The Alt-Right, Trump, and Framing Strategy
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MASTER THESIS 2019 PUSHING THE RIGHT BUTTONS: THE ALT-RIGHT, TRUMP, AND FRAMING STRATEGY Alexander Royall Leiden University Student number: s1411209 Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs Msc. Crisis and Security Management Supervisor: Dr. J. Vüllers Second reader: Dr. G.M. van Buuren January 13, 2019 Words: 23.714 this page is intentionally left blank 1 I would like to thank both Dr. Vüllers and Dr. van Buuren for their guidance, valuable insights, and shown confidence concerning the topic at the beginning and during the project. My gratitude towards Tim is enormous for showing enthusiasm and going through all of my work and thereby helping me to realise a coherent and grammatically correct thesis. Thanks to Duaa, Yvonne, Floris, and Jordi for their insights and support. Last but not least, I want to thank Juliette. Without her I would have fallen in the black hole of Excel and Word and I could not have the figures that I am now so proud of. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 5 1.1 FROM THE FRINGES TO THE MAINSTREAM .................................................... 5 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION ........................................................................................... 8 1.3 ACADEMIC RELEVANCE ....................................................................................... 9 1.4 SOCIETAL RELEVANCE ......................................................................................... 9 1.5 READERS GUIDE .................................................................................................... 10 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................. 12 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................... 16 3.1 POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES ....................................................... 16 3.2 THEORY OF FRAMING ......................................................................................... 19 3.3 PROSPECT THEORY .............................................................................................. 21 3.4 THEORY AND HYPOTHESIS ................................................................................ 26 4. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 30 4.1 CASE ......................................................................................................................... 30 4.1.1. CASE | DESIGN .................................................................................................... 30 4.1.2. CASE | SELECTION ............................................................................................. 31 4.2 DATA COLLECTION .............................................................................................. 31 4.2.1. DATA COLLECTION | UNIVERSE .................................................................... 32 4.2.2. DATA COLLECTION | SOURCES ...................................................................... 34 4.3 RESEARCH METHOD ............................................................................................ 35 4.3.1. RESEARCH METHOD | CONTENT ANALYSIS ............................................... 35 3 4.3.2. RESEARCH METHOD | TIME PERIOD ............................................................. 36 4.3.3. RESEARCH METHOD | OPERATIONALISATION .......................................... 37 4.4 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ............................................................................. 43 5. ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................... 44 5.1 Radix Journal ............................................................................................................. 44 5.1.1. 2014 December ...................................................................................................... 44 5.1.2. 2015 May 14 – June 14 & June 15 - July 14 .......................................................... 46 5.1.3. 2016 October 8 – November 8 & November 9 – December 8 ............................... 49 5.2 The Daily Stormer ..................................................................................................... 52 5.2.1. 2014 December ...................................................................................................... 52 5.2.2 2015 May 14 – June 14 & June 15 - July 14 ........................................................... 54 5.2.3. 2016 October 8 – November 8 & November 9 - December 8 ............................... 57 5.3 INTERPRETATION ................................................................................................. 60 6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 65 6.1 ANSWERING THE RESEARCH QUESTION ........................................................ 65 6.2 LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH ....................................................... 66 APPENDIX 1 | CODEBOOK .......................................................................................... 72 4 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 FROM THE FRINGES TO THE MAINSTREAM “So as you know, I am a woman of colour. I am the daughter of immigrants. I am a Muslim. I am a feminist. I am a leftist liberal. What I want to ask you is; am I your enemy?” - Journalist and activist Deeyah Khan. “You are not subjectively my enemy, but what you are promoting will lead to the disappearance of my people and my culture.” Jared Taylor – white nationalist affiliated with the Alt-Right. (Khan, 2017) In many ways, it can be argued that the first decade of the 21st century functioned as an incubation period for the far-right movements that we can see today in the United States of America (US). The September 11 attacks in 2003 (9/11) caused high levels of paranoia for everything that was foreign (Franko Aas, 2007; Neiwert, 2017). Self-organised militias started to assemble at the Mexican border, the belief in conspiracy theories intensified, and Iraq was invaded under false pretensions. Nevertheless, Democratic candidate Barack Obama was elected as the new president in 2008. While the liberal and progressive world was in awe of Obama’s political potential as the first African American president in history, for the far-right community this development felt like yet another threat (Neiwert, 2017). Not long thereafter a, eventually unsuccessful, counter-movement was established in the form of the Tea Party. In the meantime, society was continuously changing as a result of technological developments. In the early 2010s, social media was one of the main instigators of large protest movements such as the Arab Spring, Occupy, and online Hacker movements (Nagle, 2017). Although most of these protests did not end as intended, they did show the strength and potential of online mobilisation. Whereas movements traditionally have been limited by the available resources in spreading their message, the internet allows groups to spread their message more easily and far and wide (Schafer, 2002). In addition to that notion, the internet offers numerous advantages for far-right extremist movements as it offers a safe area from, and alternative for, the government and popular media outlets, as well as allowing extremist groups to offer social support (ibid). 5 Against this background, the ‘Alt-Right’, short for alternative right, emerged to become an active far-right movement made up of individuals ready to start agitating people online with high doses of irony and directness, the so-called troll army. A debate developed in 2014 concerning the internal politics of the gaming world and it became the first time that the movement took on its activist form (Neiwert, 2017). Feminist activist Brianna Wu became the foremost recipient of the trolls’ hostile threats and hateful comments on the internet (Neiwert, 2017: 213-215). Neiwert explains that the Gamergate controversy showed the first character traits of the Alt-Right, as he observed an “internet presence beset by digital trolls, unbridled conspiracism, angry-white-male-identity victimization culture, and, ultimately, open racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic hatred, misogyny, and sexual and gender paranoia” (ibid: 215). The increasing dissatisfaction and anger of the far-right following the developments in the early 21st century, combined with the opportunity presented by the internet, gave great potential for a movement such as the Alt-Right to grow significantly. Soon many internet platforms were established in affiliation with the movement, or already existing platforms announced their support of the Alt-Right. More information on all the different platforms and individuals will be discussed in the subchapter on data collection (4.2.1.). For most of its relatively short history, the movement has existed almost entirely online (Wendling, 2018). And although the movement seems to have no real organisational structure (ibid), a closer look at the different actors and platforms does present some influential figures and platforms. These figures and platforms seem to share unifying factors in the broad, somewhat incoherent, ideology of the Alt-Right. The crucial element of the ideology focuses on what is dubbed as the white nationalist ideology which is the idea that white identity is under threat of becoming marginalised or even