I notice it constantly, even at times on conservative sites: white supremacist groups are routinely referred to as “far right.”

Maybe I’ve even carelessly referred to them that way at times in the past. I actually don’t know. But at any rate, I don’t plan to do so in the future, because tying these people to “the right” in any way, even with words such as “far” (or “alt”) prefacing them, is wrong. They do not espouse ideas that can be recognized as “the right.” They are their own entity.

The widespread practice of calling them “right” is a good example of how language is shaped by a media and a left intent on linking the right to abominable ideas such as racism, which is not part of the right. Do some white supremacists vote for Republicans? I wouldn’t doubt it. But that doesn’t make them of the right or on the right, far or near.

You might as well say that white supremacists are on the left, because they hate Jews and the left is the political party that seems to harbor the highest number of anti-Semites these days. But no, white supremacists are not really “far left.” As I said, they are their own entity.

The whole thing reminds me of the arguments around whether or not Hitler and the Nazis were on the right or the left. It’s absurd to think that either Hitler’s vicious racial policies or his central state control constitute anything even remotely on the right, but he is routinely referred to as being on the right and this idea has taken firm hold. And yet it is incorrect:

The Nazis certainly weren’t conventional socialists, if there can be said to be such a thing… It is true…that Communists were among the most fervent anti-Nazis, both in Germany and elsewhere. But—as the Federalist article points out—this does not change the fact that both were primarily on the left. They were definitely different (as could be seen, for example, by the distinction between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR). But it was in part a turf war. Both were devoted to statism vs. individualism, and both believed in government control of business as well.

In the end, I believe that Hitler actually is unclassifiable as either right or left. He advocated a unique combination of extremely bad and even evil ideas. He was a statist, however, which leans more firmly in the “left” camp. And yet propaganda to the contrary has had its effect, and Hitler is firmly labeled in most people’s minds as having been on the right.

And to the degree that white supremacists resemble Hitler in their racial views (although if you study Hitler, he hated a lot of white people, too, such as the Poles), there is a carryover in people’s minds from “Hitler was on the far right” to “white supremacists are on the far right.”

This perfectly fits the needs of the left, who have fostered this idea for generations. The fact that many of the white supremacists of the past were southern Democrats is purposely forgotten, like so many other inconvenient facts.