America’s nightmare as far- right hate groups unite
THE violence in Charlottesville has been described as a belated ‘coming out party’ for resurgent white nationalism in the US. The protest was organised by members of the so-called alt-right, or alternative Right, a loose collective of mainly young men who believe white racial identity is under attack from multiculturalism.
Donald Trump’s election victory and his subsequent appointment of alt-right icon Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist have emboldened the disparate groups that make up America’s far right.
Mr Bannon – a key figure in Mr Trump’s toxic election campaign –was a founder of the virulently right-wing news and commentary website Breitbart. The site takes a scorchedearth approach to attacking the Establishment, liberals, mainstream conservatives and political correctness. Mr Bannon denies he is a white supremacist but he had boasted that he wanted to make Breitbart into the ‘platform of the alt-tight’ movement.
Protected as it is by America’s strong free speech laws, the far right has struggled for decades to overcome in-fighting which has left the myriad groups often more at odds with each other than with their enemies on the left and in black activism.
Religious differences – some groups are pagan while others are Christian – and a split over attitudes to the Nazis – with some groups pro-Hitler and others opposed – have divided attempts to find common ground.
While ideological differences split neo-Nazis from the Ku Klux Klan from the anti-government militias, leadership squabbles even divided competing Klan factions.
However, the election of Mr Trump on an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, politically incorrect platform provided the warring organisations with what they believe is a common ally.
Putting aside their differences, they agreed that a Trump administration was their best chance to advance their views and reverse what – after the election of Barack Obama – some hailed as a ‘post- racial America’.
In May, a few dozen white supremacists pre-empted this weekend’s violence by rallying around the Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, with lit torches.
The group, which met after the city’s authorities voted to remove the statue from a park that bears Lee’s name, chanted: ‘You will not replace us.’
Alt-Right figurehead Richard Spencer told protesters: ‘What brings us together is that we are white, we are a people, we will not be replaced.’
AWARE that many white, working-class Trump supporters believe Washington and the media are trying to wipe out their cultural identity, the far-right allies portray themselves as guardians of white ‘heritage’ – particularly in the South where many see its pro-slavery Confederacy past as a crucial part of their history.
The alt-right insists liberal phrases such as ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’ effectively amount to the extinction of America’s white origins. Some, though not all, are also antiSemitic and Holocaust deniers.
Protests have focused on university campuses because this is where the movement believes that it can recruit new members.
Although many far-right leaders enthusiastically supported Mr Trump’s presidential campaign – and he has been criticised for not explicitly condemning their violence in Charlottesville – there has been growing disappointment that he has not done what they hoped in government.
Many were incensed by his missile strikes on Syria in retaliation for the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attacks on civilians, arguing that the US should put itself first and stay out of foreign conflicts.
The alt-right bizarrely identified Jane Austen as an icon, arguing her portrayal of a cosy – and white – Georgian England is closer to what they are aiming for than Nazi Germany.