Where the alt-right wants to take America -- with or without Trump

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I know: the term they're looking for is "neo-Nazi."

The links go to Amazon, which is owned by the Post's owner, Jeff Bezos. You can look at the books there and buy them locally, if you choose.

Retweeted by David Fahrenthold: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

In this morning's @washingtonpost, I review three new books about the alt-right's origins, priorities and goals:

Link to tweet

Where the alt-right wants to take America — with or without Trump

Review of "Making Sense of the Alt-Right" by George Hawley; "Kill All Normies" by Angela Nagle; and "Alt-America" by David Neiwert

By Carlos Lozada November 3

MAKING SENSE OF THE ALT-RIGHT

by George Hawley. Columbia University Press. 218 pp. $28

KILL ALL NORMIES: Online Culture Wars From 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right

By Angle Nagle. Zero Books. 120 pp. $16.95

ALT-AMERICA: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump

By David Neiwert. Verso. 456 pp. $29.95

If Donald Trump did not exist, it would be necessary to prevent him.

Trump’s electoral victory one year ago this week was not merely his own, nor that of the befuddled party that relinquished its nomination to him. It was also a triumph for the dark tangle of forces we’ve come to know as the alt-right. Long before the 2016 campaign, the alt-right was already gathering strength and allies; it simply needed a standard-bearer. Then there was Trump, a leader with enough star power and authoritarian charisma to grant his alt-right supporters visibility and stature, to lower the social costs of open bigotry, to give energy to the movement’s underlying vision.

Several people have sought to interpret that vision — Hillary Clinton gave it a go with a harsh campaign speech, while Breitbart offered a sanitized taxonomy of the group — and now books on the subject are starting to pour forth. Although it’s hard to pin down a shifting collection of meme-crazed commenters, hard-core conspiracists and race-obsessed marchers long enough to bind them in hardcover, three new works make that effort from different vantage points. In “Making Sense of the Alt-Right,” University of Alabama political scientist George Hawley attempts to clarify first principles. In “Kill All Normies,” journalist Angela Nagle dives into online communities to grasp the alt-right’s subculture. And in “Alt-America,” researcher David Neiwert goes back decades to assemble the players and turning points that pushed the fringe toward the mainstream.

Together, these books suggest a movement with more staying power than may seem evident, and one that, for all its attacks on left-wing identity politics, is particularly focused on supplanting traditional conservatism with a white identity politics of the right. And although alt-right supporters are energized by Trump, they are not beholden to him. Indeed, the president’s alt-right credentials may be more about aping its brutal sensibility than fully embracing its substance. Trump’s self-interest helped pull the alt-right out from the digital swamps, but he may be simply marking the beginning of its rapid ascent, with some truer and more skilled political patron yet to come.

***

Carlos Lozada is associate editor and nonfiction book critic of The Washington Post. Follow @CarlosLozadaWP

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. this is Steve Bannon's wet dream for America.

Richard Spencer, David Duke, and their ilk are creaming their jeans about now. Because this is the only rise they are going to get it seems. Because sane Americans paying attention will not stand for this.