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Steve Bannon on April 20th, 2017.

From AP/REX/Shutterstock.

Its all Steve Bannons fault. Three months into the Trump presidency, many in the Movement Formerly Known as the Alt-Right are in full rebellion against the term, and, ironically, many believe their acknowledged leader, currently President Donald Trumps chief strategist, gave it currency in the first place.

Trumps election, and Bannons ascendance, seemed likely to make the term a badge of pride, and a blow against political correctness. But thats far from what happened. In my reporting on the right over the months of Trumps presidency, almost nothing could make my sources more infuriated than affixing them with the alt-right label. I just think we have to be very careful about this kind of thing, [to] the extent that people want to describe that racism and anti-Semitism and all that kind of stuff, said Jeffrey Lord, CNN commentator and Trump surrogate. I mean, theres just not room for that kind of stuff in the conservative movement, period. Not under any circumstances, ever.

The alt-right label had been in use for years, partly to describe a vivid, largely online subculture of trolls who reveled in their racialist ugliness, often claiming it was an antidote to the reign of political correctness, which they saw as ruining the country. Populist nationalism joined hands with white supremacism and immature 4Chan trolls, borrowing its language from the latter and a deliberate, ironically blasphemous embrace of the former. Whether it was a belief system, a fully formed ideology, or a form of rhetoric, a way of poking at the nostrums and sacred cows of liberalism, was left deliberately murky.

Last summer, in an interview Bannon gave to Mother Jones during the Republican National Convention, Bannon allowed the movement to be pinned down. He called Breitbart the platform for the alt-right. The phrase multiplied exponentially after he became Trumps campaign chairman, catapulting the movement into the mainstream. Used to fighting a guerrilla war, now the alt-right was in the openand defending the ugliness became a lot harder.

Several people I spoke to thought that Bannons comment was not meant to be taken seriously. I think he was being his provocateur self there, said Lord, who himself scrambled from the label, and said that Bannon had approached him once about writing for the site. I think he probably saw it as an anti-Establishment group, which it decidedly is, and theres lots of us who think being anti-Establishment has considerable merit. But just because they might share a strand of a belief here doesnt make it an endorsement.

Milo Yiannopoulos, as a Breitbart columnist, was the most recognizable face of the alt-rights ugliness-as-provocation, though he never fully embraced the term. Now hes become a poster child for its struggles, after remarks emerged suggesting he condoned pedophilia (Yiannopoulous apologized for the tone of his comments, reiterated that he abhors sexual abuse, and subsequently resigned from the site). Yiannopoulos gives the Bannon interview similar weight in the history of the movement, though characteristically, he blames the media for what transpired. What I think he meant by that, was alt-right defined broadly, as the movement that propelled Trump to power, and that Breitbart was one of the places that they come to read news that is not completely opposed to their point of view, Yiannopoulos said. Calling it the platform for the alt-right, and defining the alt-right as white supremacy, is a journalistic trick, designed to pretend that what Bannon was saying was, if youre a white supremacist, come to Breitbart for your news.

Milo Yiannopoulos at the Republican National Convention in July 2016.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Before his exile from Breitbart, Yiannopoulos had identified himself as a fellow traveler of the movement, implying an overlap on some issues, and a rejection on others. When I spoke to him, however, he had scrambled even further away. Now the term alt-right has come to mean something else, and therefore, thats what it means now, he said. Whereas I may have considered myself previously a fellow traveler on some issues with the alt-right, the alt-right as the word is used today . . . I have nothing to do with it, and no fondness for it, and no interest in being associated with it.

If a lawmaker campaigns in poetry and governs in prose, the alt-right, whatever it is these days, is trying to pivot from campaigning in bathroom graffiti to governing in the foreign language of diplomatic tact and deliberate restraint. A movement that spent years on the attack now has to learn to defend.

The term alt-right, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, was created in 2008 by Richard Spencer to describe a strain of white nationalism that rejected every mainstream conservative view and pushed to preserve Western civilization from, in his words, a left-right dialectic...

It was Yiannopoulos, along with fellow Breitbart writer Allum Bokhari, who tried to stitch together a bigger tent for the movement. In their essay, An Establishment Conservatives Guide to the Alt-Right, the self-proclaimed Jewish gay and a mixed-race Breitbart reporter laid out the four groups they believed made up the amorphous blob of a movement fueling Trumps rise: identity politics-loathing intellectuals, migrant-wary natural conservatives, the twentysomething-year-old-white-man meme team, and, of course, the militaristic, white-supremacist 1488ers. While Yiannopoulos and Bakhari attempted to push the 1488ers away from the rest of the group and patted the memelords on the head, they still placed them under the same tent as the normal populist-nationalists. There are a myriad of agreements between its supporters over what they should build, they wrote, but virtual unity over what they should destroy.

But no one sees the alt-right as four groups; they see it as one group. To my mind, alt-right always carries with it self-conscious racialist politics, said David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a harsh critic of Trump and the Republican Partys racialist embrace. I would not use it to describe people who oafishly, and often without self-awareness, engage in racial dog-whistling. Id say that what the alt-right people do is take the unconscious and make it conscious.

Ever since last summer, almost everyone in the movement has been trying, and mostly failing, to get out from under the tent. Of all the trolls profiled by Politico in January, only Spencer would wear the label. Yiannopoulos, who had yet to fall, had pushed himself away from the term, but it did little good. The press did such a good job at defining it as white supremacy, that the only people who embrace it are the white supremacists, he said.

In a way, the problem of the Movement Formerly Known as the Alt-Right in the Trump era is precisely the same as Donald Trumps problem: words matter. A Hawaii district judge halted Trumps revised travel ban for its religious animus, specifically citing Trumps previous provocative statements during the campaign. Stephen Miller, a former Breitbart columnist turned White House aide, embarrassed the Trump administration with a few problematic TV appearances and disappeared from the airwaves when his comments were used by the Hawaii judge. Even Breitbart itself began to go mainstream, disclosing its investors and masthead to the Senate Press Gallery when they were denied credentials, and passively letting its radical, burn it all down writers leave.

Yiannopolous, of course, sees a bright future for his brand of conservative culture, whatever its called. I think the next 30 years in culture is going to be defined by a colossal pushback in political correctness, which was part of what this movement was about. Libertarianism and punk is coming back now in the form of Make America Great Again hats and conservative comedians and personalities. Thats not going anywhere. But the particular, specific word alt-right, the medias ruined it as a useful term to describe whats happening.

Frum, for his part, doesnt blame Bannon; he blames Trump, the tentpole of the alt-rights big tent. He attracted people who just liked bullying. He attracted people whose primary interest was seeing womens place in society reduced. He attracted people who were nihilistic and hungry for destruction. And he attracted a very small numberthere arent so many of theseof people who are self-consciously racialist. And that last group is what Richard Spencer called the alt-right.

Conservatives of many stripes are rushing to get out of the tent. But getting out is a lot harder than getting in.

Is this an endearing moment of Donald squeezing Erics cheeks, or Donald checking to see if his thoroughbred sons teeth are healthy?

Tiffany, Donald, and Donald junior at Donalds 50th birthday party.

Young Eric attends the U.S. Open in 1991, making one of the few public appearances without shellacked hair.

A 10-year-old Eric is not as camera-ready as his mother Ivana. Hell get there one day.

Don Jr., 38, and Barron, 10, share an inter-generational fist-bump at the Republican National Convention.

Eric and Don Jr., for once not wearing slicked-back hair, pay their respects to their dear father.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. at the Old Post Office, now a Trump hotel, Washington, D.C., July 2014.

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Is this an endearing moment of Donald squeezing Erics cheeks, or Donald checking to see if his thoroughbred sons teeth are healthy?

by Ron Galella/WireImage.

Tiffany, Donald, and Donald junior at Donalds 50th birthday party.

BY RON GALELLA/WIREIMAGE.

Young Eric attends the U.S. Open in 1991, making one of the few public appearances without shellacked hair.

by Ron Galella/WireImage.

A 10-year-old Eric is not as camera-ready as his mother Ivana. Hell get there one day.

by Ron Galella/WireImage.

As Ivanka practices looking gorgeous at her fathers 50th birthday, a 12-year-old Eric appears displeased at his choice of tie.

by Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.

Eric and Donald at a basketball game in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 2007.

BY JAMES DEVANEY/WIREIMAGE.

Don junior in Briarcliff Manor, New York, 2014.

BY BOBBY BANK/WIREIMAGE.

A 23-year-old Eric attempts to smile. Hell get there one day.

by M. Von Holden/WireImage.

Donald disapproved of Don Jr. proposing to model Vanessa Haydon using an engagement ring provided by a New Jersey jeweler who wanted publicity. You have a name thats hot as a pistol, said Trump, a man who put said name on everything from steaks to playing cards.

by Dave Allocca/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock.

It is unknown whether Eric Trump eventually killed this animal for sport.

by Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images.

Don Jr., and baby Barron at the unveiling of their fathers star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Barron is either throwing his fists in the air in celebration of his fathers accomplishments, or is waving for help.

by Hubert Boesl/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images.

We presume that this is Don Jr. impersonating his sister Ivanka at the Eric Trump Golf Tournament in 2014.

by Bobby Bank/WireImage.

A 9-year-old Barron already has his fathers eyes and princely smirk.

by Debra L Rothenberg/FilmMagic.

At a campaign event in Las Vegas, December 2015.

FROM VISIONS OF AMERICA/UIG/GETTY IMAGES.

Don Jr., 38, and Barron, 10, share an inter-generational fist-bump at the Republican National Convention.

By Carlo Allegri/REUTERS.

Eric and Don Jr., for once not wearing slicked-back hair, pay their respects to their dear father.

by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. at the Old Post Office, now a Trump hotel, Washington, D.C., July 2014.

BY PAUL MORIGI/WIREIMAGE.

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The Movement Formerly Known as the Alt-Right Tries to Evolve - Vanity Fair

By Dan Gainor

Published April 20, 2017 | FoxNews.com

Its no secret that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and head coach Bill Belichick are friends of President Donald Trump. Unless you rely on the broadcast network evening news.

Thirty-four Patriots players joined their coach and team owner in the visit to the White House to honor them on their victory. That visit was overshadowed by the apparent suicide of former teammate Aaron Hernandez, in prison for the murder of Odin Lloyd. All three networks used Hernandezs death to downgrade the press event into B-roll. Then they skipped the positive things Kraft had to say about Trump or a key, pro-Trump anecdote the president mentioned involving Belichick.

The rest of the media did everything they could to prevent Trump from scoring points, just like normal. Politico described the visit as, The Alt-Rights Favorite Team Visits the White House. Several outlets hyped the number of players who had skipped, like Time and lefty Think Progress.

Some sites promoted an anti-Trump Patriots video. GQ claimed Trump Seems Pretty Hurt by quarterback Tom Bradys skipping the event. Even though Brady had to be broken up over the death of a former member of his offense. ESPNs Bob Ley said he was stunned the Patriots for having anyone go in light of Hernandezs death.

The Times Sports staff (Who reads the Times for sports?) tweeted out comparison photos from the Patriots 2015 visit claiming to show a major disparity in player and staff attendance.

The Patriots immediately debunked that by posting a different photo and then adding a comment saying: These photos lack context. Facts: In 2015, over 40 football staff were on the stairs. In 2017, they were seated on the South Lawn. Perhaps, this is why people shouldnt read the Times for sports.

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Networks Sack Trump, Pass on Super Bowl-level Support from 'Alt-Right' Patriots Owner, Coach - Fox News

The banner image on the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer celebrated Hitlers birthday.

Neo-Nazi and alt-right websites are memorializing Adolf Hitlers birthday with memes, affectionate messages and more long-winded articles on the peaceful origins of the Nazis.

Happy birthday, Uncle Adolf. Weve never missed you more than we miss you right now, wrote Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer. Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. Anglin even altered the banner of his website to picture a birthday cake, with lit candles and frosted letters wishing Hitler a happy birthday.

In the sites comment section, readers shared their own homemade images of swastika-decorated cakes.

On Altright.com, a newer website launched by white nationalist Richard Spencer, one post dismissed the violence of the Nazis as another Big Lie of the establishment left and sought to cast Spencer and the alt-right as a group similarly mischaracterized and persecuted by a brainwashed and antagonistic political left.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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Neo-Nazis And 'Alt-Right' Celebrate Hitler's Birthday The Forward - Forward

The documentary A Gray State examines the story of David Crowley, an Iraq veteran and alt-right filmmaker whose paranoia consumed him.

Donald Trumps embrace of Alex Jones and his InfoWars outlet has gone a long way toward legitimizing the alt-right fringe, a space rife with conspiracy theories about the corruptness of the national media and the dictatorial schemes of the federal government. The fact that Jones is now declaring (in a custody battle with his ex-wife) that his on-screen persona is performance art changes little about the despicable, corrosive nature of his work, which has included claiming the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and the Sandy Hook massacre was a false flag incident with child actors (not to mention all that Pizzagate nonsense). Together, Jones and Trump (and Trumps right-hand buddy, former Breitbart bigwig Steve Bannon) have helped stoke the flames of anti-establishment fake news extremismand as Erik Nelsons A Gray State makes clear, that sort of fanaticism can lead to tragic consequences for all involved.

Executive produced by Werner Herzog (whose Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams were exec-produced by Nelson), A Gray State focuses on David Crowley, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who, in 2010, was inspired to become a moviemaker. His project was Gray State, the story of a near-future dystopia in which the U.S. government has followed through on its (currently in-progress) plans to transform America into a nation of oppressive martial law. Police militias execute dissidents in the street. Kids are branded like cattle. All civil liberties are crushed under the boot of the tyrannical corporate war machine. Gray State is less a movie than it is a warning, David is heard saying in a promotional video. Moreover, he cautions, the thing that you have to begin to understand about conspiracy theory is that, at some point, its no longer theory.

David himself became the subject of such theories in January 2015, when his body, alongside those of his wife, Komel, and 5-year-old daughter, Raniya, were found in their Apple Valley, Minnesota, home, all dead from gunshot wounds. Above their bodies on the wall of their living room, the phrase Allahu Akbar was scrawled in Komels blood. A Koran was found lying between David and Komel, opened to a forgiveness prayer. And in their office, a notepad featured the handwritten message: Submit to Allah now.

Given that David was a Christian who had helped covert his Muslim wife, and who, according to his brother, was a firm opponent of Islam and Sharia Law as a result of his Middle East experiences, the scene was tailor-made to be interpreted by Davids fans as evidence that hed been silenced by anti-freedom enemiesand, possibly, by the very unethical government he sought to expose. To them, his death proved that his lifes work was valid, and becoming reality.

Police, however, deemed it a murder-suicide that was pre-planned by David (replete with an iTunes playlist soundtrack created just for the occasion). A Gray State persuasively corroborates that analysis. Employing an enormous amount of footage shot by David as he prepped his opus, as well as plentiful home movies and interviews with friends, relatives, and coworkers, Nelson depicts his subject as a vet so disillusioned by his combat tours of duty that he became gripped with paranoia about the military-industrial complexs nefarious intentions. Expressing that through his film, he gave voice to those on the nascent alt-right who spend their days and nights dreaming of violent rebellion in the name of liberty.

Self-producing a trailer for Gray State at a cost of $6,000, David quickly raised $61,533 to complete a screenplay, which he then took to Hollywood and Michael Entertainment Group, which were interested in financing the full-length feature. Thus a right-wing star was born: good-looking, charismatic, driven, and devoted to his family, with the authentic Army background to give him credibility with the radicals, and the committed artistic vision to make his fantasies a cine-reality.

So how, then, did he wind up lying in a pool of blood beside his beloved Komel and Raniya in his own house? Although one friend asserts, He was a genius, A Gray State slowly peels back the curtain on Davids private life to reveal an increasingly unstable individual, one whose suspicions about institutional systems quickly blossomed into distrust of everything and everyone around him. From scenes of David showing off the enormous wall where hed diagrammed his script with note cardssequences that include him describing his fictional story in ways that echo his own tragic pathto an audio recording of him preparing to meet with his Michael Entertainment Group investors, Nelsons documentary exposes the insanity that took hold of his mind. Especially in the latter instance (presented at films outset), full of strategic plans that are equally rambling, calculating, and crazy, its clear he was a deeply troubled man plagued by psychosis.

So too, as it turns out, was dietician Komel, the two of them embarking on a joint path of wholesale isolation (from everyone they knew) and becoming convinced they were being persecuted not only by the state, but also by otherworldly forces. Between that sort of lunacy and Davids filmmaking endeavor, which involved staging dog attacks on civilians and point-blank assassinations, its no surprise that young Raniya, in a candid video moment, is seen describing her and her parents imaginary murders in gruesome terms (this room is bloody the red man is going to get you). Its a stark illustration of how the mindset adopted by David (and his alt-right brethren) warps and corrupts. And the fact that, as a news reporter points out, Raniyas morbid fantasy functioning as Shining-esque prophesy only further underlines how dreams of death and destruction often end by coming true.

Which brings us back to Alex Jones, whose appearance on multiple occasions throughout A Gray Statethanks to Davids fandom (he even appears on InfoWars radio broadcast)suggests that, like Davids uncompleted movie, Nelsons film is a warning about the real, horrific costs of promoting conspiracy theories to a gullible, volatile element of the public. As one friend remarks about the online criticism David received for not completing his project on time, whereas comic-book fans might be nitpicky about superhero movies, Gray States target audience was another level of obsessive: These people are actually, legitimately insane, though. Thats the difference.

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An Alt-Right Filmmakers Descent into Madness, Paranoia, and Murder-Suicide - Daily Beast

Zara has withdrawn the skirt from its website after complaints on social media. Photograph: Zara

Zara has withdrawn a skirt with a frog design from its website after social media users noted its resemblance to Pepe, a cartoon popular with the so-called alt-right.

The denim skirt, embroidered with cartoon frogs wearing sunglasses, was being sold as part of the brands festival edition. But Twitter users were quick to point out its similarities to the Pepe cartoon:

Writer Meagan Fredette spotted the skirt and told Dazed: My immediate thought was holy shit, they have no idea what they are doing here, do they?

The original link to the skirt on Zaras website now redirects to its front page.

A spokesperson for the company said the skirt has absolutely no link to Pepe or the alt-right.

The skirt is part of the limited Oil-On-Denim collection which was created through collaborations with artists and is only available in selected markets, the spokesperson said.

The designer of the skirt is Mario de Santiago, known online as Yimeisgreat. Mario explores social interactions through his work and in his own words: The idea came from a wall painting I drew with friends four years ago.

There is absolutely no link to the suggested theme.

Pepe the Frog was created by cartoonist Matt Furie, who originally envisaged him as a chill and good-natured frog. However, over the course of the American electoral campaign, Pepe transformed from an amusing star of weird memes to a white supremacist symbol denounced by the Anti-Defamation League.

Furie has since teamed up with the ADL in an attempt to reclaim Pepe. He said: Its the worst-case scenario for any artist to lose control of their work and eventually have it labelled like a swastika or a burning cross.

This is not the first time Zara has got into trouble with an ill-judged clothing design. In 2014, they pulled a childrens striped shirt with a yellow star after complaints that it looked like the clothing worn by Holocaust victims.

In 2007, an embroidered handbag was withdrawn from sale after customers noticed it was decorated with green swastikas.

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Zara pulls denim skirt over likeness to 'alt-right' mascot Pepe the Frog - The Guardian