 | |
| Author | David Neiwert |
|---|---|
| Subject | alt-right |
| Genre | political analysis |
| Published | 2017 |
| Publisher | Verso Books |
| Pages | 456 |
| ISBN | 978-1-78663-423-8 |
Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump is a 2017 nonfiction book by investigative journalist David Neiwert in which provides an account of how disparate but interrelated elements of American culture ranging from the Birther movement to Gamergate to the militia movement came together to elect Donald Trump and create the alt-right. [1]
Unlike some other analyses of the alt-right, such as George Hawley's more narrowly focused How to Make Sense of the Alt-Right, Neiwert provides his analysis from a broad vantage point. Neiwert walks through a wide variety of cultural movements and subcultures on the right, exploring how they connect, how they affect each other, and how they interpret the outside world. [1]
Beginning with the Presidency of Bill Clinton, Neiwert examines the rise of the survivalist and militia movements during this time. He investigates the manner by which the New World Order conspiracy theory and the white supremacist movement during the Civil Rights era presaged these new growths during the Clinton administration. The federal marshal siege at Ruby Ridge and the siege at Waco siege of the Branch Davidians further radicalized the militia movement. During the Presidency of George W. Bush, the militia movement declined in prominence, but the 9/11 Truth movement grew. Following the election of Barack Obama and during his subsequent presidency, the level of far-right terror attacks rose again and federal stand-offs returned. During this time, the right-wing media ecosystem changed dramatically, impacted by the emergence of Breitbart, the alignment of Fox News with the Tea Party movement, led by Glenn Beck, and the rise of Richard B. Spencer on the far right of the party. Neiwert ties these movements together to explain the rise of Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election. [2]
Neiwert is largely unconvinced by the economic explanations for Trump's victory. Rather, he argues, the collision of cultural factors on the right led to the success of the candidate. [2]
The Washington Post highlights how Neiwert goes beyond particular conservative schisms of online subcultures to try to paint a picture of how the different facets of the alt-right, the right wing, and conspiracy theorists connect to create new dynamics and American modes of behavior. Though the Post argues that Neiwert's "analysis can be too broad," it concludes by noting that it "draws some intriguing connections" that cannot be found in a more limited work. [1]
The International Socialist Review (ISR) describes the book as a fully comprehensive "narrative encyclopedia" that provides a fully-developed, highly methodical view of the history that keeps the reader engaged through its "dramatic" tone. Though the ISR finds "Neiwert’s prescriptions for defeating the alt-right... disappointing—a focus on human empathy in talking with others, nonviolent protest, and the use of the ballot box", it comes to the conclusion that book serves as "an excellent and necessary guide". [3]
Kirkus Reviews called the book "A prescient discussion of one of the darkest issues facing America today." [4]
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a conspiracy by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.
James Dale Davidson is an American private investor and investment writer, co-writer of the newsletter Strategic Investment, and co-author with William Rees-Mogg of Blood in the Streets: Investment Profits in a World Gone Mad (1987), The Great Reckoning (1991), and The Sovereign Individual (1997). He wrote The Plague of the Black Debt - How to Survive the Coming Depression in 1993 in which he predicted that as part of a "deep depression...Clinton is going to be a one-term president...I am as sure of this as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow" and that the US national debt would increase by a trillion dollars during Clinton's "one-term" presidency. He further wrote in the book that Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, would lose his job and that Russia will come under the control of a nationalist, militarist regime. He has been credited with predicting the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, though much earlier than it actually occurred.
David Neiwert is an American freelance journalist and blogger. He received the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000 for a domestic terrorism series he produced for MSNBC.com. Neiwert has concentrated in part on extremism in the Northwest.
Andrew C. McCarthy III is an American columnist for National Review. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. A Republican, he led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and eleven others. The defendants were convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and planning a series of attacks against New York City landmarks. He also contributed to the prosecutions of terrorists who bombed United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He resigned from the Justice Department in 2003.
Taki's Magazine, called Takimag for short, is an online magazine of politics and culture published by the Greek paleoconservative commentator and socialite Taki Theodoracopulos and edited by his daughter Mandolyna Theodoracopulos. Initially called Taki's Top Drawer, the site was redesigned and relaunched under its current title in March 2008 with a subsequent redesign in 2010. It has published articles by far-right figures such as Gavin McInnes and the white supremacist Jared Taylor; the white supremacist Richard Spencer was an early Taki's editor. It received criticism in 2013 after it published articles in support of the Greek neo-Nazi political party Golden Dawn.
The American militia movement is a term used by law enforcement and security analysts to refer to a number of private organizations that include paramilitary or similar elements. These groups may refer to themselves as militia, unorganized militia, and constitutional militia. While groups such as the Posse Comitatus existed as early as the 1980s, the movement gained momentum after standoffs with government agents in the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s, such groups were active in all 50 US states, with membership estimated at between 10,000 and 250,000.
In the United States, the patriot movement is a term which is used to describe a conglomeration of non-unified right-wing populist, nationalist political movements, most notably far-right armed militias, sovereign citizens, and tax protesters. Ideologies held by patriot movement groups often focus on anti-government conspiracy theories, with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describing a common belief that "government has been infiltrated and subverted" and is no longer legitimate. The movement first emerged in 1994 in response to what members saw as "violent government repression" of dissenting groups, along with increased gun control and the Clinton government.
Fascism has a long history in North America, with the earliest movements appearing shortly after the rise of Fascism in Europe. Fascist movements in North America never gained power, unlike their counterparts in Europe.
In United States politics, the radical right is a political preference that leans towards extreme conservatism, white supremacism, or other right-wing to far-right ideologies in a hierarchical structure paired with conspiratorial rhetoric alongside traditionalist and reactionary aspirations. The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small groups such as the John Birch Society in the United States, and since then it has been applied to similar groups worldwide. The term "radical" was applied to the groups because they sought to make fundamental changes within institutions and remove persons and institutions that threatened their values or economic interests from political life.
The FEMA camps conspiracy theory is a belief, particularly within the American Patriot movement, that the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is planning to imprison US citizens in concentration camps, following the imposition of martial law in the United States after a major disaster or crisis. In some versions of the theory, only suspected dissidents will be imprisoned. In more extreme versions, large numbers of US citizens will be imprisoned for the purposes of extermination as a New World Order is established. The theory has existed since the late 1970s, but its circulation has increased with the advent of the internet and social media platforms.
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2010s and establishing a presence in other countries, and then declining since 2017. The term is ill-defined, having been used in different ways by alt-right members, media commentators, journalists, and academics.
The Right Stuff is a neo-Nazi and white nationalist blog and discussion forum and the host of several podcasts, including The Daily Shoah. Founded by American neo-Nazi Mike Enoch, the website promotes Holocaust denial, and coined the use of "echoes", an antisemitic marker that uses triple parentheses around names to identify Jewish people.
Paul Joseph Watson is a British far-right YouTuber, radio host, and conspiracy theorist. Until July 2016, Watson embraced the label "alt-right", but he now identifies as part of the New Right. In May 2019, Facebook and Instagram permanently banned Watson for violation of hate speech policies.
Paul Ray Ramsey is an American conservative, vlogger, YouTube personality, and public speaker.
Far-right subcultures refers to the symbolism, ideology and traits that hold relevance to various politically extreme right-wing groups and organisations. There are three kinds of subcultures within far-right movements to distinguish: subcultural parasitism, subcultural creation around ideology and subcultures that are networking with far-right movements, as some football hooligans did with neo-nazis.
The term "Cultural Marxism" refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Western Marxism is the basis of continuing academic and intellectual efforts to subvert Western culture. The conspiracy theory misrepresents the Frankfurt School as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness, claiming there is an ongoing and intentional subversion of Western society via a planned culture war that undermines the Christian values of traditionalist conservatism and seeks to replace them with the culturally liberal values of the 1960s.
Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency is a 2017 book by Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Joshua Green about the partnership between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon that led to their 2016 political victory and the putative rise of the alt-right. Prior to writing the book, Green had worked as a journalist for The Atlantic and Bloomberg, where he garnered experience reporting on conservatives. He had previously written a profile on Bannon in 2015, and interviewed Bannon for the book.
Antifa is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use both nonviolent direct action and violence to achieve their aims. Most antifa political activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing. Some who identify as antifa also combat far-right extremists and, at times, law enforcement, with tactics including digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage.
Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right is a 2017 non-fiction book by Angela Nagle published by Zero Books. It describes the development of internet culture, the nature of political correctness, the far-right and the election of Donald Trump. Nagle offers a left-wing critique of contemporary liberalism and its role in the creation of the alt-right movement in reaction.
Opponents of the alt-right have not reached a consensus on how to deal with it. Some opponents emphasized "calling out" tactics, labelling the alt-right with terms like "racist", "sexist", "homophobic", and "white supremacist" in the belief that doing so would scare people away from it. Many commentators urged journalists not to refer to the alt-right by its chosen name, but rather with terms like "neo-Nazi". There was much discussion within U.S. public discourse as to how to avoid the "normalization" of the alt-right. The activist group Stop Normalizing, which opposes the normalization of terms like alt-right, developed the "Stop Normalizing Alt Right" Chrome extension. The extension went viral shortly after the release of Stop Normalizing's website. The extension changes the term "alt-right" on webpages to "white supremacy". The extension and group were founded by a New York-based advertising and media professional under the pseudonym George Zola.
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