Compendium of the Authoritarian Nationalist Right American Far
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Compendium of the Authoritarian Nationalist Right American Far Right Alt-Right Alt-Lite Alt-South New Right Internet Anti-Democracy Movement White Nationalists Hereditarians NRx (Neoreaction) Dark Enlightenment Intellectual Dark Web Groyper Army Neofascism Neocameralism Ethnostate Separatists Euro-Identitarians Evangelical Christian Neo-Fascism White Genocide Conspiracy Theorists White Nativists New Age Conspiracism Holocaust Deniers Self-Identified Neo-Nazis Part One: Turning Point USA, its Central Figures, Outgrowths, and Affiliates Introductions and Disclaimers: this is a regularly updated compendium of sources intended to be of service to those who are committed to resisting and challenging the emergent authoritarianism fueled by the Trump administration, its benefactors, associates and allies. It includes a wide variety of organizations, names, and connections. It is a testimonial to free speech. All of its contents are publicly accessible and include web-addresses. It is organized thematically and alphabetically for easy look-up (by first name first). I make no claim to completeness, and I’m always open to additions so long as these sources are directly relevant to the compendium and are web-accessible. The best way to think of this collection is as sets of samples that aid in further research and encourage a clearer understanding of the emergence of a deeply troubling nationalistic, racist, xenophobic and misogynist movement in the United States and elsewhere. While my hope is that this compendium is of use to scholars, activists, and citizens working to preserve the democracy and resist fascism, its inclusions range from more scholarly journalistic work (for example, Politico, ProPublica, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Intercept) to well-respected news outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, to far-right hit-piece machines like the Daily Caller, the Daily Wire, Brietbart, World Net Daily, the Daily Stormer, FrontPageMag, Red Ice (3Fourteen), Rebel Media, and InfoWars. I have also included social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Gab, LinkedIn, and Bumble. The compendium includes a wide range of the far right—from self- avowed Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers to their more gentile, but equally ideologically toxic, analogues on the “New Right.” It includes the Alt-Right, nativists, ethnostate separatists, identitarians, and Alt-Liters. It doesn’t include mainstream libertarians, moderate Republicans, or philosophical conservatives, although there is a compelling argument to be made that white nationalists have hi-jacked the GOP. All included are public figures and/or publicly recognizable organizations. I have not drawn a hard and fast distinction between these classifications—I leave it to the reader to make that judgment, but there are sources that do, and I have listed these in the section titled “General Information.” The compendium includes articles that detail the tensions and divisions among groups and individuals; some of these internecine conflicts are very ugly, but many are simply comical in their efforts to avoid the appearance of bigotry. One excellent example of this is the “Rally Against Political Violence.” Billed as a counter-protest to Richard Spencer’s “Freedom of Speech Rally,” at the Lincoln Memorial, the “Rally Against Political Violence” boasted a number of speakers who seek to deliver on the appearance of a less racist, more civil white nationalism. But, as the many selections in the compendium make clear, the difference here is little more than cosmetic. It’s like comparing the Ku Klux Klan to the John Birch Society; the former may be more flagrantly violent and abhorrent—but the members of the latter believe in the same suite of racist and misogynist ideologies. Indeed, I’d argue the latter are more dangerous in that they’ve armed themselves with a dog-whistle vocabulary, a savvy use of social media platforms, and an insidious approach to recruiting young adults with the promise of making hate—thinly disguised as the “defense of Western ideals” or “real manhood”—“cool.” Fact is, these groups pose a real danger to democratic institutions. By convincing young folks that their professors are out to indoctrinate them, that the media is “fake,” that climate change is a “Leftist hoax,” that there’s no such thing as racially motivated police brutality, that making America great requires demonizing immigrants, and that breaking up migrant families is consistent with American values (or human rights), the far “Alt” right has sewn seeds whose fruit will bear fascism. Some will benefit greatly—but they’ll be largely the same white wealthy Western(ized) men who benefit now, the men threatened by the prospect of a genuinely democratic non-patriarchal social order. Among the myths I hope glossing through some of these entries dispels is that the rhetoric of references to “Saving the West,” “It’s Ok to be white,” or “protecting Western Civilization” is anything other than a thinly concealed dog whistle to the intended base of, broadly speaking, Alt-Right personalities and organizations. Same goes for the rise of the Incels, the “Return of the Knights,” and those who’d criminalize abortion in their fantasy of a world modelled on the Handmaid’s Tale. Among the most fascinating reads are those of the women who promote these ideologies; it’s hard to imagine a more self-defeating worldview, or one more dependent on the labor and resources of developing world others. Among the themes the compendium tracks are the profound and often violent renditions of anti-feminist arguments and, in some cases, the unvarnished misogyny that stands out as a common theme particularly among those incarnations of white nationalism that seek to portray white men as victims of a culture that they’re no longer entitled to dominate (though, under Donald Trump they’ve certainly made this effort). While this anti-gay, anti-reproductive rights, muscular effort to reinstall heteropatriarchal institutions large and small is commonly cloaked in rhetoric that’s more explicitly racist, anti-Semitic, and/or militaristic, it makes clear that the place of women is subjugation to men—all the more so for non-white women. There are a good many arguments here, again, thinly veiled in other themes, that require a view of women as “naturally” in need of dominating male protection, as biologically programmed to want that protection for themselves and their presumed offspring, and as mentally ill if they reject male advances. The reader will also find a number of threads that, taken together, make sense of the emergence of the latest iteration of toxic masculinity, the Incel (the Involuntary Celibate). The Incel seeks to justify compulsory heterosexuality and/or female monogamy on the grounds that because women are shallow consumers of “lookism,” and thus empowered to turn away less attractive male sexual partners, men are entitled to institutions that enforce female sexual compliance. To be clear, I am not suggesting that every iteration of the Alt-Right and its fellow travelers share this absurd view of women, but it is unmistakably common to the ligature of this ideological universe to see women as inferior; the Incel movement is simply one foreseeable instantiation of a worldview predicated on white male entitlement. I think it’s also true that we’re beginning to see the slow-motion implosion of the Alt-Right. From internal schisms to competition for the mantle of Alt-Right purity to back-biting to celebrity-mongering—there is much and fractious shrieking from inside a tent that was never that big to begin with. The recent efforts of Alt-Righters to distance themselves from QAnon are particularly head-shaking given that it’s precisely the same penchant for conspiracy mongering that gave rise to Birtherism, Climate Change Trutherism, Pizzagate, and a host of other absurd conspiracy theories that gave birth to QAnon. I am open to corrections, but I make no promises to remove an article simply on the grounds of offense. We don’t live in that country—yet. To those who’d complain that this compendium is a “Leftist” analogue to TPUSA’s Professor Watchlist, and thus subject to the same complaint of hypocrisy, I say this: plainly, no. TP-PWL’s aims are to encourage harassment, censorship, and the repression of legitimate academic scholarship and pedagogy. Mine are to offer a topographical map of a wide range of agents and actors who, taken together, represent a vision of America radically different from the country we have now—a country whose institutions are profoundly endangered by this vision, especially as it’s currently personified in President Trump, his family, his cabinet, his associates and alliances. My aims, in other words, are to contribute to the defense and preservation of my country’s Constitution and Bill of Rights, its promise to equality, diversity, justice, compassion, opportunity, and political enfranchisement. The compendium’s first part is devoted to Turning Point USA, including past and current leaders, outgrowth organizations, and “think tanks.” Among the many reasons for this point of departure is that because TPUSA serves as one central pivot around which many of the other sources turn either closely or through degrees of connection ranging from Neo-Nazi to Alt- Right, from Alt-Lite to New Right, and more recently to Evangelical Christian Neo-Fascism It’s also where this larger project began—with my effort to convince my own university that Professor Watchlist was a real danger to the academy, and the TPUSA does, in fact, deliberately misrepresent their objectives and tactics. There is modest overlap in inclusion across the compendium (though I have sought to minimize this as much as possible)—some articles just do belong in two or more sections. The complete index is at the bottom of each of four (currently) parts. After part one, the compendium is alphabetized, first name first.