What is the alt-right?

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Polak

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The reason I ask the question on this forum is because some Catholics, not clergy, more often than not they are, let’s call them, Catholic ‘talking heads’ on the internet, have been branded with this seemingly rather modern day term (I certainly don’t remember it being around 5 or 6 years ago).

I don’t know whether some of these people have been branded with it justly or unjustly, so I wanted to see what people on here, those of you who have heard of the term, understand it to mean.

My understanding of alt-right is that it refers to the white nationalist movement. What I have heard and read in some articles also, is that Christians must be weary of the movement, because while it isn’t in any way a Christian movement (how could it be if it’s based on white nationalism, right?), some members of the alt-right like to portray themselves as standing alongside Christians, or even being Christians themselves, but their real agenda is much more sinister (and entirely race based). I’m also reading that if you see a Catholic/Christian commentator spending a lot of their time focusing on race and whiteness, they are likely to either be one of these ‘deceptors’, or they could actually be a Christian but are nevertheless straying into dangerous territory with their rhetoric.

Does that sounds about right, or are there other characteristics that you identify with the alt-right?
 
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That’s pretty much what it is, just a new iteration of it. I consider it to also be a subsection of fascism, and will assume anyone who gives platform to these people or ideas favorable to them are altright/fasc/racist/etc that might explain why some figures who don’t explicitly seem to be altright are called it over these past years.
 
From Wikipedia:
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a loosely connected far-right, white nationalist movement based in the United States. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the U.S. during the 2010s, although it has since established a presence in various other countries. The term is ill-defined, having been used in different ways by various self-described “alt-rightists”, media commentators, and academics. Groups which have been identified as alt-right also espouse white supremacism, white separatism, severe immigration restrictions, racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and islamophobia.
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I have personally met quite a few alt right pundits. ( I have also met and known people who work for the Southern Poverty Law Center, various Jewish organizations, etc. I’m not part of any movement, I just used to meet a lot of people and if they had something interesting to say and weren’t doing anything illegal I’d talk to them.)

Alt-right is as much of a catch-all term as BLM. I have met quite a few people who are identified as alt-right commentators but want nothing to do with Richard Spencer or his ilk. He’s actually been excluded from some events (which has caused his followers to then drop out as well). Part of the problem is that these pundits don’t usually go around announcing themselves as “alt-right”, somebody else puts them in that category. Also, their “agendas” vary by person and by what they’re doing. Some of them are seriously into white nationalism or misogyny, others of them are trying to knock down Planned Parenthood, still others just think Trump is a great president and want to get him elected and have places where people can talk intelligently about things like Trump without getting shouted down. Some of the people in the alt-right definitely have political aims for themselves in mind down the road and don’t want to align themselves with some extremist group that will harm their prospects.

It’s not a coherent movement and trying to put them all in the Richard Spencer white nationalist box would be just like taking the editors and writers of every Catholic conservative media outlet and putting them in with Michael Voris.
 
Alt-Right is a label and nothing more. People use these meaningless labels in an effort to lead other people to ignore what those that are being labeled want to say. Then they try to put words out to explain their own view of what those who have been labeled are supposedly saying.
 
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Right. It was potentially the whole push to label the entire alt-right as a bunch of fascists back in 2016 that motivated me to meet up with some of them. While I’m not going to be close personal friends with any of them any time soon, they weren’t fascists either. Most of them were more like libertarians. One of them went on for some time about Pope Francis allegedly being a “communist”, that was about the most controversial thing I heard.
 
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The alt-right is as ephemeral as Antifa. It’s not an actual organization…it’s mostly a label that other people place them in. There are very few that actually call themselves alt-right or Antifa.
 
Convert3 said:
Alt-Right is a label and nothing more. People use these meaningless labels in an effort to lead other people to ignore what those that are being labeled want to say. Then they try to put words out to explain their own view of what those who have been labeled are supposedly saying.
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A very human tendency, that is.
 
Anyone more conservative than the person who says “alt-right”.

Kinda like “religious fanatic” is anybody who goes to church more often than you.
 
And kinda like a “leftist” is anyone more “liberal” than you…
 
Convert3 said:
lt-Right is a label and nothing more. People use these meaningless labels in an effort to lead other people to ignore what those that are being labeled want to say. Then they try to put words out to explain their own view of what those who have been labeled are supposedly saying.
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It has to be more than a label because some conservatives have accepted it as a self-definition. Steve Bannon, a fan of the outlet, said that Breitbart is the platform for the alt-right.
 
Nepperhan said:
It has to be more than a label because some conservatives have accepted it as a self-definition. Steve Bannon, a fan of the outlet, said that Breitbart is the platform for the alt-right.
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There are some who have adopted the label. I’ve more often seen it applied than so used, however.
 
Nepperhan said:
It has to be more than a label because some conservatives have accepted it as a self-definition. Steve Bannon, a fan of the outlet, said that Breitbart is the platform for the alt-right
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I can say as a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles that they are the model of a perfect football team, but that doesn’t make it so.
A label is just a label and people define it as they perceive it to be in their own minds.
 
It may not be pejorative, but different people still define these labels differently. There is no consistency of what these labels mean. It’s what people perceive them to mean.
 
I would define it as a term that a liberal labels anyone who they identify as conservative with.

Same as conservative label liberals as leftists.
 
To me Leftist is a clear political term that comes from sitting on the left side of the French parliament before the French Revolution. They would describe themselves as championing Liberty, Equality and Fraternity while their political results are always something very different.

They were Godless and anti Christian and wanted the state to be the arbiter of morals and power. They had a commitment to identity politics claiming victimhood and the policy of taking wealth from an identified rich class in the name of justice to put right alleged past wrongs. They saw themselves as progressing society away from a religious mindset towards a reason or science based mindset. They were willing to use violence to gain power and were willing to use violence against opposition once in power. Their economic policies relied on central dictate which did not work and they relied on authoritarianism to keep the movement together. They had a subjective view of truth and thus needed to impose their views on others and did not tolerate alternative views.

(Perhaps the created term ‘Alt-right’ belies such a view).
 
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silentwitness said:
To me Leftist is a clear political term that comes from sitting on the left side of the French parliament before the French Revolution. They would describe themselves as championing Liberty, Equality and Fraternity while their political results are always something very different.
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It was my understanding that whoever was opposed to the current government would sit on the left side of the hall, meaning even those we would call conservatives sat there at times.
 
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