What is the Alt-Right?

By The Economist

UNTIL August this year, the Alt- (short for alternative) Right did not matter much. Two things happened to change that. First, Donald Trump appointed Steve Bannon, a former executive-chairman of Breitbart, as CEO of his campaign. Breitbart is a website that has published stories praising the Alt-Right. Then Hillary Clinton gave a speech in Reno, Nevada, in which she denounced Mr Trump for bringing the Alt-Right and its admirers into the mainstream of American politics. Many hundreds of thousands of Google searches followed. People claiming to speak for the Alt-Right were delighted by the attention. What is this Alt-Right thing? And why does it matter, if indeed it does?

Right-wing thinking in America is tremendously varied. The considered conservatism of the National Review has nothing in common with sites that set out to provoke like Breitbart. But many thinkers and writers who position themselves on the right of the political spectrum share a view: that other people on the right have betrayed their principles. There are, therefore, quite a lot of people with vastly different ideas who could plausibly claim the mantle of the alternative right. These include libertarians, cultural traditionalists and reforming conservatives. The Alt-Right is something else altogether.

The name sounds like a keyboard shortcut, which is appropriate because the Alt-Right is largely an online phenomenon. Its more cerebral fellow-travellers reheat criticisms of democracy that have been around since Plato. They argue that government of and by the people is flawed, and would prefer something more like the enlightened absolutism of Prussia under Frederick the Great. These people are not the ones to worry about. The bits of the Alt-Right that matter right now are those who say that members of different races should be kept apart, who aim abuse at Jewish Americans and think that calling a podcast “The Daily Shoah” is striking a bold blow for freedom of speech and against political correctness. To the extent that the Alt-Right dabbles in economics it is highly protectionist. It sees misogyny as a bold rebellion against the prevailing culture. Its favourite symbol is a cartoon frog called Pepe (pictured above).

People close to Mr Trump, including Roger Stone, an adviser, and Donald Junior, a son, have shared images of Pepe the Frog on social media. Both later said they didn’t know what this particular frog stood for. This tells you that, at best, the Trump inner circle is remarkably incurious about some of the company it keeps. Though the Alt-Right has claimed Mr Trump as its own, the candidate himself has not embraced the Alt-Right. But nor has he denounced it. This tells you that Mr Trump does not mind too much where support comes from. Indeed, he often seems more interested in whether someone likes him than whether they are right or wrong on any given subject. This is why the Alt-Right now matters.