The “Alt-Lite” may be responsible for our latest media boost.
Many mainstream news stories have recently described the Alt-Right as the Hipster Right-Wing or Hipster Nazis. Writers used the word “hipster” because the Alt-Right’s ironic and pop culture-savvy methods and style differs from their usual stereotypes about the Right.
The term is appropriate for another reason. The hipster subculture is widely mocked for its obsession with getting ahead of the latest trends and for its contempt for “selling out.” Hillary Clinton’s denunciation turned the Alt-Right from a relatively obscure internet subculture to the center of national news. And like hipsters upset because their favorite indie folk band signed with a major label, many on the Alt-Right are worried about newbie fans and outsiders cashing in while watering down the message.
Some are unhappy about more moderate figures calling themselves Alt-Right, and are upset with self-proclaimed Alt-Right Jews such as Joshua Seidel, who wrote “I’m a Jew, and I’m a Member of the Alt-Right,” for The Forward. Some are suspicious of him simply because he is Jewish, although he wrote this in his article: “Are Jewish people not overrepresented in this great western push for ‘diversity’? Most Jews would call [Alt-Right Twitter account @Ricky_Vaughn99] anti-Semitic for saying this, while I’d simply call it the truth.”
Critics point to the neoconservative takeover of the conservative movement and say those who welcome the moderate wing and Jews are doomed to go the way of Joe Sobran and Sam Francis: purged from their own movement by interlopers. Yet, to dismantle that analogy, one need only look at the Alt-Right’s own history. ...
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