The Alt-Right: The True "Cancer on Conservatism"

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Five Reasons Why I’m #NeverTrump”. There wasn’t enough space there to fully do justice to what may well be one of the most important, and overlooked, reasons for opposing Donald Trump—his followers. I’ll try to make up for that deficiency here.

When I refer to his supporters in this context, I’m not talking about the average Republican who doesn’t care for Trump personally but is merely supporting the nominee, something I disagree with but understand. Nor am I even talking about many of his primary voters, ordinary people who didn’t necessarily agree with everything Trump said but appreciated his willingness to say those things, and challenge political correctness and the D.C. establishment of both parties. The supporters that make me unwilling to ever support Donald Trump, even in a general election when the likely alternative is Hillary Clinton, are the racists, anti-Semites, and neo-Nazis who worship the ground Trump walks on based merely on the perception that he is an ally of the white nationalist movement—in other words, those now termed as members of the alt-right.

All of the various types of people that make up the alt-right have, of course, been around for centuries (with the obvious exception of neo-Nazis), but only within the past two decades have they begun attempting to attach themselves to the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and equal rights since its founding. One of the most notable examples of this shift has perhaps been David Duke’s unsuccessful runs for Louisiana governor and U.S. Senate as a Republican in the early 1990’s, in which many individual Republicans and the state and national parties alike took the nearly unprecedented step of abandoning their own nominee. On the whole, however, incidents of racism among Republican voters seemed to be a combination of isolated incidents and liberal fabrication.

David Duke endorsed Trump during the primaries, saying that white voters who favored any other candidate were “betray[ing]…their heritage”, a comment that by itself is disturbing but hardly disqualifying for the recipient of the endorsement. Most candidates for political office have supporters who are less than savory, and no candidate should be held accountable for every single comment made by those supporters.

What sets Trump apart, however, is a combination of his overtly racist comments, which in turn encourage similar statements of support from racist and white-nationalist leaders; his nonexistent denunciations of even the most hateful individuals and groups (is there any person in America who truly needs to better familiarize themselves with the KKK and what they stand for?)—and the level of fierce devotion and almost fanatical loyalty showered on Trump by many of these same individuals and groups.

The term “alt-right” may be new, but it describes an old movement in America, one which had been dying out before being revitalized by the Trump campaign and his many overt, disgusting statements regarding race. Read only a few statements on blogs and Twitter by self-declared alt-righters to understand how fervent their racism and anti-Semitism is—and how invested they are in a Trump victory. If Trump wins, these people, along with their ideas which lain largely dormant for decades, will be dramatically emboldened.

And the Republican Party and conservatism will pay an additional, immediate cost, along with the rest of the country, for despite the name there is nothing conservative about the alt-right—a collection of disgusting individuals who scorn the U.S. Constitution, any alliance with Israel, and the very ideas of liberty and equality which are at the heart of both conservatism and the American experiment. These “race realists” reject everything conservatism and America stands for, but by their very presence, and revitalization in the age of Trump, infect both.