Several recent Ricochet comments have referred to the “Alt-Right,” mostly in passing. Since I wasn’t familiar with the term, I decided to find out what it actually was. My investigation has been an unnerving experience and I, for one, am worried for this country. Most people will acknowledge that the beliefs and goals of the Alt-Right are despicable. Their proponents are mostly young, self-described radicals who have found the positions of Donald Trump admirable (which, I know, does not make all Donald Trump supporters Alt-Right).

During the most recent Need to Know podcast, Mona Charen, Jay Nordlinger, and guest David French condemned the Alt-Right without reservation. They cited websites where the comment sections had to be shut down due to the volume of venomous comments made against people who didn’t support Donald Trump. Several sources I reviewed regarding the Alt-Right movement highlighted an article from Breitbart written by Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos (pictured), who believe that the movement is mischaracterized. They say:

Previously an obscure subculture, the Alt-Right burst onto the national political scene in 2015. Although initially small in number, the Alt-Right has a youthful energy and jarring, taboo-defying rhetoric that have boosted its membership and made it impossible to ignore. It has already triggered a string of fearful op-eds and hit pieces from both Left and Right: Lefties dismiss it as racist, while the conservative press, always desperate to avoid charges of bigotry from the Left, has thrown these young readers and voters to the wolves as well.

One journalist who criticized the Breitbart article assessment was Cathy Young at The Federalist who writes:

The Alt-Right movement counters the toxic culture of the left with a toxic brew of its own: a mix of old bigotries and new identity and victimhood politics adapted for the straight white male.

She then describes part of a tweet:

Retweeting an image of a man in a Nazi uniform standing in front of a baker’s oven captioned “Pop ’em in the oven!” may be a tasteless “trolly” joke. When the same person retweets comments about Jews “killing millions in the #Holodomor”—the Soviet terror-famine engineered by the Stalin regime—this looks like something more than “lulz.” The trolls of the Alt-Tight are well-versed in anti-Semitic tropes such as Jewish control of the media (which Yiannopoulos, in his Dave Rubin interview , bafflingly waved aside as a mere statement of statistical fact).

White supremacist Richard Spencer, who runs the National Policy Institute — a tiny white supremacist think tank — coined the term “Alternative Right” as the name for an online publication that debuted in 2010. The online publication changed hands in 2013 when Spencer shut it down. Today Spencer runs the Radix journal and quoted from an article in Time, written by Alex Altman, which characterizes the Alt-Right movement and its relationship to Trump as follows:

Trump’s ascendancy comes at a moment of reinvention for the Far Right. A new generation of leaders like NPI’s Spencer are trying to recast white nationalism as a 21st century movement steeped in social media. The NPI meeting was dominated by young men under 30, many of whom said they were part of an online network known as the Alt (for Alternative) Right. Originally rooted in antipathy to mainstream conservatism, the Alt Right has morphed over the past year into a virtual pro-Trump army. It’s a loose collection of furies who range from provocative Twitter trolls to white-rights activists, garden-variety anti-Semites, proto-fascists and overt neo-Nazis.

revealed that the quote is actually from a Time article that Spencer posted on Radix, which was written by a guy named Alex Altman.

So I have a few questions:

Do you think Donald Trump should condemn the people who profess these beliefs and vocally support him?

Why aren’t Senators and Representatives who are backing Trump condemning them, and encouraging Trump to condemn them too?

Are Trump supporters concerned that they will be identified with these people, especially if the Alt-Right movement strengthens?

As a country that celebrates free speech, any suggestions for how to create roadblocks for this movement?