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In tweets following the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, former President Barack Obama quoted words from Nelson Mandelas autobiography: No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

The sentiment has resonated with millions of Americans and garnered some of the most likes in the history of Twitter. It also offered a stark contrast to the reaction of President Trump.

Yet while a moving sentiment, Mr. Obamas comments, if taken literally, represent an incorrect interpretation of todays racial challenges and the nature of the so-called alt-right. The statements imply an outdated theory of racism. Among many anti-racists, there has long been a nave hope that racism is handed down from one generation to the next. If that cycle is broken, this view goes, then racial harmony can finally prevail.

Although scholarly literature provides some evidence for this argument, the alt-right shows that it does not tell nearly the entire story.

In my experience with the alt-right, I encountered a surprisingly common narrative: Alt-right supporters did not, for the most part, come from overtly racist families. Alt-right media platforms have actually been pushing this meme aggressively in recent months. Far from defending the ideas and institutions they inherited, the alt-rightwhich is overwhelmingly a movement of white millennialsforcefully condemns their parents generation. They do so because they do not believe their parents are racist enough.

In an inverse of the left-wing protest movements of the 1960s, the youthful alt-right bitterly lambast the boomers for their lack of explicit ethnocentrism, their rejection of patriarchy, and their failure to maintain Americas old demographic characteristics and racial hierarchy. In the alt-rights vision, even older conservatives are useless cucks who focus on tax policies and forcefully deny that they are driven by racial animus.

Despite some growth over the last few years, the alt-right itself remains a small, mostly anonymous, and marginal movement. So when considering the attitudes of young people, it may be helpful to consider a much broader category: Trump supporters. How did the youngest white Americans respond to the most racially polarizing election in recent memory? It looks like they favored the man who campaigned on the promise of a border wall.

According to alarge 2016 study conducted by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, whites in high school favored Trump over Clinton by a staggering marginlarger even than Trumps margin among adult white voters. Among this sample, 48 percent preferred Trump, 11 percent preferred Clinton, and the rest would not vote or choose another candidate.

One study is not definitive, and the political identities of Generation Z are still forming, but the rising generation of whites shows signs of being more right-wing than the millennials. It raises the possibility that a significant number of them will come to embrace open racism.

The notion that youthful rebellion necessarily leads young people to the left is an additional blind spot in mainstream thinking. To begin with, it is ahistorical. In the early 20th century we saw multiple transgressive movements on the right. Furthermore, as radical leftists of the baby boom generation assumed important positions in politics, academia, and the media, it should not have been shocking to see millennials with a contrarian streak respond by taking embracing right-wing radicalism. Not all such young people, of course, but enough to make waves.

Another misconception about racism is that education is a panacea. Overall, higher education does apparently lead to lower levels of racial hostility. Yet again, the alt-right complicates this picture. The typical alt-right supporter does not lack education. The movements skillful use of the internet alone suggests otherwise. In interviews with people in the alt-right including the movements leading voices and anonymous Twitter trollsI found at least some degree of college education was a common denominator.

To complicate matters further, many people in the alt-right were radicalized while in college. Not only that, but the efforts to inoculate the next generation of Americas social and economic leaders against racism were, in some cases, a catalyst for racist radicalization. Although academic seminars that explain the reality of white privilege may reduce feelings of prejudice among most young whites exposed to them, they have the opposite effect on other young whites. At this point we do not know what percentage of white college students react in such a way, but the number is high enough to warrant additional study.

A final problem with contemporary discussions about racism is that they often remain rooted in outdated stereotypes. Our popular culture tends to define the racist as a toothless illiterate Klansman in rural Appalachia, or a bitter, angry urban skinhead reacting to limited social prospects. Thus, when a white nationalist movement arises that exhibits neither of these characteristics, people are taken by surprise.

These stereotypes may serve a useful purpose, as they reinforce the idea that racism is a socially undesirable attribute. But they also leave Americans baffled when they encounter racists that do not fit these descriptions, and the response is often flat-footed.

In recent years, the alt-right was almost exclusively an online phenomenon. Charlottesville showed that the alt-right wants to move into the real world. Despite crowing from the alt-right that their rally was a success, the end result probably did their movement more harm than good. This does not mean the movement is down for the count. The alt-right has proven itself alarmingly adaptable, and it will learn from its failures and soldier on.

By all means, as we mourn the dead, there is nothing wrong with hopeful words. Nor should we overestimate the size and influence of the alt-right. But the challenges embodied by the violence in Charlottesville are not going to be resolved on their own. Moving forward, a clear-eyed vision of the racial landscape in America is now more important than ever. George Hawley (@georgehawleyUA) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama. His books include Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism, White Voters in 21st Century America, and Making Sense of the Alt-Right (forthcoming).

Originally posted here:
The Alt-Right Is Not Who You Think They Are - The American Conservative

Inquiring minds want to know: What exactly is the alt-right, and how large is the audience for the movement?

The essence of the alt-right can be distilled to this catchphrase: All people are not created equal. That's even more extreme than it may sound. Prominent alt-right thinkers don't only believe that some are naturally taller, stronger or smarter than others, but also that some groups are more deserving of political status than others. They reject the concept of equality before the law.

Andrew Anglin is editor of the most popular alt-right web magazine, the Daily Stormer. He has written that The Alt-Right does not accept the pseudo-scientific claims that all races are equal. He also supports repatriation of American blacks to Africa or autonomous territory within the U.S.

Not all alt-right thinkers are so radical in their aims, but they all believe in some form of race-based political inegalitarianism. The unequal brigade includes in its ranks editors of and regular contributors to many alt-right web magazines, including Richard Spencer of Radix Journal, Mike Enoch of the Right Stuff, Brad Griffin (also known as Hunter Wallace) of Occidental Dissent, Jared Taylor of American Renaissance and James Kirkpatrick of VDARE (named after Virginia Dare, the first white child born in America).

The exact size of the alt-right is perhaps not of the utmost importance. As an ideological movement, the alt-right seeks not immediate policy or electoral victories, but longer-term influence on how others think about politics. Still, it's possible to get a sense of the scope of this netherworld through web traffic.

From September 2016 to May 2017, I analyzed visits and unique visitors to scores of political web magazines of various political orientations. (One person accessing a site five times in a month represents five visits but only one unique visitor.) Through interviews and using the site Media Bias/Fact Check, I identified nine alt-right sites, 53 sites associated with the mainstream right, and 63 with the mainstream left. I excluded left- or right-leaning general-interest publications, such as BuzzFeed, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Data were obtained from SimilarWeb, a well-known provider of web-marketing information. All audience figures given here are monthly averages for the nine-month period I studied.

The total audience for alt-right political sites is much smaller than the audiences for mainstream left and right sites. The nine alt-right sites combined received nearly 3 million visits and 839,000 unique visitors, compared with 236 million visits and 102 million unique visitors for the mainstream left, and 264 million visits and 111 million unique visitors for the mainstream right.

But these numbers are less comforting than they may seem.

The coarsely racist Daily Stormer received 997,000 visits and 284,000 unique visitors. In so doing, it drew a larger audience than the sites for such longstanding mainstream magazines as Washington Monthly (766,000 visits, 259,000 unique visitors) and Commentary (594,000 visits, 268,000 unique visitors).

American Renaissance (497,000 visits, 158,000 unique visitors) and VDARE (427,000 visits, 132,000 unique visitors) both had larger audiences than the sites of the familiar leftist magazines Dissent (193,000 visits, 82,000 unique visitors monthly) and The Progressive (142,000 visits, 64,000 unique visitors).

Of course, traditional intellectual elites have not been overthrown. The audiences for The Nation (4.3 million visits, 2.4 million unique visitors), New Republic (3.8 million visits, 2.2 million unique visitors), and National Review (nearly 10 million visits, 4.2 million unique visitors), all well-established magazines, were far larger than that of the combined alt-right.

The picture changes substantially, however, if we stretch the definition of an alt-right site to include Breitbart News. My sources did not classify it as such and the site does not explicitly reject political equality as the alt-right does. But Breitbart Chairman Steve Bannon once declared that his publication was the platform for the alt-right, and its incendiary populism is very much in the movement's style. At 85.4 million visits and 24 million unique visitors, it operates in a different league not only from the Daily Stormer, but from most traditional left- and right-wing political publications.

The anti-democratic alt-right has arrived and established a toehold in our political discourse. That is the real matter of concern.

Tribune Content Agency

Thomas J. Main is a professor at the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs of Baruch College, City University of New York. His book The Rise of the Alt-Right will be published in spring 2018. This first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

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What's the 'alt-right,' and how large is its audience? - Chicago Tribune

What is the "alt-right"? For months, the term and others like "alt-left" and "antifa" have popped in and out of news stories, social media posts the mouths of world leaders.

The Associated Press published a blog detailing its position regarding the use of "alt-right" and these terms below.

The so-called "alt-right," according to The Associated Press, is a term that can apply to a person or group endorsing the political stance "currently embraced by some white supremacists and white nationalists." That stance is more or less about protecting the white race, but there are some differences between white supremacy and white nationalism. The AP defines the term as:

"A political grouping or tendency mixing racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and populism; A political grouping or tendency mixing racism, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and populism; a name currently embraced by some white supremacists and white nationalists to refer to themselves and their ideology, which emphasizes preserving and protecting the white race in the United States."

Alt-left:

Antifa:

Short for "anti-fascist," The AP describes it as "an umbrella description for the far-left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events." According to the New Jersey State Office of Homeland Security, "antifa" are a subset of the anarchist movement focusing on "issues relating to racism, sexism and anti-Semitism as well as other perceived injustices." People associated with the "antifa" have become violent; when Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley in April, he was met with crowds of protesters, including members of the "antifa."

White nationalism/supremacy:

In its blog post, The AP distinguished between the two terms as such: Nationalism refers to a belief that white people need their own separate territory and/or bolstered rights and protections, whereas supremacists embrace a belief that white people are superior to non-white people.

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What is the 'alt-right'? Definitions of terms in extremist language ... - WTVD-TV

To listen to this episode of Trumpcast, use the player below:

Virginia Heffernan talks to Andrew Marantz, a writer at the New Yorker, about the many warring factions within the alt-right and how the left should respond to them.

Dont forget about our live show in Austin, Texas, for the Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday, Sept. 23, at 7:30 p.m. Well be live from the Texas Union Theatre with special guests former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson and Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas. For tickets go to Slate.com/Live.

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A Taxonomy of the Alt-Right - Slate Magazine

Now that the prefix alt is being thrown in front of anything one opposes, a new study investigates the characteristics of people affiliated with the Alt-Right. The paper offers insight into what this collection of individuals and small movements really thinks about the state of the union.

Two assistant professorsPatrick S. Forscher, in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Arkansas, and Nour S. Kteily, in the Department of Management and Organizations at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern Universityused Amazons mTurk platform, in which people post bulletins to recruit human intelligence for tasks computers cannot perform, for data collection. Members affiliated with the Alt-Right were paid $3 while a comparison group of non-Alt-Right members received $2.

While trusting online replies by self-identifying members of any group is tricky, a two-tier verification system offered at least some semblance of honesty. After discarding a number of responses, the researchers analyzed 447 members of the Alt-Right with 382 non-Alt-Right respondents in the comparison group. While well look more deeply into the methods, this summation from their conclusion is perhaps unsurprising:

Our Alt-Right sample reported high levels of social dominance orientation, strong support for collective action on behalf of White people, and strong opposition to collective action on behalf of Black people they were quite willing to blatantly dehumanize both religious/national outgroups and political opposition groups, reported high levels of the motivations to express prejudice towards Black people, and reported high levels of harassing and offensive behavior.

In last weeks Real Time, Bill Maher mentioned the Alt-Right could not exist without the Internet. Indeed, many groups would not have formed without this powerful device. (Ive previously written about another such phenomena,misophonia.) Forscher and Kteily wanted to better understand if the Alt-Right leaned more populist, focused on anti-globalist and anti-establishment issues, or were truly the products of White Power. It turns out a little of both, with the latter expressed more forcefully.

The Method

In this study, members of the Alt-Right were first asked questions regarding the gap between elites and non-elites, attitudes toward the economy, trust in various media outlets, and notions of supremacy, including social dominance orientation, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, and Dark Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) characteristics. Measures of self-reported aggression and extremist philosophies also played a role.

The comparison group described their own political ideologies and feelings on the Alt-Right. Both groups were asked if the Alt-Right is racist. Importantly, they left out comments about Trump and his potential affiliations with the Alt-Right during analysis.

Then they dove into minutia. Respondents had to measure friendships and moral foundation traits, including equality, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity. Intergroup allegiance was rendered, as well ideas about dehumanization. In perhaps the most telling aspect of the study, the famous chimp-to-human evolution drawing was presented. Respondents were asked to identify where along the timeline the following three subgroups were located: Alt-Right members, such as Americans, Europeans, Swedes, and Whites in general; religious and ethnic groups like Arabs, Muslims, Mexicans, and Blacks; political opposition groups, such as Democrats, feminists, journalists, and Republicans who refused to vote for Trump.You can read all the questions asked here.

Image used for the ascent scale anchor points in the study (page 32 of the survey).

Next measured was self-reported aggressive behavior, including online and offline name calling, physical threats, harassment, and willingness to make statements because others find them offensive. Economic issues followed, including perceptions of disadvantage among ten groups. Feelings of in-group and out-group political affiliations were discussed, followed by support for the police, governmental and economic corruption, trust in both mainstream and alternative media sources, and finally, feelings on race-based collective action, such as Black Lives Matter.

The Results

Members of the Alt-Right display low trust in mainstream media and moderate trust in alternative media sources like Breitbart and Alex Jones. They measured at the midpoint on Dark Triad traits, Social Dominance Orientation, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, and dehumanization of religious and ethnic groups and their political opposition groups. They generally believe some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.

The Alt-Right scored much higher on motivations and willingness to express prejudice and to harass others. They support the organization of Whites but claim Black Lives Matter has been harmful to the country. Their respect for the police was higher, and they derived more pleasure from dehumanizing othersnon-members were notable for not dehumanizing members of the Alt-Right. The two groups shared similar scores regarding the moral outlooks of their friends (in-group mentality), economic evaluations, and concerns about governmental corruption.

We found some evidence for the populist portrayal, as Alt-Right supporters expressed suspicion of mainstream media and trust in alternative media. Interestingly, we found little evidence that this populism extended to economic issues: Alt-Right supporters were more optimistic about the current and future states of the economy than non-supporters.

The authors recognize limitations. As a cross-sectional study, this paper only speaks to correlates rather than causes of Alt-Right membership. They only measured a subset of potential variables, leaving out anxiety about social status and other markers. As their recruitment process was through convenience sampling, the dangers of self-reporting are apparent, including people lying about their affiliations.

One of the more interesting aspects of this paper is the authors belief that members of the Alt-Right sometimes begin with populism and get pulled toward supremacism as they befriend more White Power advocatesagain, in-group mentality. This makes sense given how tribalism is expressed in many aspects on both sides of this study.

But no, that does not give credence to the notion that both sides are to blame for incidents like Charlottesville. This paper clearly shows increased levels of hostility and aggression as well as willingness to harass and dehumanize on the Alt-Right. Perhaps most sadly, though, is that both sides do express distrust in the government and economic forces ruling America. A united effort could produce substantial change, but so long as the tribes battle that seems impossible.

robert-sapolsky-us-vs-them-thinking-is-hardwired-but-theres-hope-for-us-yet

In his book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, Robert Sapolsky writes:

Almost by definition, you cant have a society with both dramatic income inequality and plentiful social capital. Or translated from social science-ese, marked inequality makes people crummier to one another.

Bigotry, ethnocentrism, and oppression speak to our lowest, basest instincts. The biological mechanisms of out-group hostility played an important role in human development, but that time is over. So long as the fighting remains aimed at other ethnicities instead of the forces stoking nationalist flames, progress is impossible.

There are arguments amongst evolutionary biologists about whether evolution is gradual or has sudden jumps and fits. As this paper shows, we need a serious social jump right now, biology be damned.

--

Derek is the author ofWhole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body For Optimal Health. Based in Los Angeles he is working on a new book about spiritual consumerism. Stay in touch onFacebookandTwitter.

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Who Is the Alt-Right? Researchers Build a Psychological Profile - Big Think