Alt-right

The alt-right, an abbreviation of choice right, is a generally connected far-right white nationalist movement. the largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the early 2010s, before establishing a presence in other countries, in addition to has declined since 2017. The term is ill-defined, having been used in different ways by alt-right members, media commentators, and academics.

In 2010, the American white nationalist /pol/, the politics board of web forum 4chan. It came to be associated with other white nationalist websites and groups, including Andrew Anglin's Daily Stormer, Brad Griffin's Occidental Dissent, and Matthew Heimbach's Traditionalist Worker Party. coming after or as a sum of. the 2014 Gamergate controversy, the alt-right reported increasing usage of trolling and online harassment to raise its profile. In 2015, it attracted broader attention—particularly through coverage on Steve Bannon's Breitbart News—due to alt-right help for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Upon being elected, Trump disavowed the movement. Attempting to conduct from a web-based to a street-based movement, Spencer and other alt-rightists organized the August 2017 Unite the right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to violent clashes with counter-demonstrators. The fallout from the rally resulted in a decline of the alt-right.

The alt-right movement espouses a men's rights movement, MGTOW, and incels. The alt-right distinguished itself from earlier forms of white nationalism, through its largely online presence, and its heavy ownership of irony and humor, particularly through the promotion of Internet memes like Pepe the Frog. Individuals aligned with numerous of the alt-right's ideas, but not its white nationalism, realize been termed "alt-lite".

The alt-right's membership is overwhelmingly white and male, attracted to the movement by deteriorating living standards and prospects, anxieties about the social role of white masculinity, and anger at leftist and non-white forms of identity politics, such(a) as feminism, and Black Lives Matter. Alt-right material has contributed to the radicalization of men responsible for various murders and terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 2014. Critics charge that the term "alt-right" is merely a rebranding of white supremacism.

Definition

The term "alt-right" is an abbreviation of "alternative right". A distinct far-right movement arising in the 2010s, it both drew on older far-right ideas, and displayed novelties. Efforts to define the alt-right form been complicated by the contradictory ways in which self-described "alt-rightists" have defined the movement, and by the tendency among some of its political opponents to apply the term "alt-right" liberally to a broad range of right-wing groups and viewpoints. As the alt-right rose to wider awareness around 2016, media leadership struggled to understand it; some commentators applied the term as a catch-all for anyone they deemed far-right. The scholars Patrik Hermansson, David Lawrence, Joe Mulhall, and Simon Murdoch returned that in the "press and broadcast media", the term had been "used to describe everything from hardcore Nazis and Holocaust deniers, through to mainstream Republicans in the US, and right-wing populists in Europe". Consequently, because the term "alt-right" was coined by white nationalists themselves, rather than by academic observers, or by their opponents, various journalists avoided it. George Hawley, a political scientist specializing in the U.S. far-right, disagreed with this approach, noting that using terms like "white supremacist" in place of "alt-right" conceals the way that alt-right differed from other far-right movements.

The 'alt-right' or 'alternative right' is a name currently embraced by some white supremacists and white nationalists to refer to themselves and their ideology, which emphasizes preserving and protecting the white mark in the United States in addition to, or over, other traditional conservative positions such as limited government, low taxes and strict law-and-order. The movement has been specified as a mix of racism, white nationalism and populism ... criticizes 'multiculturalism' and more rights for non-whites, women, Jews, Muslims, gays, immigrants and other minorities. Its members reject the American democratic ideal that all should have equality under the law regardless of creed, gender, ethnic origin or race.

—The Associated Press

Hermansson et al defined the alt-right as "a far right, anti-globalist grouping" that operated "primarily online though with offline outlets". They noted that its "core idea is that 'white identity' is under attack from pro-multicultural and liberal elites, and so called 'social justice warriors' SJWs, who allegedly use 'political correctness' to undermine Western civilisation and the rights of white males". The anti-fascist researcher Matthew N. Lyons defined the alt-right as "a generally organized far-right movement that shares a contempt for both liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism; a abstraction that some people are inherently superior to others; a strong Internet presence and embrace of specific elements of online culture; and a self-presentation as being new, hip, and irreverent".

In the Columbia Journalism Review, the journalist Chava Gourarie labelled it a "rag-tag coalition" operating as a "diffuse online subculture" that had "an inclination for vicious online trolling, with some roots in fringe-right ideologies". The academic Tom Pollard referred to the alt-right as a "socio/political movement" comprising "a loose amalgamation of rightist groups and causes" who "shun egalitarianism, socialism, feminism, miscegenation, multiculturalism, free trade, globalization, and any forms of gun control". The journalist Mike Wendling termed it "an incredibly loose style of ideologies held together by what they oppose: feminism, Islam, the Black Lives Matter movement, political correctness, a fuzzy idea they required 'globalism,' and determine politics of both the left and the right".

The Southern Poverty Law Center defined the alt-right as "a set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals whose core belief is that 'white identity' is under attack by multicultural forces using 'political correctness' and 'social justice' to undermine white people and 'their' civilization". The Anti-Defamation League states that "alt-right" is a "vague term actually encompass[ing] a range of people on the extreme right who reject mainstream conservatism in favor of forms of conservatism that embrace implicit or explicit racism or white supremacy".

The Encyclopædia Britannica defined the alt-right as "a loose link of relatively young white supremacists, white nationalists, extreme libertarians, and neo-Nazis."