Posted on August 31, 2016

What It Means When People Say That Donald Trump Has Ties to the White Supremacist “Alt-Right”

Kajal Singh, HillaryClinton.com, August 30, 2016

Last week, Hillary Clinton called out Donald Trump and his advisers for embracing a hate movement–the so-called “alt-right” political ideology. The phrase has been tossed around a lot lately, and as advocates for the movement have lavished in the increased attention, it’s important to clear a few things up.

First: What does alt-right mean?

The alternative right, commonly known as the alt-right, is defined by the Southern Poverty Law Center (an organization that tracks hate groups), as a “set of far-right ideologies at the core of which is a belief that ‘white identity’ is under attack by multicultural forces using ‘political correctness’ and ‘social justice’ to undermine white people and ‘their’ civilization.”

In other words: This is not conservatism or the Republican Party. This is a movement that fosters anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism, and anti-women rhetoric. This is a white supremacist movement, and one that Trump has not only refused to denounce–it’s one he actively courts.

What connections does Trump have to the alt-right and white supremacy groups?

Trump recently hired Steve Bannon, the former head of an extremist right-wing website called Breitbart, as his campaign CEO. Bannon likes to brag that Breitbart is the “platform for the alt-right.” And as the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it, those ideas are “racist ideas, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas–all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right.”

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What do alt-right Trump supporters sound like?

They sound a lot like Trump.

He’s continually shown that he shares their core beliefs, and he continues to normalize and elevate their views. {snip}

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Don’t take this lightly–this is a hate movement, and nothing more than a rebranding of white supremacy and racism.

“There are more white supremacists who are defining themselves as part of the alt-right,” says Marilyn Mayo, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. And these are the people who are Trump’s supporters and the closest friends of his inner circle.