Miami: There are some things, says Richard Spencer, that you can't unsay, some genies that cannot be put back in the bottle. He believes white racial identity politics is one of those things, and he is proud of the part he has played in bringing white pride back to the centre of US politics during this long, ugly election campaign.

Spencer is the man who minted the term Alt-Right, a contraction of "alternative right", a term describing a new type of conservative politics, one that recognises inherent racial differences and encourages white people to be proud of European heritage and Western Civilisation.

With Alt-Right language being echoed by Donald Trump and supported by key figures in his circle, Spencer sees this as his movement's moment. Indeed, he sees the election as the first step. "The real fun starts on November 9," he told Fairfax Media, when he plans to help the Trump movement supplant the Republican Party, whether or not the candidate wins the race.

One of the jarring elements of this campaign has been the return to the political mainstream of ideas and language that were thought to have been banished a generation ago.