Alt-Right

Alt-Right (stands for 'Alternative Right') is a word used to call a fringe of the far-right movement in the Western world. The term has been used much more frequently since Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 Presidential elections.

The term has been found hard to pin down, even though its creator Richard Spencer, a white supremacist activist, said:

'Someone who is really alt-right recognises the reality of race, and the fact that race matters, and that race is an essential component of identity.'

Origins

Richard Spencer from the white supremacist National Policy Institute claims to have coined the term in 2008, and popularised it when he set up a now-defunct website in 2010 called AlternativeRight.com. Spencer said he intended it to describe a diverse, heterodox group whose members were 'deeply alienated, intellectually, even emotionally and spiritually, from American conservatism'. The lack of homogeneity of the group means that diverse sets of right-wing ideologies can identify with the term, however Spencer claims that affiliation now has some minimum requirements; 'recognis[ing] the reality of race' is the most important one.

Associations

Former editor of Breitbart News Steve Bannon proudly told a reporter that his news outlet is a 'platform for the alt-right' at the Summer 2016 Republican National Convention. Given his new position in the Trump administration and his closeness to the President elect, his affiliation with the 'alt-right' movement could be potentially very dangerous.

Debate around the use of the term

The crux of the debate is the fear that the use of 'alt-right' may help further far right agendas by portraying their ideas as less dangerous than they actually are. That is the opinion of Nesrine Malik, who wrote an article describing what he perceived as the current excess of deference to dangerous, racist and sexist political figures by the media. He situated the term 'alt-right' in that excess, describing it as:

'a helpfully sanitising nomenclature that has saved many from calling things as they are. It is an innocuous, perhaps cool name for a movement that is defined by an ideology of ethnic purity, and encompassing neo-Nazis, white supremacists and even the Ku Klux Klan.'

For that reason, news outlets such as ThinkProgress have decided not to use the term at all, except when quoting other people, because it 'won’t do racists’ public relations work for them'.

In turn, the Guardian has stated that:

It was agreed that the use of 'alt-right' should not be banned because it exists as a term that is used in the world, particularly in the US, and it is the media’s job to describe and reflect the world as it is. That said, it should describe and reflect the world – including the 'alt-right' – accurately, hence the requirement for a description to be included at first mention.'

However, their definition of 'alt-right' remains very strict and limited to clearly neo-Nazi white supremacist groups such as Richard Spencer and his followers.