An Actual Conservative's Guide To The Alt-Right: 8 Things You Need To Know
The Alt-Right has embraced Donald Trump, and he has embraced them--most directly by hiring as CEO of his campaign Steve Bannon, the Breitbart chairman who boasts of having made that website “the platform for the Alt-Right." But what exactly is the Alt-Right, and how does it relate to conservatism?
1. Racism is not a fringe element of the Alt-Right; it’s the movement’s central premise. The Alt-Right comprises disparate ideological backgrounds, but at the heart of the movement lies white identity. Richard Spencer, publisher of AlternativeRight.com, describes the Alt-Right as essentially “trying to build a philosophy, an ideology around identity, European identity.” Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance who recently co-hosted an Alt-Right press conference with Spencer and VDARE editor Peter Brimelow to describe the movement, explained, "The alt right accepts that race is a biological fact and that it’s a significant aspect of individual and group identity and that any attempt to create a society in which race can be made not to matter will fail."
On racists in the Alt-Right, the movement’s most prominent mainstream defender, Milo Yiannopoulos, insists, “There’s just not very many of them, no-one really likes them, and they’re unlikely to achieve anything significant in the alt-right.” Yet in that same article, he admits, “The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race” and describes Taki’s Magazine, which published the racist screed “The Talk: Nonblack Version” on what white parents need to tell their children about why to avoid black people, as the start of “the media empire of the modern-day alternative right.”
The Alt-Right has embraced Donald Trump, and he has embraced them--most directly by hiring as CEO of his campaign Steve Bannon, the Breitbart chairman who boasts of having made that website “the platform for the Alt-Right." But what exactly is the Alt-Right, and how does it relate to conservatism?
1. Racism is not a fringe element of the Alt-Right; it’s the movement’s central premise. The Alt-Right comprises disparate ideological backgrounds, but at the heart of the movement lies white identity. Richard Spencer, publisher of AlternativeRight.com, describes the Alt-Right as essentially “trying to build a philosophy, an ideology around identity, European identity.” Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance who recently co-hosted an Alt-Right press conference with Spencer and VDARE editor Peter Brimelow to describe the movement, explained, "The alt right accepts that race is a biological fact and that it’s a significant aspect of individual and group identity and that any attempt to create a society in which race can be made not to matter will fail."
On racists in the Alt-Right, the movement’s most prominent mainstream defender, Milo Yiannopoulos, insists, “There’s just not very many of them, no-one really likes them, and they’re unlikely to achieve anything significant in the alt-right.” Yet in that same article, he admits, “The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race” and describes Taki’s Magazine, which published the racist screed “The Talk: Nonblack Version” on what white parents need to tell their children about why to avoid black people, as the start of “the media empire of the modern-day alternative right.”