Alternative Right Movement And Its Effect On Contemporary Politics

Introduction

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 that 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 on the internet can be harmful when taken to the streets in the form of rallies to promote themselves and be more present in the media, which as an extremist group as the alt-right, this translates in power.

Origin of the movement

Even though the alt-right movement became popular during Donald’s Trump electoral campaign it existed before that. 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) and its affiliated Washington Summit Publishers. 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.

Alfred W. Clark in Radix offered a slightly different summary. In his view, 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. Alt Right has become closely intertwined with the so-called manophere. Manospherians have emphasized male victimhood — the false belief that men in U. S. society are oppressed or disempowered by feminism or by women in general, they also tend to promote homophobia and transphobia in an effort to re-impose rigid gender roles. Jack Donovan, an early contributor to AlternativeRight. com who has stayed active in the Alt Right as it has grown, offers a related but distinct version of male supremacist ideology. Donovan has advocated a system of patriarchy based on “tribal” comradeship among male warriors.

Communication strategies

The alt-right became well-known with Trump’s campaign where most of the movement supported the republican candidate. They 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 (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 to 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-light; they’ll 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-light. But of course they not only insult dissidents from their movement, they also insult their opponents by calling the Social Justice Warrior or SJW, a 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, 1844 and MAGA. This use of online platforms might sound horrible 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 for this extremist group, as said before, are memes. In particular, Pepe the frog, this character came out of a comic book in which Pepe would do something politically incorrect thing (urinate, get stoned) 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 a picture 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.

Trump’s campaign

As the movement grew, attracting a wider circle of sympathizers we To a large extent, Alternative Rightist support for Trump’s presidential candidacy followed a related approach of using the system against itself. Alt Rightists began praising Trump in 2015, and by mid-2016 most of the movement was applauding him. At The Right Stuff, “Professor Evola-Hitler” argued that Trump had broken important taboos on issues such as curtailing immigration and ending birthright citizenship, damaged the Republican Party’s pro-Israel coalition, shifted the party closer to ethnic nationalism, and “offers the opportunity for the Alt-Right to expand quickly, ”. #DraftOurDaughters portrayed the Clinton campaign as fusing feminism/multiculturalism and aggressive militarism. Since that was a reasonably accurate description of Clinton’s politics, the meme was equally effective as either disinformation or satire. A number of Alt Right sites, such as Vox Popoli and The Daily Stormer, promoted the campaign. 108 Along with spreading the “ads” themselves, Alt Rightists also spread the phony claim that mainstream media had been taken in by them.

Media tools

“The ‘alt right’ communication strategy is an internet focused string of commentators, blogs, Twitter accounts, podcasters, and Reddit trolls, all of which combine scientific racism, romantic nationalism, and deconstructionist neo-fascist ideas to create a white nationalist movement that has almost no backwards connection with neo-Nazis and the KKK. ”16 Some online centers of this larger, more amorphous Alt Right included the imageboard websites 4chan and 8chan, various Reddit sub-communities, and The Right Stuff blog and podcasts. Some Alt Right outfits offered neonazi-oriented politics (such as The Daily Stormer and the Traditionalist Youth Network), while others did not (such as Occidental Dissent, The Unz Review, Vox Popoli, and Chateau Heartiste).

Real life presence

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 ralliging in real life. We saw this in events such as Charlottesville, etc.

Conclusion

The alt-right has greatly affected contemporary politics and this is because the online presence of an extremist group such as the alt-right has never being so powerful in terms of bringing the other media outlets attention and helping with attacks to Hillary Clinton while promoting Donald Trump’s popularity. The proliferation of the alt-right has open a debate for hate speech and how should it be handled within the frame of social networks.