Alt-Right Movement And Its Effect On Contemporary Politics

The internet allows “the construction of new public spheres where social movements can organize mobilizations, discuss and negotiate their claims, strengthen their identities, sensitize the public opinion and directly express acts of dissent”, and this is one of the reasons that makes the internet a great place for the rise of movements such as the alt-right, which has grown rapidly the past years in the United States. In particular, empirical studies of both the internet and radical organizations have stressed that extreme right groups use the Net for a variety of goals, including the dissemination of propaganda and incitement to violence and this actions, when amplified on the internet, can be harmful, especially when there is doxing involved or when taken to the streets in the form of violent rallies. They do this to promote themselves and be more present in the media, which will ultimately help them with spreading their ideology.

The term “Alternative Right” was first introduced in 2008 by Richard Spencer, the phrase was used as a catch-all for a variety of right-wing voices at odds with the conservative establishment, including paleocons, libertarians, and White nationalists. Later on, Alternativeright. com was created as “an online magazine of radical traditionalism” and in 2011, Richard Spencer became head of the White nationalist think-tank National Policy Institute (NPI). He turned AlternativeRight. com over to other editors the following year, then shut it down completely, establishing a new online magazine, Radix, in its place. Their most popular members are Jared Taylor, Greg Johnson, Matthew Heimbach, Michael “Enoch” Peinovich, Kevin MacDonald and Milo Yiannopoulos. Every one of these white males work for the alt-right in different ways, mainly by writing books and articles, recording podcasts, hosting shows, giving speeches and overall creating a strong basis for the whole movement. Regarding their ideology Alt Rightists recognize human biodiversity; reject universalism; want to reverse Third World immigration into the West; are skeptical of free trade and free market ideology; oppose mainstream Christianity from a variety of religious viewpoints (traditionalist Christian, neopagan, atheist, and agnostic); and often (but not always) support Donald Trump. But none of these viewpoints are new, the main feature of the alt-right is that brought together different far-right perspectives and combined them creating a much bigger and powerful movement.

When the media first began reporting on the alt-right, the group was primarily described as a bunch of online bullies motivated by a mix of white-nationalism and male-victimhood. Nevertheless, the vast majority of alt-righters are motivated less by ideology than by an itch to instigate. They like Trump because of his ability to get away with the kind of speech they revel in. As the movement raised they increasingly flooded the internet with their online activism, this included memes, blogs (The Right Stuff blog), podcasts, twitter accounts, reddit sub-communities and also imageboard websites (like 4chan and 8chan). They use all this channels to promote their ideas while “attacking their enemies” with racist, homophobic, anti-feminist messages that promote hate speech for example, they will create post or forums about current news and comment them from their perspective and if anyone dares to have a more “progressive or leftist” view they’ll be harassed by awful comments from members in the chat. They use specific vocabulary that helps them make a point. When mocking dissidents of the alt-right, because of the abandonment of racist and anti-Semitic point of view, they use the term alt-lite; They use the term cuck/cuckold/cuckservative as an insult for someone who isn't masculine enough, usually used for other conservatives who frequently have similar viewpoints with the alt-lite. But of course they not only insult dissidents from their movement, they also insult their opponents by calling the Social Justice Warrior or SJW, this will be said to someone who advocates liberal causes like feminism, racial justice or gay and transgender rights.

However, not everything they do is insult, they also reinforce their ideology and spread their message through social media with phrases like Blood and soil or MAGA, short for Make America Great Again. They even use numbers like 14/88 where 14 stands for a “14 word” slogan: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. ” and 88 which means “Hail Hitler”. This use of online platforms might sound horrifying but for the alt-right was highly successful, in the sense that it managed to bring lots of people and media sources attention to their movement. One of their most effective ways of communication are memes, in particular, Pepe the frog. This character came out of a comic book in which he would do something politically incorrect (urinate, get stoned, etc. ) and then say his catchphrase “Feels good man”. Eventually, it became the alt-right mascot and it was used in many ways, one of the most viral moments was when Trump tweeted the meme of Pepe as himself. Another meme that became really popular within the alt-right was also created during the 2016 by taking out of context part of Hillary Clinton’s speech were she said that half Donald Trump's supporters were in a "basket of deplorables". Donald Trump Jr. posted a photoshopped picture of the movie poster for the expendables and changed their faces for conservative icons.

Nowadays, lots of political movements use hashtags to attract the users attention within whichever social network, some of the most popular hashtags used by the alt-right were #WhiteGenocide, a reference to the myth that white people are being subjected to an orchestrated eradication campaign; #ISaluteWhitePeople; #DraftOurDaughters which portrayed the Clinton campaign as fusing feminism/multiculturalism and aggressive militarism; #BoycottStarWarsVII, a racist campaign to protest the black actor who was cast in a lead role in the 2015 “Star Wars” reboot; and #NROrevolt, which arose after the National Review, a journal that has historically served as the gatekeeper to mainstream conservatism and has opposed Donald Trump’s candidacy for president. Alt Rightists began praising Trump in 2015, and by mid-2016 most of the movement was applauding him. You don’t have to look very closely to his campaign to notice how his message was provoking people anti-Muslimism, anti-feminist and populistic speech. Other way that Trump reinforces the alt-right is by saying that every media source that is against him is “fake news” and interventions like the one after the Charlottesville events where he did not condemn the extremist group by saying there was violence “on many sides”. The alt-right grew the way it did thanks to their huge presence on the internet, which made that the mainstream media could not avoid them. Posting, liking, sharing and commenting is a pretty easy and low effort way to communicate a message, but the alt-right took a step further to show who they were and started meeting and rallying in real life. The main event where we saw this was in the “Unite the Right” event that took place in Charlottesville in 2017, where the alt-right showed up with the excuse to protest the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee who fought for the confederate in the United States Civil war. The clash between the alt-right and the counter-protesters led to the killing of a 32-year old women and many injured. This rally was a turning point for the alt-right because it showed that they were able to come together in really life and be as harmful as on the internet They tried to re-do that rally this year in Washington D. C. but only 25 persons appeared and decided to leave before the actual rally took place.

The alt-right has greatly affected contemporary politics and the way we see online extremist groups. While other extremist propaganda might be more obvious or more hidden in the internet, the alt-right is out there and its ways of communication has been able to be as loud at it could be attracting attention from both users and mainstream media channels.