Sarah Posner talking:
I was covering alt-right activities at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month. And that’s where I encountered a couple of times Milo Yiannopoulos, who is the site’s technology editor and the principal link between Breitbart and activists on the alt-right, activists that Yiannopoulos has explicitly embraced. And I also met and talked to Stephen Bannon, who was, at the time, the head of Breitbart and is now the CEO of Trump’s campaign.
And in our interview, Bannon told me that Breitbart is the platform for the alt-right, but he denied that the alt-right is an inherently racist or anti-Semitic movement that embraces white nationalism. He said that Breitbart is a nationalistic site; he denied that it’s a white nationalistic site. And he said that while there are elements of anti-Semitism or some people who might be racist in the alt-right, as a whole, the movement is not a racist or anti-Semitic movement.
Now, I asked him specifically about Ben Shapiro, who you discussed, who previously was an editor at Breitbart, who’s emerged as one of the site’s leading critics and who has been attacked on social media by anti-Semites tweeting—you know, just tweeting like horrible things at him and saying things about him and his family. And I asked Bannon about that hate that’s been directed at his former employee. And he dismissed it, calling Shapiro a whiner.
as much as Bannon wanted to claim Breitbart as the platform for the alt-right, the alt-right existed before Bannon took over Breitbart, when Andrew Breitbart, the site’s founder, died suddenly in 2012. The alt-right has been around before that. The “alt-right” term was coined by Richard Spencer, who is a white nationalist writer and activist who positions the alt-right as a dissident movement that’s dissatisfied with conservatism, which they portray—a term that you’ll often see people on the alt-right using for a conservative, for a movement conservative, is “cuckservative.” It’s a disparaging term combining the word “cuckold” and the word “conservative.” And that is how they portray movement conservatives.
And this is why they’ve been cheered by Trump’s candidacy, because they see him as a candidate who’s abandoned the traditional GOP, who scoffs at movement conservatism and, in fact, embraces their issues, is willing to talk about building a wall, who’s willing to talk about race in the way that Trump talks about race, who’s willing to break with GOP orthodoxy on trade deals. These are all things that have led the alt-right into the Trump camp. And a lot of it has to do with the ways in which he has rejected GOP and movement conservatism orthodoxy.
Heather McGhee talking:
Even if Trump is defeated, the unmasking of American racism, the mainstreaming of these ideas, is going to be with us the day after Election Day. The African-American community is very aware of that.
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Sarah Posner
freelance journalist. Her most recent piece for Mother Jones is titled “How Donald Trump’s New Campaign Chief Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists.” She is also the author of God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters.
Heather McGhee
the president of Demos and Demos Action.
— source democracynow.org