May 14, 2016

Racist Revolutionaries: The Alt-Right Uprising? (radio program)

The alternative right or alt-right movement is a new incarnation of white nationalism that has  coalesced in recent years. The alt-right has gained attention over the past year because of its support for Donald Trump's presidential candidacy and promotion of the #cuckservative meme to attack mainstream conservatives.

I was recently interviewed by radio journalist Dan Young for a program about the alt-right that he produced for WFHB-FM, a community radio station in Bloomington, Indiana. The program, entitled "Racist Revolutionaries: The Alt-Right Uprising?" was broadcast on May 10th on WFHB's Interchange series. It's available as a podcast here. Using clips from speeches and articles by alt-right figures such as Richard Spencer, Keith Preston, and Matthew Heimbach, the program offers an excellent analysis of the movement's ideology, branches, activities, appropriation of anti-colonial and anti-oppression themes, and relationship with the Trump campaign. Here's an excerpt from the description on the WFHB website:
"You’ll hear in what follows how the 'Alt-Right' often takes liberal or left terminologies and turns these upside down to serve a racist, segregationist, and white supremacist agenda. You’ll hear terms like 'race realism' and 'identitarian' and even 'peaceful ethnic cleansing'–words and phrases crafted to sound sensible, thoughtful, civil. At one point you’ll hear a 19th century canard coming out of the mouth of one of these 'conversos' to 'race realism'–that 'people of color' are not sufficiently advanced in civilization to 'handle' freedom. It doesn’t take a village; it takes a white master."
(My interview was mostly used as background for the segment, but there's a short clip of me speaking about 32 minutes in.)

For more about the alt-right, see the excellent coverage at AntiFascistNews.net, such as "Alternative Internet Racism: Alt Right and the New Fascist Branding" and "Going Full Fash: Breitbart Mainstreams the 'Alt Right'." See also my 2010 article "AlternativeRight.com: Paleoconservatism for the 21st Century," about the online journal that gave the alt-right its name. I didn't realize back then that AlternativeRight.com was already moving beyond paleoconservatism, but otherwise the article holds up pretty well.