Talk:Alt-right/Archive 22

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National Review, Ben Shapiro

The conservative writer Ben Shapiro has stated that the American Left has attempted "to lump in the Right with the alt-right by accepting a broader, false definition of the alt-right that could include traditional conservatism".

This seems highly WP:UNDUE. The appropriate guideline for handling NR sources per WP:RS/P would seem to be WP:RSEDITORIAL, which says opinion pieces may be considered reliable if the author is a "recognized expert". Shapiro may be a prominent political opinion-haver, but I'm unaware that he's considered an "expert". Shapiro's entire business seems to rely on generating outrage about the "Left" in the US, or at least what his audience believes to be the "Left". I think NPOV would be better served by omitting this material. --Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:29, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks to me like just a random opinion from a professional opinion-haver; at a bare minimum it is definitely inappropriate to cite an opinion piece from a low-quality partisan source, written by someone with no relevant expertise, in the very first sentence of the definition (where we ought to be citing sources usable for facts, not opinions.) I'm actually even slightly skeptical about the remaining sentence cited to Gray - unlike Shapiro he does have some relevant expertise, but it's still cited to the blog of a think-tank, when we have much better sources available, so I'm unclear why we're putting it at the very top of the section if we're citing it at all. EDIT: We were citing an opinion piece from Christopher Caldwell in that same paragraph, who is also someone with no relevant expertise (and who shares the same political opinions as Shapiro, which meant we were doubling-down on giving that perspective undue weight.) I've stripped it out and bumped the entire paragraph to the bottom - nothing about it suggests that the citations here are authoritative enough to define the section, and lots of other writers have no trouble defining it, so it reads if we're taking sides, especially since we attribute everyone else's interpretations on how to define it but were for some reason putting this particular perspective in the article voice. --Aquillion (talk) 04:46, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• Also, why are we citing Philip W. Gray so many times for the same essential thing? He has relevant expertise but is not, as far as I can tell, that notable, yet we cite his opinion that:

• that the alt-right was a reaction against the left-wing racial and social agitation of the 2010s, in particular the Black Lives Matter movement and the popularization of concepts like white privilege and male privilege
• Gray suggested that the alt-right may have benefited from the manner in which—in the years building up to its appearance—progressives often attacked the Tea Party movement and other right-wingers by accusing them of racism. He suggested that this left many right-wingers with the impression that they would be accused of racism "regardless of how near or far they are from the centre" and that this made them more willing to listen to the alt-right's message
• Similarly, in highlighting the commonalities between alt-right and "left-identitarian" forms of identity politics, Gray suggested the alt-right's presence might encourage "the intersectional Left and its allies" to increasingly critique the theoretical basis on which their own identity politics is built
• efforts to define the alt-right have been complicated by [...] the tendency among some of its political opponents to apply the term "alt-right" liberally to a broad range of right-wing groups and viewpoints.

These all fundamentally say the same thing, cited to the same person, yet we're essentially citing him four times in the article (one time was even unattributed, at the very top of the definition section.) Why are we giving what he says such heavy weight? Again, he has some relevant expertise, so I'm fine with citing him once, but citing him four times, in different parts of the article (one time via a blog) seems extreme for an associate professor who, at a glance, has no coverage in secondary sources and whose relevant work doesn't appear to have attracted meaningful citations from anyone else. --Aquillion (talk) 05:11, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

What specific alterations/removals are you proposing regarding these sentences? Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:39, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Ben Shapiro's opinions are insignficant and don't belong.

Gray is described in the advertising for his book Vanguardism as "one of the world’s leading experts on political extremism."[1] While I don't know if that's true, whenever we present expert opinion we should explain the degree of its acceptance. Describing a writer as a political scientist doesn't do that. My advice is that when opinions are presented they should be sourced to secondary sources that explain their significance. Sometimes opinions have consensus support in which case we should say that.

TFD (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

"Chimpout" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Chimpout. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 14#Chimpout until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:07, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

"Trump is Alt-Right with Us" picture

"Trump is Alt-Right with Us." Anti-Trump protesters highlight what they regard as his links to the alt-right and to historical fascism by dressing as Hitler and Mussolini.

This picture, used in this article in the section "Opposition to the alt-right", claims to depict anti-Trump protesters dressing up as Hitler and Mussolini. But to me, this picture looks like it was photoshopped judging by the weird edges around Hitler and Mussolini's heads. It could just be the masks that they are wearing, but I still feel like the image looks a bit off. Can someone verify that this picture is actually real? Icedmorning (talk) 16:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

• @Icedmorning: I cannot fully confirm the validity of the picture, but to me, this picture does not look photoshopped, these masks are usually about half a centimeter thick and you can sort of see that in the picture, plus the line where the camera is in front of the Hitler mask and the reflection of the protesters. Broccoli-ice (talk) 02:09, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

• Based on a quick search they appear to be these anti-trump protestors - you can see the sort of masks they wear there. here is a post where they talk about these specific masks. --Aquillion (talk) 05:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Requesting minor change to wording.

In the 6th sentence of the 3rd paragraph, "The alt-right distinguished itself from earlier forms of white nationalism through its largely online presence and its heavy use of irony and humor, particularly through the promotion of Internet memes like Pepe the Frog.", I believe it is best to change this to "The alt-right distinguished itself from earlier forms of white nationalism through its largely online presence and its heavy use of irony and humor, particularly through the appropriation and promotion of Internet memes like Pepe the Frog.".

I think this is a reasonable change, as to respect the creator of Pepe the Frog and to remain consistent the the Pepe the Frog Wikipedia article itself, which maintains that the alt-right appropriated Pepe as one of its symbols against the creator's intent.

Without the word "appropriate" present, at a glance it implies that Pepe has direct (causal) relationship to the alt-right.

Libertybees (talk) 02:28, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Hermansson et al., 2020

• Hermansson, Patrik; et al. (2020). The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century?. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-62709-5.

This source from academic publisher Routledge could be useful for building the article. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

"Dindu Nuffin" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Dindu Nuffin. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 November 24#Dindu Nuffin until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:45, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2022

This article states that Donald Trump is a billionaire. This is not a statement of fact. 98.14.102.71 (talk) 11:56, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

New NYT definition

I've never edited this page so I'll leave whether to add it to more knowledgeable editors, but the NYT today defined the alt-right as "a loosely affiliated collection of racists, misogynists and Islamophobes that rose to prominence around the time of Mr. Trump’s first campaign" here. GordonGlottal (talk) 21:30, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Seems like it could be valid to add. Andrevan@ 21:38, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

"collection of racists, misogynists and Islamophobes" So, how are they different than the average right-winger? Dimadick (talk) 17:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Don't you think topics should be covered without bias? you thinking all right wingers are the same is kind of bias and shows you shouldn't be anywhere near the wikipedia article. Maybe you should learn a little about post-liberalism. In my opinion the alt-right isn't a racist movement it's a post-liberal movement, where clearly the liberal idea(what liberalism has come to mean, not what it started off meaning) has come to mean oppression by state of an ideology that is clearly only serving the people that believe in the ideology as a sort of performative salve. You have post-liberals of all political varieties too. You have the alt-right post-liberals who disagree with traditional rights(as in basically the party of liberalism), on the foundation of it just being a conception of the mind in the first place, you have the authoritarian left post-liberals who just think we have applied liberalism strongly enough and we have to further extend an ideology into more and more sectors, you have the libertarian left who believes that again liberalism is mind conception that people don't necessarily have to follow through in their daily lives.

I recommend you just stick to editing wikipedia articles you know something about. 2600:1700:7491:D490:E156:2655:CFCF:D4AA (talk) 16:10, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Uh, no, the alt-right is a racist movement, this is well-documented in RS. Andre🚐 16:12, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

First Two Sentences of the Lede are Glaring Contradictions

The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a loosely connected far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the early 2010s before establishing a presence in other countries and declining after 2017. The term is ill-defined, having been used in different ways by alt-right members, media commentators, and academics.

It's no more complicated than exactly what it says it is: "Alternative Right", which can literally be anything. If the term is "ill defined", then why does the first sentence make the claim that it's a "white nationalist" movement? What about White Identitarians? Traditionalists? Monarchists? Orthodox Christians that reject the vast majority of modern-day "conservatism"? Milo Yiannopoulos (who was gay at the time) was one of the most well-known members of the Alt-Right (the movement), while loudly proclaiming his love of "sucking black cock". Where's the "White Nationalism" in THAT? What about the non-white Alt-Right (which exist)? Yes, it's "ill defined" and the poor quality of the definition is hard-coded into the first sentence of the Lede. Why not put the 2nd sentence first? "It's "ill defined", but one definition is...." vs. first establishing a bad definition, and then weakly undermining that bad definition in the 2nd sentence? Further I dispute the assertion that it's only a "movement". It's a term used to describe an alternative to what is commonly accepted as the "right". There's no need to be part of an Alt-Right "movement" to have Alt-Right opinions (such as regarding the public acceptance of homosexuality, immigration and border security, funding of Israel, questioning the Holocaust narrative, etc.. IMO the common-sense definition(s) of this term have been deliberately sabotaged in this Article as a means by which to deny (meaning censor) it's objectively describable definition. The Alt-Right exists, because alternatives exist, no matter how the ideological opposition pollutes the term.107.195.106.201 (talk) 20:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Did you really just say "Milo... loves "sucking black cock". Where's the "White Nationalism" in THAT?" and expect anyone to take your twenty questions seriously? EvergreenFir (talk) 20:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

So direct quoting someone's statement means your entire point is invalid because he's using bad words and talking about raunchy topics. Sounds completely reasonable and definitely not an excuse to avoid addressing legitimate criticism you cannot logically rebuke.

The main point of the post is clear and simple: The first and second sentence of this article contradict eachother.

If the term is ill defined then any label is speculative and should be removed. If it isn't ill defined the labels must be sourced, and they aren't at time of writing.

You have made no attempt to either provide sources for the lede or to rebuke the points made because you know well that he's right. So you have instead decided to derail the topic on the legitimacy/logic of Milo Yannopoulos' views and opinions, which have nothing to do with the issue of the lede having ZERO sources and being undeniably badly worded. 82.48.89.156 (talk) 11:45, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Alt-Right originally referred to any right leaning person who didn't agree with neo-conservative politics. Which could have been anything from small government Libertarians to yes, actual Neo-Nazis. This was before the term was hijacked and contorted by leftists into basically just another word for Nazis or white supremacists/nationalists. Jmajchrz (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 September 2022

Pages like this need a disclaimer that this kind of thinking is wrong and harmful to everyone. Stuff like this doesn’t need to be discussed, it needs to be shouted at the top of peoples lungs how wrong it is. People need to realize it’s not an opinion. Or belief. It’s hate speech and shouldn’t be tolerated. People that think like the alt right are dangerous Tacknode (talk) 19:47, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: Not our job. We're an encyclopedia, not teachers or parents. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:54, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

McInnes's statement

McInnes clarified his understanding of the difference between the alt-right and alt-lite by explaining that while the former focused on the white race, the latter welcomed individuals of any racial background who shared its belief in the superiority of Western culture.

I'd rather we have a scholarly source on what the alt-lite is, rather than McInnes. I strongly doubt that "the superiority of Western culture" (one of McInnes's pet issues) is a defining trait of the alt-lite, which seems far more characterized by opposition to illegal immigration, globalization, interventionism, and political correctness. DFlhb (talk) 18:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Does it? McInnes still comes out with strong alt right talking points. It seems to me that the alt light is just an attempt to rebrand the alt right and pretend it's not an inherently racist movement still. --TheKingOfTheGuild (talk) 17:19, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Recent lead changes

These changes were made with an edit summary implying that they were restoring a longstanding consensus; but looking back, I can't see it. That part of the lead and short description have been basically unchanged as far back as last year. We do mention the rejection of mainstream politics further down the lead (it's possible an editor lost track of that and thought it had been removed), but I think the older description summarizes the key points from the sources better. --Aquillion (talk) 11:01, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

What aspects of it do you specifically object to? There's a multitude of RS that describes the movement as white supremacist. KlayCax (talk) 20:36, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Why are we " loosely connected" ? Sources are clear on this. Moxy- 00:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Aquillion is spot on. Consensus is required for adding new elements to the longstanding lead, not for their removal. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:36, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

German?

The article says "alt" is short for "alternative", but:

The word "alt-right" comes from folks what are low down Nazi loving Old-Right-ers, who like German, so maybe "alt" is half short for "alternative" and half the German for "old"? Aside from the Old Right being what they like from the US, making out as if you doing things the "Old German" way is just the sort of thing "Folksy" loving Nazi scum do. If so this should be recorded in the article.

And see Paleoconservatism#Influence on the alt-right and Paleoconservatism#Terminology.

121.127.212.32 (talk) 14:30, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Probably a moot reply, but, this type of thing is original research, unless there are documented reliable sources making this connection. King keudo (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Alt-

Was "alt" used in english before the "altright"? If not, then its influence on the English language should be recorded in the Popular Culture or some similar section.

Probably a moot reply, but 'alt' as a prefix has existed since long before the alt-right, and as a standalone abbreviation for the word 'alternate' in reference to all kinds of things, including online gaming communities. King keudo (talk) 21:47, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Outdated article

This article is in need of greater coverage of the alt-right post 2018 and/or an explanation of how far-right streams moved past the Alt-right and came into different incarnations or terms to describe themselves. While it does mention that the alt-right has declined since the Unite the Right rally, it makes it seem as if neo-Nazism has petered out in America entirely with no mention of what succeeded it.

Anyone paying attention knows that although Richard Spencer and people like Kessler aren't the most popular anymore, there still is far-right violence and groups around America that grapple the nation. This article is in need of expansion that either describes the alt-right as having either morphed into different strands (e.g. groypers, lone-wolf neo-nazi terrorists, QAnon types) or having been succeeded by them entirely. Either way, this article can't simply just talk about things that happened over 5 years ago at this point. HadesTTW (he/him • talk) 00:09, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Alt-Right is atheist?

I sincerely question the notion of the alt-right being largely atheist. In my experience, that is absolutely not the case at all. Besides a few high-profile personalities like Spencer being atheists (the alt-right accepts him despite his atheism because they love to make a bad-faith pretense of "listening to all sides", see also: Milo Yiannopoulos, who is gay). I realize that I'm only going off of my experience here, which I acknowledge isn't enough to modify the article, but at the same time, a single Guardian article and a citation from a book that isn't accessible online are not enough evidence to throw an already marginalized group (in most of the US, at least) into the same box as a group that specifically targets marginalized people (including atheists!). 216.122.155.62 (talk) 05:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this is silly. The alt-right is overwhelmingly and quite vocally NOT atheist... Jersey John (talk) 11:24, 20 August 2023 (UTC)