POLITICS
The ‘Alt-Right’ Is A Hate Movement, And It’s Scarier Than You Think
Its leader, Richard Spencer, is no less skilled at manipulation than Donald Trump.
Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
WASHINGTON ― If you want to know why the unabashedly racist and Nazi-sympathizing “alt-right” movement is making a mark on the Trump administration and beyond, look no further than Tila Tequila and her white nationalist friend, Richard Spencer.
In one of the more bizarre and scary things to transpire in an already bizarre and scary political season, Tequila ― the social media presence, former TV host and current porn star ― attended a conference of white nationalists in Washington this weekend. On the surface, it was odd that the Vietnamese-American, born Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen, was there. Yet her presence squared perfectly with Spencer’s political and messaging strategy, and that of his National Policy Institute, which organized the event.
“The alt-right is willing to work with allies of color,” Spencer told journalists on Saturday. At that moment, it was hard not to think of Tequila, who had tweeted a photo of herself making the Nazi salute with the caption, “Seig [sic] heil!” the night before.
To be sure, Spencer views most non-white races as genetically inferior, has a deep mistrust of Jewish people and associates with neo-Nazis. He wants to see Europeans and people of European descent “protected” from other races through state-sponsored segregation. The list goes on.
However, it’s Spencer’s deft packaging of this hate speech that made him the informal head of the self-styled “alt-right,” a movement of quasi- to full-blown fascist writers, listless brown shirts and disgruntled meme creators. He feints at multiculturalism, expressing his respect for “Native Americans,” the “spirituality” of African-Americans and the aforementioned “allies of color.” His white nationalist spouting is filed with academic jargon ― founding an organization with the distinctly bland name “National Policy Institute” and calling one’s movement “alt-right” is no small part of that strategy. All this is not a new approach, but one Spencer is chillingly good at.
Even though he’s nearing 40, Spencer is so good at playing wonky millennial it makes you want to vomit. Think of him as an Ezra Klein for people who wouldn’t mind putting people named Ezra Klein on a train. He’s active on social media ― that is, until he’s kicked off of it for hate speech ― and loves calling mainstream Republicans “basic bitch conservatives.”
Spencer’s invitation to the convention perfectly encapsulates how he straddles youth culture and hate culture. It featured a hipster-fresh graphic with the letters “A R” ― for alt-right ― in a decidedly tubular early-’90s font. The letters were splashed over an ethereal stock photo of a woman in a wheat field, and the whole thing was reminiscent of the mashup album covers you see on SoundCloud. That woman in a wheat field can also be found on David Duke’s Twitter page.
In one of the more bizarre and scary things to transpire in an already bizarre and scary political season, Tequila ― the social media presence, former TV host and current porn star ― attended a conference of white nationalists in Washington this weekend. On the surface, it was odd that the Vietnamese-American, born Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen, was there. Yet her presence squared perfectly with Spencer’s political and messaging strategy, and that of his National Policy Institute, which organized the event.
“The alt-right is willing to work with allies of color,” Spencer told journalists on Saturday. At that moment, it was hard not to think of Tequila, who had tweeted a photo of herself making the Nazi salute with the caption, “Seig [sic] heil!” the night before.
To be sure, Spencer views most non-white races as genetically inferior, has a deep mistrust of Jewish people and associates with neo-Nazis. He wants to see Europeans and people of European descent “protected” from other races through state-sponsored segregation. The list goes on.
However, it’s Spencer’s deft packaging of this hate speech that made him the informal head of the self-styled “alt-right,” a movement of quasi- to full-blown fascist writers, listless brown shirts and disgruntled meme creators. He feints at multiculturalism, expressing his respect for “Native Americans,” the “spirituality” of African-Americans and the aforementioned “allies of color.” His white nationalist spouting is filed with academic jargon ― founding an organization with the distinctly bland name “National Policy Institute” and calling one’s movement “alt-right” is no small part of that strategy. All this is not a new approach, but one Spencer is chillingly good at.
Even though he’s nearing 40, Spencer is so good at playing wonky millennial it makes you want to vomit. Think of him as an Ezra Klein for people who wouldn’t mind putting people named Ezra Klein on a train. He’s active on social media ― that is, until he’s kicked off of it for hate speech ― and loves calling mainstream Republicans “basic bitch conservatives.”
Spencer’s invitation to the convention perfectly encapsulates how he straddles youth culture and hate culture. It featured a hipster-fresh graphic with the letters “A R” ― for alt-right ― in a decidedly tubular early-’90s font. The letters were splashed over an ethereal stock photo of a woman in a wheat field, and the whole thing was reminiscent of the mashup album covers you see on SoundCloud. That woman in a wheat field can also be found on David Duke’s Twitter page.
No comments:
Post a Comment