Social activists helping the alt-right
How did the “alt-right” manage to permeate mainstream American consciousness?
People around the world were aghast this summer at the horrors of Charlottesville, Va. — brutal violence between white nationalists and counterprotesters; a white supremacist using a car as a weapon; Donald Trump reluctant to condemn white nationalists, blaming the violence on “many sides” and saying “some very fine people” can be found on the far right. (When he finally did denounce racists and bigotry, Trump sounded, at best, perfunctory.)
Charlottesville prompted Canadians to wonder if a white nationalist event of comparable magnitude could happen here. The U.S.A. suffers from a degree of political polarization that is not present in Canada, at least not to the same extent.
The white supremacist movement in the United States — or the “alt (ernative) right” as it has rebranded itself — has managed to gain mainstream traction that it has not achieved in our country.
But Canada is far from perfect. Poverty and inequality are also highly racialized in this country, even if not as pronounced as below the 49th parallel.
Tensions between police and particular racialized communities continue to fester, Aboriginal and black Canadians are perennially overrepresented in prisons, and academic outcomes and opportunity gaps based on race and class pervade our schools. And, of course, there’s the racist treatment and continuing marginalization of Indigenous peoples.
Yes, Canada is generally more egalitarian — with greater openness to social justice values — than the U.S. The election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals is evidence of this. Still, Canadians need to be careful. Trump’s election last fall can be attributed to numerous variables, but a significant factor was the populist, right-wing backlash to the “social justice left” that has become prominent in recent decades. Indeed, even as the social justice movement fights for important causes such as racial and gender equality and LGBTQ rights, it is also seen as stifling debate and dialogue to forcefully promote its agenda. This has been evident on U.S. college campuses when talks by right-wing commentators such as Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos are disrupted and sometimes shut down by often violent demonstrations.
Canada is no stranger to this. A freespeech event scheduled for Aug. 22 at Ryerson University was called off when officials cited safety concerns. The irony of a university cancelling a “free speech” event cannot be lost on anyone. Even before Charlottesville, the proposed Ryerson event was vociferously opposed by activists who planned to protest the function. Such opponents contend that the views articulated by many on the right, including those scheduled to speak at Ryerson, contribute to the ongoing oppression of marginalized people. In this narrative, letting right-wing speakers voice their perspectives on campuses defeats efforts to create “safe spaces” for targeted individuals.
Also underpinning left-wing activism is a belief that social justice is inherently virtuous and, in the interest of building a more inclusive and egalitarian society, should be insulated from critique and debate. But this line of thinking is problematic. It actually galvanizes support for the “free speech” crusade of the right, and has helped the alt right move from fringe status to mainstream relevance.
Conservatives like Ben Shapiro, Dinesh D’Souza and University of Toronto professor and free speech activist Jordan Peterson are not white nationalists, who equate Western civilization and values with whiteness. However objectionable their views may be to the left, arguing that the words they speak constitute violence is ultimately counterproductive. These and other mainstream conservatives have actually spoken out against the far right, but when we tag them as white supremacists and Nazis (as Ryerson activists have labelled Peterson) and prevent them from speaking, we homogenize the right and enable true white supremacists to infiltrate and contaminate mainstream conservatism.
This is what has happened in the U.S. The impulse to silence mainstream conservatives and indiscriminately label them racists and fascists has blurred the boundaries between relatively moderate and far-right conservatives. This, combined with the president’s reluctance to denounce white supremacy, provides the far right with fertile political ground.
The far right’s adaptation of the ostensibly palatable moniker “alt-right,” now used in lieu of more inflammatory labels such as “white nationalist” or “KKK,” is a reflection of its increasing acceptance in mainstream U.S. politics. Moreover, the right’s narrative of “left-wing violence” and free speech being under attack reverberates powerfully in Trump’s America, and has worked to (unfairly) construct the social justice movement as uniformly comprising irrational, left-wing ideologues bent on policing discourse and violently dismantling Western civilization.
We are left with an American political culture polarized by two warring factions, each actively portraying the other as the undifferentiated enemy — gradation and complexity, not to mention constructive dialogue, be damned. The U.S.A. is an increasingly divided place where hateful ideology enjoys growing resonance, and important ideas and issues are denied the important process of rigorous debate.
Canadians take heed. Open debate and dialogue in a university lecture hall is a far better scenario than Charlottesville.