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For what most people would deem all the wrong reasons but he almost certainly wouldnt, Milo Yiannopoulos has been all over the news in recent weeks. Having built a reputation as the alt-rights most vocal spokesperson and, in his own words, the most fabulous supervillain on the internet the charismatic, Kent-born, gay 33-year-old had his book deal with Simon & Schuster terminated (it was due to be published in June), and was forced to resign from his editor post at alt-right news site Breitbart. Both of these things happened after comments surfaced in which he apparently defended the idea of relationships between older men and younger boys.

But just as his ban from Twitter in July last year (for his role in the abuse of Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones) only served to reinforce his enemy-of-the-mainstream status, these events will only make him more notorious. I look forward to making you all laugh, cry and think for many decades to come, he said at the press conference to announce his resignation from Breitbart. Dont think for a moment that anything that has happened in the last 48 hours will ever stop me being as offensive, provocative and outrageously funny as I choose. I am not going anywhere.

Yiannopoulos is perhaps the most high-profile and most extreme of the right's new wave of provocateurs, but he is far from the only one. In the past six months, a wave of UK-based bloggers and writers, all linked by a distaste for liberalism, political correctness and the mainstream media (or the MSM, as they call it) are beginning to rise to not dissimilar levels of prominence.

Milo Yiannopoulos challenged on Breitbart News headlines about Muslims and feminism on Channel 4 News

Youve had a priesthood of pundits working for the established broadcasters and theyve interpreted current events for us, notes Douglas Carswell, the first elected Ukip MP, whose book The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy compared what is happening now to the Reformation. Suddenly digital means that anyone can present an analysis on current events... and its created the space for a lot of insurgent opinion. Now, some of that opinion is pretty appalling. But dont blame the insurgents: theyre a consequence of the priesthood of pundits being so out of touch and one-sided.

The term alt-right was coined by the president of the US National Policy Institute and white supremacist, Richard B Spencer, in 2008 he founded alternativeright.com in 2010 and since then has come to describe a broad group of people on both sides of the Atlantic. They may not agree on quite what 'alt-right- means (indeed, there is no completely settled definition) but all of them are relatively young and adept at using social media; they are pro-Trump, pro-Brexit, and anti-feminist; they have a strong taste for outrage-for-its-own-sake over any particular political leanings; and they see themselves as part of a new counterculture. They promote each others content through their own channels. All of them have growing numbers of followers. All of them, appearance-wise, are the antithesis of the aged skinheads you might traditionally associate with the right. All of them also, you suspect, do not intend on going anywhere any time soon. So who are Britains key players?

(Wigmore/Finn/Splash News)

Raheem Kassam

Standing furthest to the right literally, not figuratively in that photo featuring the President Elect and Nigel Farage in front of Trump Towers gold door was Raheem Kassam. Previously the former Ukip leaders chief aide, then a Ukip leadership hopeful himself (slogan: Make Ukip Great Again), he is currently editor-in-chief of Breitbart UK. He has conducted sympathetic interviews for Breitbart with people such as Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League and subsequent founder of anti-Islam organisation Pegida UK.

Kassam, 30, was born in Hammersmith and raised in Hillingdonas the son of Tanzanian immigrants. He was educated at Bishopshalt comprehensive in Uxbridge and went on to study politics at the University of Westminster in 2004. There, after apparently witnessing the number of students intoradical Islam (the Islamic State militant known as Jihadi John was two years below him), he began to turnhis back on the Ismaili Muslim faith. And then he became politically anti-Islam.

He began blogging, and was working in a call centre when he was approached by Steve Bannon, then executive chair of Breitbart, now Donald Trumps chief strategist, and a man who Kassam insists is not a white nationalist not far right, or an extremist.

Hes an obsessive; he doesnt really have other interests, says a long-time associate of Kassam.

Hes pretty much fallen out with everybody hes ever worked with over money... but hes a sociable type who likes the good life: dinner, brandy... but not drugs.

Kassam has a penchant for combative, wilfully shocking tweets (he has more than 50,000 followers), the most notorious being one in which he suggested Nicola Sturgeon should have her legs taped shut to stop her reproducing. He did not respond to requests for an interview.

Paul Joseph Watson

Raised on a Sheffield council estate and since relocated to a flat in Battersea, before the US presidential campaign Paul Joseph Watson, 35, was a relatively unknown blogger for US conspiracy theorist Alex Joness Infowars site (Hot Women in Ads Banned to Please Fat Feminists is an example of a past title).

Then he posted a video entitled The Truth About Hillarys Bizarre Behaviour, which claimed that Clintons weird seizures, psychotic facial tics, over-exaggerated reactions and coughing fits could be the side effects of strokes, and that her outbursts were likely linked to years of persistent drug abuse. The video went viral and was picked up by the National Enquirer, which led to Is Hillary having health problems? becoming the second biggest search on Google that week, despite the fact that there is no evidence for any of Watsons claims.

On Twitter, he is a hugely divisive presence with over half a million followers. He claimed last week that the actual number of attendees at the anti-Trump march in London last month was 2,000, and offered to pay for any journalist claiming Sweden is safe to stay in the crime-ridden migrant suburbs of Malm.

In addition, hes a staunch defender of Yiannopoulos, claiming that no journalist has done more to expose actual paedophiles. Having previously referred to the Evening Standard as absolute slimeballs, Watson has little interest in engaging with the mainstream media.

Michael Heaver

Until recently, 27-year-old Michael Heaver was Nigel Farages chief press adviser. He rose quickly through the Ukip ranks, having joined the party as a 17-year-old.

As of 17 January this year, though, he has been editor of westmonster.com, funded by Arron Banks, the biggest financial backer of the Leave campaign. Heaver also runs the site out of Bankss leave.eu offices in SW1. Unlike other alt-right bloggers, Heaver still drinks in Westminster haunt the Marquis of Granby with other politicos.

The site is very much inspired by the way Breitbart has tapped in to the alt-right sensibility. After the Brit Awards last week, for example, it lambasted the vile Donald Trump/Theresa May-baiting performance by multi-millionaire luvvie Katy Perry.

Educated at Coleridge Community College in Cambridge (which he calls one of the countrys worst state schools), Heaver scored highly enough in his GCSEs to secure a place at Hills Road Sixth Form College, regarded as one of the best in the UK.

While there he won the Schools Question Time Challenge to secure a place on a Question Time panel alongside Iain Duncan Smith and Douglas Alexander, against whom he more than held his own.

He is what he appears to be, says a long-time associate. A Ukip hardliner. Hes authentic. Chippy. And very paranoid about Westminster.

Matthew Tait

The host of the first alt-right London social in October last year, well-spoken business studies graduate Taitjoined the British National Party at the age of 18, founding a new branch in his native Maidenhead in 2004.

In stark contrast to other members of the alt-right, Tait identifies as an environmentalist, and initially intended, as an already-politicised teenager, to join the Green Party.

Unconvinced by what he read about them, though, he instead joined the BNP, having gone on its website, initially, as a joke. Tait left the party in 2010 and eventually assembled a group of like-minded people who, on deciding that a political party was not the way forward, launched Western Spring: a website representing the interests of White people everywhere, but in particular the interests of the White people indigenous to the British Isles.

Tait is now a regular speaker at meetings on both sides of the Atlantic, and was present at the notorious alt-right conference at Washington DCs Ronald Reagan Building in November, just after Donald Trumps victory, which saw some attendees giving triumphant Nazi salutes. After the event, he was ushered outside by Richard B Spencer, past the waiting press. He did not take questions.

Colin Robertson

Introducing this Scottish YouTuber to the same conference audience, Richard B Spencer described him as just the kind of person we want in the alt-right (he also said that the assembled crowd could see Robertson and himself as two of a kind, as kind of the hipster whisperers).

Only recently revealed to be Colin Robertson, 34, from Linlithgow, he was previously known only as Millennial Woes despite the fact that all of his videos feature him against a dark black background, talking directly to camera (titles include The Smugness of the Worldly Liberal).

Robertsonwas a socialist as a teenager, then a libertarian, then a paleoconservative. His epiphany came in the mid-2000s when he arrived at art college in London and found his multiracial halls of residence dizzying and horrible.

He began his YouTube channel at the beginning of 2014. It drew attention very quickly, to the point where, in the aftermath of Trumps triumph, he was being invited to speak in the US and to the extent that he recently celebrated reaching 25,000 subscribers on his channel. He claims that 4,000 of these came in the aftermath of his identity being exposed in the mainstream media. Enjoy being replaced by the alternative media, and thank you for the free publicity, his most recent video said.

Robertson may be based in Scotland but the reverberations of his huge, growing online presence can be felt keenly in the capital.

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Are these the faces of London's young 'alt-right'? - Evening Standard

Trump is not a new phenomenon. He is the latest, and most aggressive to date, repackaging of corporate-radical right attempts to reassert corporate hegemony and control over the global economy and US society. His antecedents are the policies and strategies of Nixon, Reagan and Gingrichs Contract for America in the 1990s.

Trump has of course added his new elements to the mix. Hes integrated the Tea Party elements left over from their purge by Republican Party elites after the 2012 national elections. Hes unified some of the more aggressive elements of the finance capital elites from hedge funds, commercial real estate, private equity, securities speculators and their ilki.e. the Adelsons, Singers, Mercers, and Schwarzmans. Hes captured, for the moment at least, important elements of the white industrial working class in the Midwest and South, co-opted union leaders from the building trades, and even neutralized top union leaders in some manufacturing industries with fake promises of a new manufacturing renaissance in the US. Hes firmly united the gun lobby of the NRA and the religious right now with the Breitbart propaganda machine and the so-called Alt-Right fringe.

Trump is a political and economic reaction to the crisis in the US economy in the 21st century, which the Obama administration could not effectively address after the 2008-09 crash. Trump shares this historical role with Nixon, who was a response to another decline in US corporate-economic political power in the early 1970s; with Reagan who was a response to the economic stagnation of the late 1970s; and with the Contract for America, a program associated with a takeover of Congress by the radical right in 1994, after the US housing and savings and loan crash and recession in 1989-1992. All these antecedents find their expression in the Trump movement and the policy and program positions that are now taking form under the Trump regime.

American economic and political elites are not reluctant to either change the rules of the game in their favor whenever warranted to ensure their hegemony, targeting not only foreign capitalist competitors when their influence grows too large but also potential domestic opposition by workers and unions, minorities, and even liberals who try to step out of their role as junior partners in rule.

This restructuring of rule has occurred not only in the early 1970s, early 1980s, mid 1990s, but now as well post Obamai.e. a regime that failed to contain both foreign competition and domestic restlessness. US elites did it before in the 20th century as well, on an even grander scale in 1944-47 and before that again during the decade of the first world war.

Whats noteworthy of the current, latest restructuring is its even greater nastiness and aggressiveness compared to earlier similar efforts to restore control.

Trumps policies and strategies reflect new elements in the policy and politics mix. Hes rearranged the corporate-right wing basebringing in new forces and challenging others to go along or get out. New proposals and programs reflect that base changei.e. in immigration, trade, appeals to white working class jobs, economic nationalism in general, etc. But Trumps fundamental policies and strategy share a clear continuity with past restructurings introduced before him by Nixon and Reagan in the early 1970s and 1980s, respectively.

NIXON-TRUMP

Like his predecessors, Trump arose in response to major foreign capitalist and domestic popular challenges to the Neoliberal corporate agenda. Nixon may have come to office on the wave of splits and disarray in the Democratic party over Vietnam in 1968, but he was clearly financed and promoted by big corporate elements convinced that a more aggressive response to global economic challenges by Europe and domestic protest movements were required. European capitalists in the late 1960s were becoming increasingly competitive with American, both in Europe and in the US. The dollar was over-valued and US exports were losing ground. And middle east elites were nationalizing their oil fields. Domestically, American workers and unions launched the second biggest strike wave in US history in 1969-71, winning contract settlements 20%-25% increases in wages and benefits. Mass social movements led by environmentalists, women, and minorities were expanding. Social legislation like job safety and health laws were being passed.

Nixons response to these foreign and domestic challenges was to counterattack foreign competitors by launching his New Economic Program (NEP) in 1971 and to stop and rollback union gains. Not unlike Trump today, the primary focus of NEP was to improve the competitiveness of US corporations in world markets.

To this effect the US dollar was devalued as the US intentionally imploded the post-1945 Bretton Woods international monetary system. Trump wants to force foreign competitors to raise the value of their currencies, in effect achieving a dollar devaluation simply by another means. The means may be different, but the goal is the same. Nixon imposed a 10% import tax, not unlike Trumps proposed 20% border tax today. Nixon proposed subsidies and tax cuts for US auto companies and other manufacturers; Trump has been promising Ford, Carrier Corp., Boeing and others the same, in exchange for token statements theyll reduce (not stop or reverse) offshoring of jobs. Nixon introduced a 7% investment tax credit for businesses without verification that he claimed would stimulate business spending in the US; Trump is going beyond, adding multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for business and investors, while saying more tax cuts for businesses and investors is needed to create jobs, even though historically theres no empirical evidence whatsoever for the claim. Nixon froze union wages and then rolled back their 1969-71 20% contract gains to 5.5%; Trump attacks unions by encourage state level right to work business legislation that will outlaw workers requiring to join unions or pay dues. Nixon accelerated defense spending while refusing to spend money on social programs by impounding the funds authorized by Congress; Trump has just announced an historic record 9% increase in defense spending, while proposing to gut spending on education, health, and social programs by the same 9% amount. Nixons economic policies screwed up the US economy, leading to the worst inflation and worst recession since the great depression; So too will Trumps. Similarities between Nixon and Trump abound in the political realm as well. Nixon fought and railed against the media; so now too is Trump. The only difference was one used a telephone and the other his iphone. Nixon declared he had a mandate, and the silent majority of middle America was behind him; Trump claims his forgotten man of middle America put him in office. Nixon bragged construction worker hard hats backed him, as he encouraged construction companies to form their anti-union Construction Industry Roundtable group; Trump welcomes construction union leaders to the White House while he supports reducing prevailing wage for construction work. Nixon continually promoted law and order and attempted to repress social movements and protests by means of the Cointelpro program FBI-CIA spying on citizens, while developing plans for rollout in his second term to intensify repression of protestors and social movements; Trump tweets police can do no wrong (whom he loves second only to his generals)and calls for new investigations of protestors, mandatory jail sentences for protestors and flagburners, and encourages governors to propose repressive legislation to limit exercise of First Amendment rights of free assembly. Trumps also calling for an investigation of election voting fraud, which will serve as cover to propose even more State level limits on voters rights. Nixon undertook a major shift in US foreign policy, establishing relations with Communist Chinaa move designed to split the Soviet Union (Russia) further from China; Trump is just flipping Nixons strategy around, trying to establish better relations with Russia as a preliminary to intensifying attacks on China. Anticipating defeat in Southeast Asia, Nixon declared victory and walked away from Vietnam; Trump will do the same in Syria, Iraq and the Middle East. The now infamous Powell Memorandum was written on Nixons watch, (within days of Nixons August 1971 NEP announcement)a plan for corporate America to launch an aggressive economic and social offensive to rollback unions and progressive movements and to restore corporate hegemony over US society; an equivalent Trump Bannon Memorandum strategic plan for the same will no doubt eventually be made public after the fact as well. Nixon was a crook; so will be Trump branded, but not until they release his taxes and identify payments (emoluments) received by his global businesses from foreign governments and security services. But this wont happen until corporate America gets its historic tax cuts, deregulation, and new bilateral free trade agreements from Trump.

REAGAN-TRUMP

The parallels in economic policy and political strategy are too many and too similar to consider merely coincidental. Nixon is Trumps policy and strategy mentor.

Similar comparisons can be made between Trump and Reagan, given a different twist here, a change in emphasis there.

Reagan introduced a major increase in defense spending, including a 600 ship navy, more missiles and nuclear warheads, and a military front in space called star wars; Trump loves generals and promises them his record 9% increase in war spending as well, paid for by equal cuts in social programs. Reagan introduced a $700 billion plus tax cut for business and investors in 1981, and an even more generous investment tax credit and accelerated depreciation allowances (tax cuts); Trump promises to cut business tax rates by half, end all taxes on their offshore profits, end all inheritance taxes, keep investor offshore tax loopholes, etc.more than $6 trillion worth while eliminating wage earners tax credits. Reagan cut social spending by tens of billions; Trump has proposed even more tens of billions. Reagan promised to balance the US budget but gave us accelerating annual budget deficits, fueled by record defense spending and the tax cuts for business of more than $700 billion (on a GDP of $4 trillion), the largest cuts in US history up to that time; Trumps budget deficit from $6 trillion in business tax cuts and war spending escalation will make Reagans pale in comparison. Reagans trade policy to reverse deteriorating US trade with Japan and Europe, was to directly attack Japan and Europe ( 1985 Plaza Accord and Louvre Accord trade agreements), forcing Japan-Europe to over-stimulate their economies and inflate their prices to give US companies an export cost competitive advantage; Trumps policy simply changes the target countries to Mexico, Germany and China. Each will have its very own Accord deal with Trump-US. The first free trade NAFTA deal with Canada was signed on Reagans watch; Trump only wants to rearrange the deck chairs on the free trade Titanic and replace multilateral free trade with bilateral deals he negotiates and can claim personal credit for. Reagan encouraged speculators to gut workers pension plans and he shifted the burden of social security taxation onto workers to create a social security trust fund surplus the government could then steal; Trump promises not to propose cutting social security, but refuses to say if the Republicans in Congress attach cuts to other legislation hell veto it. Reagan deregulated banks, airlines, utilities, trucking and other businesses, which led to financial crises in the late 1980s and the 1990-91 recession; Trump has championed repeal of the even token 2010 Dodd-Frank bank regulation act, and has deregulated by executive order even more than Reagan or Nixon. Stock market, junk bond market, and housing markets crashed in the wake of Reagans financial deregulation initiatives; the so-called Trump Trade since the election have escalated stock and junk bond valuations to bubble heights. Reagan bragged of his working class Republican supporters, and busted unions like the Air Traffic Controllers, while encouraging legal attacks on union and worker rights; Trump has his forgotten man, and courts union leaders in the White House while encouraging states to push right to work laws that prohibited requiring workers to join unions or pay dues. Reagan replaced his chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, Paul Volcker, when he wouldnt go along with Reagan-James Baker (Treasury Secretary) plans on reducing interest rates; Trump will replace current chair, Janet Yellen, when her term as chair expires next year.

Then there are the emerging political parallels between Reagan and Trump as well:

Even before the 1980 national election was even held, Reagans future staff members met secretly with foreign government of Iran to request they not release the 300 American hostages there before the 1980 election; Trump staff (i.e. General Flynn), apparently after the election, met with Russian representatives to discuss relations before confirmed by Congress. Reagans boys got off; Flynn didnt. Events are similar, though outcomes different. Reagan attacked the liberal media. Much less aggressively perhaps than Trump today, but nevertheless the once liberal-progressive Public Broadcasting Company was chastised, under threat by the government of budget cuts or outright privatization. It responded by inviting fewer left of center guest opinions to the show. So too thereafter did mainstream television Sunday talk shows (Meet the Press, etc.); Trumps attack on the media is more aggressive, aiming not to tame the media but de-legitimize it. He has proposed to privatize the Public Broadcasting Corporation. Reagan staff directly violated Congressional laws by arranging drug money seizures from Latin America by the CIA to pay for Iranian arms bought for the US by Israel, that were then distributed to the contras in Nicaragua to launch a civil war against their duly elected left government. Nixon had his Watergate, Reagan his Irangate. Next gate will be Trumps. Reagans offensive against the environment was notorious, including appointments of cabinet members who declared publicly their intent to dismantle the department and gutting the EPA budget; Trumps appointments and budget slashing now follow the same path. If Nixons policy was court China-challenge Russia, Reagans was court Russia-isolate China; Trumps policy is to return to a Nixonian court Russia-confront China.

The corporate-radical right alliance continued after Reagan, re-emerging once again in the 1994 so-called Contract With America, as Clintons Democrats lost 54 seats in the US House of Representatives to the Republican right after backtracking on notable Democrat campaign promises made in the 1992 elections. The landslide was a harbinger of things to come in a later Obama administration in 2010.

The Contract for America proposed a program that shares similar policies with the Trump administration. It was basically a plagiarism of a Reagan 1985 speech. But it provided program continuity through the 1990s, re-emerging in a more aggressive grass roots form in the Teaparty movement in 2008.

TRUMPs Breitbartification of NIXON-REAGAN

Trump is more than just Nixon-Reagan on steroids. Trump is taking the content and the tone of the conservative-radical right to a more aggressive level. The aggressiveness and new elements added to the radical right conservative perspective in the case of Trump are the consequence of adding a Breitbart-Steve Bannon strategic (and even tactical) overlay to the basic Nixon-Reagan programmatic foundation.

The influence of Bannon on Trump strategy, programs, policy and even tactics cannot be underestimated. This is the new key element, missing with Nixon, Reagan, and the Contract with America. The Breitbart strategy is to introduce a major dose of economic nationalism, heretofore missing in the radical right. This is designed to expand the radical rights appeal to the traditional working classa key step on the road to establishing a true Fascist grass roots populist movement in the future.

The appearance of opposition to free trade, protectionism, reshoring of jobs, cuts in foreign aid, direct publicity attacks on Mexico, China, Germany and even Australia are all expressions of Trumps new element of economic nationalism.

Another element of Bannonism is to identify as the enemy the neoliberal institutionsthe media and mainstream press, the elites two parties, and even the Judiciary whenever it stands up to Trump policies.

Added to the enemy is the danger within, which is the foreigner, the immigrant, both inside and outside the country. The immigrant is the potential new jew in the Trump regime. This too comes from Breitbart-Bannon.

Another strategic element brought by Bannon to the Trump table is the expanded hiring and tightening of ties to various police organizations nationwide and the glorification of the police while denigrating anyone who stands up to them. No more investigations of police brutality by the federal government under Trump.

Still another Breitbart strategic element is to attack the character of democracy itself, raising issues of fraud in voting, and undermining popular understanding of what constitutes the right to assembly and free speech. That is all a prelude to legitimizing further state level limitations and restrictions on voting rights, already gaining momentum before Trump.

Even the military is not exempt from the Bannon-Breitbart strategy: high level military and defense establishment figures who havent wholeheartedly come over to the Trump regime are replaced with non-conformist and opportunist generals from the military establishment.

Bannon-Breitbart is the conduit to the various grass roots right wing radical elements, that will be organized and mobilized if necessary, should the old elites, media and their supporters choose to challenge Trump directly with impeachment or other nuclear options.

Nixon and Reagan both restructured the political and economic US capitalist system. But they did so within the rules of the game within that system. Trump differs by attacking the rules of the game, and the established elites and their institutions, while offering those same elites the opportunity for great economic personal gain if they go along. Some are, and some still arent. The showdown is yet to come, and not until 2018 at the earliest.

Trump should be viewed as a continuation of the corporate-radical right alliance that has been growing in the US since the 1970s. The difference today is that that alliance is firmly entrenched at all levels and in all institutions now, unlike in the past, and inside as well as outside the government.

And the opposition to it today is far weaker than in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s: the Democratic Party has virtually collapsed outside Washington DC as it continues myopically on its neoliberal path with its recent selection of Perez as national chair by the Clinton-Obama-Big Donor wing (i.e. the former Democratic leadership Conference faction that captured the party back in 1992) still firmly in control of that party; the unions are but a shadow of their past selves and split, with some actually supporting Trump; the so-called liberal press has been thoroughly corporatized and shows it has no idea how to confront the challenge, feeding the Trump movement instead of weakening it; grass root minority, ethnic, and progressive movements are fragmented and isolated from each other like never before, locked into their mutually isolated identity politics protests; and what was once the far left of socialists have virtually disappeared organizationally, condemning the growing millions of youth who express a favorable view of socialism to have to learn the lessons of political organizing from scratch all over again.

But they will learn. Trump and friends will teach them.

Original post:
Trump in Historical PerspectiveFrom Nixon to Bannon-Breitbart and the Alt Right Fringe - Center for Research on Globalization

| Published 14 hours ago

TO THE EDITOR:

In response to the Feb. 13 letter-to-the-editor titled The Alternative Right Exists on our Campus, a group of graduate students and recent Ph.D. graduates in the Department of History, informed by the methods of our discipline, have come together to challenge the basic premises presented by its author. We come from working class and professional backgrounds, from many regions of the United States and the world and with a variety of expertise.

We do not wish to make sweeping generalizations about President Trumps supporters. The 64 million individuals who voted for Trump did so for diverse reasons, and the alt-right represents only one part of that coalition. The alt-right itself is not a monolith, but we can better understand its goals by considering its leadership.

Over the past month, some have taken to invoking alt-right figureheads like Richard Spencer and Milo Yiannopoulos as objects of sympathy. From the letter, one might assume these men are the unfairly maligned opponents of outsourcing. What do their words and actions tell us about their vision for our country? And what does history tell us about their claims?

Milo Yiannopoulos believes women are biologically inferior to men and supports Saudi Arabias ban on female drivers. He once described immigrants from the Middle East as [hordes] of homophobic Muslims...being imported to the west so they can shoot up gay nightclubs. Despite being gay himself, Yiannopoulos is no friend to the LGBTQ community. He refers to immigration advocates as whiny gay leftists and prefers not to hire gay employees. Last December, Yiannopoulos verbally harassed a transgender student at UW-Milwaukee after she challenged his presence on campus, saying he needs to man up and [the] way that you know hes failing is Id almost still bang him.

Because the author of the Daily Tar Heel letter paraphrased Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is worth noting that Richard Spencer has called the civil rights leader a degenerate. Spencers ultimate goal is to create "a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans. It would be a new society based on very different ideals than, say, the Declaration of Independence." Spencer supports peaceful ethnic cleansing," as if forcibly removing other races from the country is not itself a form of violence.

Fascism is still a slippery term to define, and this is not a claim we attempt to substantiate here. But it is clear that alt-right leaders believe in the superiority of whiteness, straightness and cisgender-ness. And their dream society values these characteristics at the expense of all others. Alt-right leaders promote these values without any regard for demonstrable evidence. Instead, they treat their conclusions as self-evident.

The author paints those who challenge the alt-right as opponents of free speech. Yet subjecting a claim to critique and analysis is not the same as telling someone to sit down and shut up. Historical scholarship requires us to interrogate all claims and to challenge any opinion that relies on empty rhetoric, stereotypes or assumptions.

The alt-right regularly and seriously misrepresents the American past and present. The author suggested that to fight for social justice is to undermine 240 years of blood, sweat and tears. Yet he neglected to specify who shed them. The historical evidence shows that oppressed communities, those that lead the fight for social justice, have shed much of the blood, sweat and tears. This is clear even on our own campus.

UNC was built upon ancestral Occaneechi land, and Chapel Hill was once part of a vast network of trading paths connecting the Occaneechis, Catawbas, Tutelos and other nations. Anglo-American settlers took possession of this land through violence, dispossession and disease. Enslaved Black people helped build UNCs campus. Before the Civil War, slave owners hired out enslaved Black people to clean dormitories, stoke fires and perform other menial tasks for UNCs white students.

Yet both Black and Native students were historically excluded from UNC. UNCs first Native student, Henry Owl (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), received his degree in 1929, and it was not until the 1950s that Black students began to graduate from this university. Even then, Black students were not permitted to live in the same facilities as their white classmates.

It took a long and dangerous struggle for Black students and faculty merely to gain access to this university. Today, Black students and their allies continue to fight institutionalized forms of discrimination at UNC. Joining the fight for social justice does not mean putting skin color above ideas. It means recognizing that: 1) white supremacy still exists, 2) members of oppressed communities continue to shape our campus and the world and 3) the work of forging a more egalitarian university and society is not complete.

The author is correct that working-class people have not outlived oppression, even in our own state and on our own campus. North Carolinas right to work legislation has made it nearly impossible for state employees to collectively organize, and the university has a rich history of combatting such efforts. But by dismissing the struggles of immigrants and other groups within the working class, alt-right leaders imply that the working class is exclusively white and male. In fact, it includes people of all races, faiths and gender and sexual identities. Therefore, supporting a living wage for women and people of color or standing against the Muslim ban are working class issues.

UNCs history reminds us that while all workers have indeed suffered, some have faced additional challenges. In 1996, UNC housekeepers won a long struggle against the university for higher wages, better educational and training opportunities and other benefits. These housekeepers were largely Black women, fighting a labor system where Black university employees received lower compensation and fewer opportunities for advancement than white employees. Such fights are not merely distractions. They are central to working class struggle.

In conclusion, we must hold the alt-right to the same standards of inquiry as other ideologies. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but as members of UNCs campus and of the global community, we have a responsibility to differentiate between personal beliefs and substantiated conclusions. When an opinion does not stand the test of inquiry or when it denies equality or basic human rights we must confine it to the dustbin of history.

Note: This letter does not represent the views of the Department of History, rather individual graduate and former graduate students of the Department.

Lindsay Ayling

Danielle Balderas

Justin Blanton

Alyssa Bowen

Ryan Branagan

Robin Buller

Anglica Castillo Reyna

Kirsten Cooper

Ansev Demirhan

Samuel Finesurrey

Ann Halbert-Brooks

Erika Huckestein

Aubrey Lauersdorf

Zardas Lee

Emily Lipira

Maria Matthes

Sarah Miles

Isabell Moore

Caroline Newhall

Mark Porlides

Jon D. C. Powell

Carol Prince

Mark Reeves

Anthony Rossodivito

Samee Siddiqui

Allison Somogyi

Jennifer Standish

Larissa Stiglich

Daniel Velsquez

Mary Elizabeth Walters

Garrett Wright

Justin Wu

Mishio Yamanaka

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Letter: What UNC's history tells us about the alt-right - The Daily Tar Heel

In a lengthy post on Facebook late on Thursday night, the AUESA said it was disbanding and would no longer seek affiliation.

"It has become extremely dangerous for AUESA to continue with the appalling rhetoric by people on and off campus regarding our group, supposed members and leadership (all entirely unverifiable and rumour) and who we are linked with, what we support, what our aims were, what supposed membership have done in their private lives and much more," the group's administrator wrote.

"We were asked to clarify numerous things and we did, yet it achieved very little. People had formed their own incorrect opinions on AUESA from the get go, and disregarded anything we had to say."

The AUSA said the group's Facebook page was "strongly indicative of a highly nationalist or white pride group".

A spokesman for the AUESA, Adam Holland, told NZME on Thursday the group's opponents were "hateful" and the AUSA should issue an apology.

Mr Holland made headlines last year after hijacking a mayoral debate with chants of "Allahu Akbar!" and swearing.

It's not clear if Mr Holland is actually a member of the group or just pretending to be.

The group's alleged founder has in the past expressed desire to set up an "alt-right" political party, according to screenshots posted to Facebook. The alt-right movement is a loose collection of neo-Nazis, anti-feminists, white supremacists, far-right conservatives, Donald Trump supporters and online trolls.

He told Newshub yesterday the similarity between the group's slogan and that used by the Nazi SS was a coincidence. The group later removed the quote.

AUESA supporters expressed regret at the group's disbanding, many posting on Facebook it was "reverse racism" and calling opponents "cucks" - a sexist insult popular with the alt-right.

A protest against the group's stall at "O" week had been planned today.

The University of Auckland said it had no control over student clubs, and students who feel threatened by the group should seek counselling.

Newshub.

Continued here:
Auckland University club linked to alt-right views disbands - Newshub

As President Trump is pressured to substantively respond to the rise in anti-Semitic incidents since his election, a new analysis reveals that Breitbart News under Trumps chief strategist Stephen Bannon fostered a comment section a sample of Breitbarts readership that increasingly reflected language specific to the white nationalist alt-right movement, including anti-Semitic sentiment.

Comparing the language of Breitbart commenters to thelanguage of the most aggressive far-right extremists online e.g. language used by Twitter users who advocate for violence against minorities and are openly pro-Nazi we can see a clear trend of increasing similarity over a three-year period, the bulk of it under Bannon. Bannon left Breitbart to join the Trump campaign in mid-August 2016 but the editorial focus of the site stayed the course he set it on.

Diving deeper into anti-Semitic sentiment we see a similar trajectory. In early 2013, the term Jewish was used in a similar way as white or black as a racial/ethnic descriptor, which is similar to how Jewish is used in the mainstream press. By 2016 on Breitbart, however, Jewish had morphed into an epithet, used in similar contexts as socialist or commie.

In a mainstream newspaper article, the word Jewish is statistically similar to words such as Muslim and Christian. This means that mainstream commentators usually rely on the word Jewish to describe someone or something religious. This was the case for Breitbart comments back in July 2013.

For far-right wing extremists, the word Jewish is used in a totally different context. Instead, its use is statistically similar to words such ascommunist, homosexual, anti-white, and satanic. Within Breitbarts comment section, Jewish was increasingly used in contexts similar to commie and socialist or even progressive.

After Bannon was appointed as chief strategist, his record as a far-right propagandist came under increased scrutiny. Most contested by Bannon and his defenders was his August 2016 comments to aMother Jonesjournalist that Breitbart became the platform for the alt-right.

Trump in an interview with theNew York Timesargued that Breitbart News was just a publication. Breitbart also went on the offensive. On Nov.19, Breitbart published Steve Bannon: Zero Tolerance for Anti-Semitic, Racist Elements of the Alt-Right.

In the article, Bannon wassummarized as saying:

Bannon also highlighted the diversity of views that were given a platform at Breitbart News, while also making it clear that both he and the site had zero tolerance for racial and anti-Semitic views.

Given the comment section analysis, however, it would appear Bannon and Breitbarts tolerance for anti-Semitic views was higher than zero. It confirms what Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor, said when he claimed that Bannon turned the comment section into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers.

On this point, Breitbart editors have repeatedly attacked critics who connect the website to the anti-Semitic elements of the alt-right by pointing to Jewish writers on staff and their editorial embrace of far-right Israeli politics. It is Breitbarts other coverage, however, that is most likely attracting these elements to the site.

A focus on globalist elites, traditionally an anti-Semitic dog whistle used by the radical right and a core appeal embraced by right-wing populists both in the US and in Europe today, was a rolling narrative covered extensively by Breitbart. One Breitbart London piece attackedWashington Postwriter Anne Applebaum bycalling her a Polish, Jewish, American elitistwith global media contacts is the best example, which was roundly criticized as being anti-Semitic. Similarly, Breitbarts undeniably inflammatory coverage of the migrant crisis and terrorism resonates with the hard right, which includes anti-Semitic fellow travelers.

Bannon, however, in aninterview with Politicoafter the first wave of criticism started to die down in late December, again embraced Breitbarts readership. As Politicoreported, Bannon said the best things about Breitbart are the comments section and the callers.

It was always great to hear what the hobbits had to say because at the end of the day, what they had to say was what mattered most. This whole movement, its really the top of the first inning.

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Breitbart under Bannon: Breitbart's comment section reflects alt-right ... - Salon