Modern Life

Matthew d'ancona

We live in an age of ‘rebranding’, much of it seriously tiresome. British Gas, you will recall, became Centrica, while British Steel renamed itself Corus. In 1993, three truculent public-sector unions joined forces under the misleadingly bland monicker of Unison.

The emergence of the ‘Alt-right’ should be understood as part of the same trend, the ‘alt’ short for ‘alternative’, a deliberately vague way of differentiating its goose-stepping adherents from mainstream conservatism. It is fair to say that extreme nationalists, racial supremacists and neo-nazis have failed to get a good press in recent decades. Gathering under the new banner of the ‘Alt-right’ – which sounds like a computer command but isn’t – these unlovely groups are seeking the legitimacy that has so conspicuously evaded them.

Amusing as the idea of skinheads studying focus groups is, none of this would matter were it not for the victory of Donald Trump. Among the Presidentelect’s first appointees was Stephen Bannon, who will be his chief strategist in the White House. Before he took over Trump’s campaign in August, Bannon was chief executive of Breitbart News – a far-right website that he himself describes as ‘the platform for the Alt-right’.

Breitbart, which also has a UK site, titillates its readership with attacks on immigration, feminism and globalisation (which much of its fanbase regard as a Jewish conspiracy rather than a wealthcreating free-trade system). Those who comment on the site often have eloquent names like ‘Whitegenocide’ or ‘Aryansiegfried’.

They speak in their own private lingo, too. ‘Cucks’ are conservatives who lack the butchness of the true believer. ‘Libtards’ are liberals who dare to challenge AltRighteousness. ‘Snowflakes’ are those sensitive souls who declare themselves offended by muscular conservatism. The overall tone is one of serious paranoia, advanced by white men in their underwear angrily tapping away at their laptops as they seek someone to blame for the fact that they still live with their parents.

As is traditional in the history of the far Right, Mr Bannon himself is not visibly a member of the master race, more closely resembling a sack of potatoes adorned by wig and spectacles. But he has severe eugenic standards when it comes to others.

In his divorce case, it was alleged that he complained about ‘the number of Jews’ who attended a school he was considering for his daughters. When discussing the idea of limiting the vote to property--

holders, he was warned that such a system might exclude many African-americans. ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,’ Mr Bannon is reported to have replied.

Not that he is the only luminary in the Alt-right constellation. One should also mention Richard B Spencer, a 38-yearold Boston-born white nationalist who has declared his goal to be ‘a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans’. In November, he addressed a conference of the far Right in Washington, saluting his audience with the words: ‘Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!’

Though he does not ‘self-identify’ as a voice of the Alt-right, Milo Yiannopoulos is a favourite of the loose-knit movement, a young, peroxide-haired Briton who is frequently called upon to defend the indefensible on television, and has recently mounted a ‘Dangerous Faggot’ tour of American campuses. Though he looks less like a political analyst than a male model advertising aftershave – Alt Droite Pour Homme – he is articulate and ambitious: one to watch.

For now, the Alt-right is not a serious force in this country – though it has some purchase in the ranks of the UK Independence Party. Should you be unlucky enough to encounter one of its members in a social situation, remember Bertie Wooster’s epic denunciation of Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts in The Code of the Woosters: ‘You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: “Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?” ’ Unimprovable.