Editorial: 'Alt-right' movement isn't conservatism

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The Associated Press is the best kind of a self-correcting news agency. But it’s not infallible. Because it’s a distributed news organization - more precisely, many news organizations that have come together in an association - it can police many of its own members’ errors.

And that’s why it’s important to talk about the AP’s representation of the “alt-right.” The phrase has become very, very important lately, with the ascension of Steve Bannon (of Breitbart News) to White House adviser, and even closer to home, with the appearance last week of some fliers around town allegedly touting an “alt- right” group’s ideology.

The AP has some guidelines that are misleading about the “alt-right.”

“Whenever ‘alt-right’ is used in a story, be sure to include a definition: ‘an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism,’ or, more simply, ‘a white nationalist movement,’” the AP says.

But that’s inaccurate.

As we are sure the AP would agree, words mean things. And “conservatism” has a clear meaning. It’s an ideology with tenets that include limited government, personal freedom, free markets and the rule of law.

The “alt-right” holds to none of those things. The AP is more accurate when it goes into a more lengthy description of the movement.

“The movement has been described as a mix of racism, white nationalism and populism,” the AP reports.

How, then, is it an “offshoot of conservatism?” It’s not. One of the best analyses of the “alt-right” movement comes from Robert Tracinski in The Federalist.

“This ‘alt-right’ agenda is not really part of the ‘right’ because it is thoroughly collectivist in a vile and personal way,” Tracinski explains. “It says that your most personal, individual, deeply meaningful decisions - such as whom you marry and have children with - should be determined by some larger social program based on group identity. That’s why they are openly opposed to free markets in favor of economic nationalism: this is an anti-freedom, anti-individualist movement.”

Nor is the “alt-right” movement a defense of Western civilization, as it sometimes claims.

“The central theme of the Western intellectual tradition is about rising above tribalism to arrive at universal values,” Tracinski writes. “That’s a common theme that connects both secular and Christian traditions in the West. It was the whole distinctive idea behind the Ancient Greek revolution in thought. Philosophers like Socrates launched the Western tradition by asking probing questions that were meant to sort out which ideas and practices are based merely on historical accident and social convention, versus those that are based on universal laws of human nature.”

The “alt-right” movement isn’t alone in its errors, of course.

As Tracinski points out, “Yes, of course the left does it, too. They have their own racist theories dressed up under the heading of ‘identity politics.’ So what? Your mom told you the answer to this when you were 5: two wrongs don’t make a right.”

The Associated Press must be more careful. The “alt-right” movement is in no way an offshoot of conservatism. Just ask conservatives - who are its frequent targets.
http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-Opinion/271675/editorial-altright-movement-isnt-conservatism

[endicom]

"'Alt-right' movement isn't conservatism"


Explaining until you drop dead from the effort will do no good. The more talk there is of this miniscule 'alt-right' will be the more all conservatives are tarred with that brush.

[uglybiker]

'Alt-right' is just the current catchphrase for anyone who isn't a screaming, looney leftist.  It only came about because everybody quit paying attention when when they were screaming about neocons.