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Online personality Mike Cernovich fabricated the existence of a new right movement to downplay his active relationships with alt-right media personalities and white nationalist thought leaders. But like the nonsense diet supplements and self-help books that Cernovich hawks to his audience, the new right should be treated for what it is: a load of marketing bullshit.

The truth is that although Cernovich and his media pals will claim they dont advocate white nationalism in the same way that alt-right leaders likeRichard Spencerdo, the so-called new right has actively parroted the alt-right to build its brands. It is a mistake to give the new right a chance to disown the relationships that helped it blossom.

Cernovich coined the term new right last year after hebannedalt-right media personality Tim Treadstone, known online as Baked Alaska, from attending an inauguration party Treadstone had assisted Cernovich in planning called The Deploraball. Treadstone had published several tweets about the Jewish Question an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that suggests Jewish people scheme to dominate global media and governments. Cernovich replaced Treadstone withequally terriblealt-right personalityMilo Yiannopoulos, who had been banned from Twitter for inciting a racially motivatedharassment campaignand was laterdisinvitedfrom the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) after a video surfaced in which he appears to condone pedophilia. The drama fractured the alt-right media landscape into factions, with some hoping to rebrand and distance themselves from the openly white nationalist fan base they had used to inspire their brands.

After uninviting Treadstone, Cernovich introduced the concept of the new right in aninterviewwith Paul Joseph Watson, editor-at-large of the conspiracy theory website Infowars, denouncingwhite supremacist messages spread by some members of the alt-right. After the interview, Watson alsopeddled the conceptof a new right to his fan base on social media, claiming that there are two Alt-Rights and that one faction is more accurately described as the New Right. Watson claimed the new right includes people who wear Trump hats, create memes [and] have fun. This group, he wrote, is entirely separate from a tiny fringe minority of people under the alt-right banner who obsess about Jews, racial superiority and Adolf Hitler.

The public relations move worked, and soon many other notable pro-Trump new-media personalities were clustered under the new right brand coined by Cernovich. They includedVox Day, who wrote amanifestoon what it means to be alt-right that claimed diversity + proximity = war; alt-right poster boy Milo Yiannopoulos, whopraisedthe groups membership; The Gateway Pundits Lucian Wintrich, who made an alt-righthand signalin the White House briefing room; and blogger Stefan Molyneux, who receiveswide praiseamong white nationalist groups.

CernovichtoldThe Atlanticthat he for sure pictured himself as the leader of the new right and that he and his media partners want to do nationalism without white identity politics. Cernovichexplained toNew Yorkmagazinethat his initial support for the alt-right was based on a misunderstanding: He didnt realize it was, like, a white, ethno-nationalist thing. Right Side Broadcast Network (RSBN), whichhired Cernovichto host a program on the pro-Trump news stream,defendedCernovich and allowed him to whitewash his track record of vile statements.

But Cernovich and his new-media allies openly pandered to a growing pro-Trump alt-right media audience during the 2016 election by publishing media meant topromotefearof Muslims and pieces thatattackedsocial justice warriors andotherswho speak out against the sexist, misogynistic, and racist rhetoric Cernovich and other alt-right personalities spew. Cernovich also onceannouncedthat his next project would be part alt-right, part fitness, part anti-cuck, and he haspraisedthe alt-right movement as sophisticated, suspicious, and combative anddeclaredit woke. The ignorance defense the new right is using is soiled by these figures year-long track record of employing such rhetoric to bolster one anothers public profiles.

Cernovich and his new-media allies are snake oil salesmen who adopt whatever controversial punditry will earn them publicity and let them promote their bogusproducts. For example, Cernovich uses his platform to sell copies of hisself-help bookfor men and promote his in-development experimental nootropic pills that heclaimedwill regrow neurons inside the brain and build a supercharged mind that most people cant handle.

The new right is nothing more than a shallow attempt to legitimize commentary that draws upon the alt-right philosophy, which has been used to promote conspiracy theories like the Pizzagate claim that top Democratic officials were complicit in a Washington, D.C., child sex-trafficking ring run out of a pizza restaurant. Media should not grant Cernovich and his colleagues a free pass to abandon the alt-right talking points that they used to force themselves into media relevancy in the first place.

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Meet the new right. Same as the alt-right - Salon.com - Salon