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Alternative Right

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For the ideological movement, see alt-right.

Alternative Right was a far right online magazine that was heavily into white nationalism.

It started on AlternativeRight.com in March 2010[1][2] described as "an online magazine of radical traditionalism" and "an attempt to forge a new, independent intellectual Right."[3] It was founded by Richard Spencer, a former editor at The American Conservative and Taki's Magazine. It quickly became a media project of the National Policy Institute, Spencer's white nationalist think tank. The website became inactive in December 2013 and was redirected to Radix Journal, a site of similar subject matter. In August 2023, it was revealed that Richard Hanania under the pseudonym Richard Hoste was one of the first writers recruited for Alternative Right.[4]

The Southern Poverty Law Center characterized the site as "yet another far-right magazine" and "loaded with contributors who… have long lamented the white man’s decline."[5]

It was also known as AltRight, originating the use of said label for the political movement that calls itself the alt-right.

The current site is a Blogspot blog. Concerns are much the same neo-Nazi fodder, with nods to neoreactionary and MRA jargon.

Ideological orientation[edit]

In the spring of 2010, AltRight founder Richard B. Spencer addressed Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Property and Freedom Society's annual conference[6] at Bodrum, Turkey. There he discussed[7] the intellectual currents within 20th century American conservatism, and the status of the larger phenomenon increasingly referenced as "the alternative right."[8][9]i.e., a bunch of white nationalists claiming respectability within conservatism.

Greg Johnson of The Occidental Quarterly extolled AltRight as a publication he "hope[s]… will attract the brightest young conservatives and libertarians and expose them to far broader intellectual horizons, including race realism, white nationalism, the European New Right, the Conservative Revolution, Traditionalism, neo-paganism, agrarianism, Third Positionism, anti-feminism, and right-wing anti-capitalists, ecologists, bioregionalists, and small-is-beautiful types."[10]

Contributors[edit]

The website was originally edited by white supremacist Richard Spencer. Between January 2011 and early 2012, the editors-in-chief were Alex Kurtagić and Richard Spencer. Thereafter, it was edited by Colin Liddell and Andy Nowicki, who run a blog.

Additional contributors included Frank Borzellieri, Peter Brimelow, Jack Donovan, Drew Fraser, Paul Gottfried, Richard Hoste,[4] James Kalb, Colin Liddell, Scott Locklin, Brittany Pettibone, Keith Preston, Richard Wolstencroft, Byron Roth, Steve Sailer, R.J. Stove, Jared Taylor, Srđa Trifković, Derek Turner, Elizabeth D. Wright, Jason Richwine[11] and various others.

Mainstream conservative opinion[edit]

More mainstream conservatives are not entirely thrilled by this lot either. E.D. Kain at True/Slant contended that "the far-right-wingers at Alternative Right represent the ugly – and yes racist – underbelly of ‘alt’ conservatism. This is white nationalism, folks, dressed up in faux-intellectualism."[12]

In March 2010 Tim Mak of David Frum's FrumForum interviewed Spencer. He concluded that AltRight's "ideas belong in some sort of padded room", and that its writers were "going to be white nationalists, but, by God, they’re going to be a little fancy about it."[13]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. National Review, "More on the Hispanic-Crime Debate," by John Derbyshire (March 5th 2010 - retrieved on May 23rd, 2011).
  2. CTRL-ALT-DELETE: The Origins and Ideology of the Alternative Right. politicalresearch.org. Archived 19 May 2023.
  3. Alternative Right, "About Us" (archive of 6 December 2013)
  4. 4.0 4.1 Richard Hanania, Rising Right-Wing Star, Wrote For White Supremacist Sites Under Pseudonym. huffingtonpost.co.uk. Archived 5 August 2023.
  5. Southern Poverty Law Center, "Paleocon Starts New Extreme-Right Magazine," by Larry Keller (March 15th, 2010 — retrieved on May 23rd, 2011).
  6. The Prosperity and Freedom Society, "Meetings and Proceedings," (retrieved on May 29th, 2011).
  7. Vimeo, "PFS 2010 — Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Richard Spencer, Marco Bassani, Paul Gottfried, Richard Lynn, Discussion, Q & A," by Sean Gabb (retrieved on May 29th, 2011).
  8. The American Conservative, "No Thanks," by Clark Stooksbury (May 30th, 2009 - retrieved on May 30th, 2011).
  9. VDARE, "Jared Taylor Archive: introduction," by Peter Brimelow (May 5th, 2011 — retrieved on May 30th, 2011).
  10. The Occidental Quarterly, "Richard Spencer Launches Alternative Right," by Greg Johnson (March 2nd, 2010 — retrieved on May 27th, 2011).
  11. "Jason Richwine Says He's No Racist, Has Tough Time Spotting Racism". the Atlantic Wire. 
  12. True/Slant, "Richard Spencer and the ugly white nationalism of the Alternative Right," by E.D. Kain (March 13th, 2010 - retrieved on May 27th, 2011).
  13. FrumForum, "The “New” Racist Right," by Tim Mak (March 8th, 2010 - retrieved on May 29th, 2011).