Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:05 pm
You have probably heard the term ‘alt-right’ by now. The Trump hiring of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon has really brought them to attention. Alt-right stands for ‘alternative right,’ and is so a bit of a misnomer, as they’re not really a viable alternative in any place anyone but crazy white people want to live. You know, like the Third Reich.
It is the political ideology that claims “white identity” is under attack, that on twitter, taunts progressives and establishment conservatives alike, calling one “sh*tlibs” and the other, “c*ckservatives.” Yes. They’re angry. They’re white. And they have rallied around Trump.
It is in the news that Hillary Clinton is about to take the offensive against Donald Trump’s association with this diffuse group of extremists. Breitbart says “Some — mostly Establishment types — insist it’s little more than a vehicle for the worst dregs of human society: anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set. They’re wrong.”
Actually they’re right. And Fox News’ mealy-mouthed and disingenuous defense of the alt-right shows they know it.
That Fox News has now aligned itself with the alt-right is really not a reach given Fox’s past behavior. They’re responsible for bringing these extremists into the spotlight in the first place, after all, and bringing their fringe hate-mongering into the mainstream.
On Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, Doug McKelway, took issue with Ben Shapiro’s characterization of the alt-right as white-supremacist and Anti-Semite. Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:
MARTHA MACCALLUM: Donald Trump’s rise in the political arena propelling the term “alt-right” into the national spotlight. The alt-right movement, a small off-shoot of the GOP, known for its rejection of multiculturalism and distrust of immigration and immigrants. While most Republican leaders have distanced themselves, some of Trump’s actions have empowered members of the movement. While Hillary Clinton, expected to attack Trump in a speech over his quote, “disturbing alt-right political philosophy.” Doug McKelway unravels all of this for us in Washington. So what is exactly is the alt-right? Is it described accurately there or not?
DOUG MCKELWAY: Well, you know, it depends on who you ask, Martha. The mainstream media is fond of portraying the alt-right as a mob of unruly, racist, bigoted, sexist, uneducated white males who have been unleashed and feel empowered by Donald Trump’s rejection of political correctness. This is the behavior you often see portrayed in videos published by mainstream media showing violence and bigoted behavior outside of Trump rallies perpetrated by Trump supporters. Mainstream media outlets are much less inclined to feature videos that portray violence directed at Trump supporters. But even many conservatives reject the alt-right, such as former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, who resigned from that publication in part because of his former employer’s alliance with the alt-right.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
BEN SHAPIRO: The alt-right issort of a nationalist, populist movement that is shot through with white supremacism and — and anti-Semitism, and you can see it in the Breitbart comment sections.
[END VIDEO]
MCKELWAY: But the alt-right is much more than that, another branch of it reflected in the activism of people like Milo Yiannopoulos, a flamboyant, openly gay conservative activist who writes for Breitbart and who goes about college speaking tours, ruthlessly savaging the left’s obsession with micro-aggressions and safe spaces — things of that sort. He gets under their skin, Martha.
MACCALUM: He sure does. So how do they come up with these tactics? What’s the background here, Doug?
MCKELWAY: Well, the alt-right is using the same tactics that the left has used for generations now, basically fighting fire with fire. That is a big part of it, it’s demonstrated in something that Mike Rowe — you might know him, the popular host of the Dirty Jobs show — something that he posted on Facebook recently. “It’s okay to poke fun as Trump supporters as uneducated white men,” he says, but Rowe asks rhetorically — and I’m quoting here — “If the media didn’t care about the lack of college among black men supporting Obama, why do they care so much about the lack of college among white men supporting Trump? Moreover when exactly did a lack of college education become synonymous with a lack of education?” Rowe notes that tradesmen, mechanics, welders, carpenters make up a part of the Trump base, and they are hardly without education. They are highly skilled.
Whatever their actual level of education, the “highly educated” line is a canard. Many Nazis also had university degrees. This did not stop them from gunning down innocent men, women, and children, or gassing them. Being educated doesn’t mean you’re not a monster.
The claim that the alt-right is using left wing tactics is nothing short of hilarious. Nothing more need be said, because blame-shifting. Pointing and laughing is enough. We all know what the facts are and it’s not like an alt-righter is going to learn anything from reading something they reject before they see it.
When Dylan Matthews wrote a post in April about the alt-right at Vox saying, ““The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It’s that, but way way weirder,” the Daily Stormer’s Andrew Anglin called it “Intensified Jewing” and responded with a line that tells you all you need to know about this crowd:
“So, the liberal/SJW/Communist Jew outlet Vox has an article up this week on the Alt-Right by Dylan Matthews entitled ‘The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It’s that, but way way weirder.’”
I just want to point out, in passing, that the “Daily Stormer” (“The world’s most visited alt-right website”) bears more than a passing resemblance to Julius Streicher’s “The Stormer” (Der Stürmer), to which Breitbart was compared the other day.
Sorry kids, don’t want to be compared to Nazis, don’t act like them.
Fox News has gone way, way past putting lipstick on a pig here.
The truth hurts.
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