or just label the 3rd circle Alex Jones Believers

Who else would you like to exclude from all political discussion and simply describe as an 'irrational racist'? I expect the list is a little longer than the 'alt-right' crowd.

There's already enough words to describe what they are: Nazi. Klan. Racist. Bigot. White Supremacist.

There's already enough words to describe what they do: Assault. Battery. Murder. Genocide. Ethnocide. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate...

Gamergaters, Manosphere denizens, the Sad and Rabid Puppies in Sci-Fi fandom, Silicon Valley libertarians all cross paths in the alt-right. They are net savvy and insidious, swarming so-called "SJWs" "Cucks" and "Blue Pillers" on social media. Milo Yannopoulos was their main media mouthpiece at Breitbart; Vox Day is their main spokesman in SFF Fandom; Paul Elam in the MRA movement.

Room to reshape their party while still saving face. They can claim they were hijacked. I don't mind giving them that out if it leads to a more modern, thoughtful, less reactionary Republican Party.

I'd like to think some good comes out of these Trump times. Helluva lotta light shining in on them. Give 'em some room to regrow. No need to salt the earth beneath them, IMO.

This has got to be embarrassing to the old guard and the moderate money.

Ever the optimist, I am ~

A way to sanitize an otherwise despicable segment of humanity. We dumb ourselves down, and desensitize society at large by accepting "code" words that are non descriptive.
Call a spade a spade and do not allow morons to hide under rhetorical umbrellas.

That's what the CNN's of this world should be saying and asking tRump why isn't he denouncing them? Asking him why he supports them.

It's maddening.

but I did a quick Google search and the more I hear of this group the more they sound like the early Nazi Party.

The are mainstream Republicans as best I can tell. That's what they have called themselves for decades.

I see what you're saying.

It was Bush 2.0 with a new name to overcome Bush's unpopularity.

Sure, they're using Trump to gain respectability, but these are the Constitution Party, the American Independent Party, the Silicon Valley Libertarians, the White Supremacists - the REALLY far right. They use the Internet to spread their faux-intellectual poison, and they have some useful idiots supporting them on the left as well.

thanks, and welcome to DU

David Pakman, whose show was regularly shared on here, was one of the biggest apologists for Gamergate, giving all sorts of nasty human beings a place to spout their misogyny and hate under the guise of "showing both sides". And I'm not naming names, but there have been posts sympathetic to Milo Yannapoulos here, "SJW" dropped in threads, and lots of apologies for MRAs. The alt-right movement isn't just about white supremacy, it's about fighting white male's perceived oppression - it ties into misogyny and all sorts of Internet culture war ugliness along the way.

And that is the problem once again the Republican party is trying to pretend that it isn't them. Exactly like they did with the tea party but the reality is they are all one party.

Letting them get away with pretending it is some fringe element when it is completely clear from the primary that it was the complete nut jobs that carried the day. Over 70% of them voted for either trump or Cruz or Rubio.

Every one of them a complete lunatic. Sure trump is completely ridiculous but the alternative candidates that carried the rest of the party were little better.

Pretending this is some alternative part of the Republican party is hogwash

But the alt-Right IS different. Read what alt-right spokesmen have written. Venture into the cesspool that is Vox Day's website, read some Milo Yiannopoulos' ravings. This isn't garden variety conservatism.

They HATE the Republican party, hence the term "Cuckservative" used to describe every Republican leader except for Donald Trump. They may share SOME ideas with the Republicans, but they are a different animal. It's a nasty mix of racism, misogyny, homophobia, nativism, libertarianism, authoritarianism and Christian dominionism that has been bred on the Internet. They aren't about white people, they are about white men (and white women who are properly subservient to them).

I encountered these assholes through the Hugo Awards and Gamergate, but it's all the same players spouting the same crazy.

But they aren't a separate part of the republican party, They are the majority of the republican party.

Last edited Sat Aug 27, 2016, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)

That one of tenets of the alt right is that man is not created equal. That is a horrifying belief.... so yes it must be stopped.

Nazis sound so much less threatening when covered with the boring Alt-right label.

Whichever propaganda whore introduced this term of art into general discourse probably got a big bonus.

I object.

"Alt-right" seems to better capture what the Republican Party has become.

Destroying the environment, wasting tons of money on useless military projects, condemning the poor to worse and worse lives, rigging the economy so the rich get richer and near monopolies appear, setting things up so money accumulates in a few hands and such people can buy congress critters and even presidents is not conservative. It is the very opposite of "conservative."

A true conservative would work to save the environment for future generations. A true conservative would work to foster competition, even use the power of government to make sure it happens. A true conservative would not allow money to accumulate in few hands but would see that it were spread around so no small group of people would have an outsized say in the running of the government. True conservatives in short would work to keep democracy stable and vibrant to save it for future generations.

The Republican Party has had a couple of leaders who believed in the above - Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln to be specific - but for the most part they have believed in short term profits over long term good. Republicans have mostly worked for the very rich, using the powers vested in them to make the rich richer and to help accumulate massive amounts of money in few hands. In turn they have reaped favors from the rich.

Racism is a part and parcel of what Republicans have practiced over the years especially since Nixon and the infamous "southern strategy" which the whole party participates in. Alt-right - the implication being a different kind of right wing politics - seems to describe it well.

I think Republicans have become the alt-right party.

in a major speech, you say anyone using it "is aiding and abetting them"? Your concern is misplaced. She explained it for you:

The really, really weird stuff was in alt.whatever.

Still is, actually, now that I think of it.

Yes, alt.country is named on the same theory. And is awesome.

Big fan of Jay Farrar, James McMurtry, I think they sit kind of on that border between rock and roll & alt-country.

Don't know if you've heard Brandi Carlile, she's got an amazing voice.

Alt-right means warmed over white-supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, and fascism topped with a facade of Internet Cool(TM).

Ultimately "Alt-Right" is a bunch of despicable garbage only followed by pathetic edgelords surfing 4chan from their parent's basements

seriously

read his interview in Paris Review, not that it has much to do with this, cause it's old, but.....

from the author of Neuromancer, which envisioned the internet back in 84

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6089/the-art-of-fiction-no-211-william-gibson

In November 2008, Paul Gottfried addressed the H. L. Mencken Club about what he called "the alternative right". In 2009, two more posts at Taki's Magazine, by Patrick J. Ford and Jack Hunter, further discussed the alternative right.

The term's modern usage, however, is most commonly attributed to white nationalist and self-described "identitarian" Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and founder of Alternative Right.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right

Good post

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Are you they kidding me right now, the republican party is the "Alt-right", they've embraced and passed extreme right wing policies throughout the last half century. Is the "alt-right" responsible for fighting against civil rights, shutting down the government for the last 8 years, blocking a president from appointing a vacant spot on the supreme court, and the rest of the unprecedented, extreme, anti-American acts of "moderate" Republicans?

IMO, the media is attempting to save the Republican party, they know it's going to be a landslide and are attempting to distance Trump from the rest of the party. It's a shame they don't invite past and current leaders of the Republican party to discuss the differences between the "alt-rights" positions and the party's. If they managed to get a stage full of extremist from the party a few months ago to debate, I'm sure they can manage to get one of them to do an interview. They may use cleaner language but they share the same world views and agree on the same policies.

They are literally trying to find a path for the regressives to avoid culpability for the bed they have shat for 50 years.

Possibly an effort to salvage the duopoly. Instead of throwing the TeaPubLieKLANS an anchor they are throwing a fucking life preserver like a bunch of idiots.

I definitely don't recollect any ongoing mention over the past 30+ years.

Was starting to think everyone was falling for this alternative right excuse. The fact Hillary is handing it to them does not please me.

pretending the wackos, racists, bigots, and idiots are something different than other Reich Wingers when the truth is they are all the same garbage probably in a counterproductive effort to make regressive economics, police statery, and warmongering to be accepted as normal and acceptable positions if they revert to more comfortable dogwhistles and more traditional fuckery.

This is a bunch of horseshit though because so called traditional conservatives are also racists, bigots, theocrats, and delusional idiots for decades pretending they haven't been running "the southern strategy" since Nixon and doubled down with Reagan while fighting tooth and nail against choice, gay rights, favoring deportations or wage slavery for migrants and too often both, and relentlessly working to disenfranchise black and brown people.

Simply stated "alt right" is a bogus term meant to legitimize right wingers while pretending that Trump and the Teabaggers are different on the substance rather than just the same tired bullshit stated brashly and openly rather than crouched in rhetoric that allows plausible deniability for exactly what the Republicans have fostered and cultivated now for generations.

It is nothing but right wing whitewash most likely for nefarious purposes.

You have stated it perfectly.

I mean, the manifestos they published in the past couple days make it perfectly clear what they're about. Old fashioned Nazi-style racism, basically.

https://twitter.com/kasie/status/768899336369430529/photo/1

So many at DU - understand perfectly what the Altright is especially reading your comments..

For example - The 40 Maps at VOX helped me understand the history of the Middle East, and why we are,we are...(a wealth of information)..especially our involvement with Turkey in Syria - and the US telling the Kurds to back away from some of the areas recently retaken from ISIS (w/Kurdish help no less)...

With Media Matters I look for clarity for terms - such as Alt-right...or research re: lies by Media.

.So many at DU - understand perfectly what the Altright is especially reading your comments..

.this article below helped me to understand what Altright is and who the players are..it is lengthy -

..snip....

The New Yorker reported that the term “alt-right” was coined by white nationalist Richard Spencer, who “described the movement in December as ‘an ideology around identity, European identity.’” The Anti-Defamation League described Spencer as “a symbol of a new generation of intellectual white supremacists” who “runs a variety of ventures that promote racist ideology.”

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/25/what-alt-right-guide-white-nationalist-movement-now-leading-conservative-media/212643

But then, you already know this stuff...be well all - Stronger Together

They aren't all really republicans. In fact, There are many who have traditionally voted democratic.

Many are liberal in almost every way other than their exaggerated perception of the marginalization of white men.

Some are trolls, doing it "for the lulz". It's a big bucket of diverse political views on economic and social issues across the left/right spectrum. They are litterally tied together by nothing other than a desire to shout down what they see as "PC, SJWs" online. I honestly know a couple who were Bernie Sanders supporter that are in this "alt-right" group. You can't say they are republicans.

They are ugly and actively working to rile up racists and misogynists, but many truly are not doing so from any place on the political spectrum.