Does the Alt‐Right still matter? An examination of Alt‐Right influence between 2016 and 2018

Abstract

In this paper, we use panel data from the 2016 and 2017 waves of the Voter Study and the 2018 American National Election Studies (ANES) Pilot, to better understand the relative influence of the Alt‐Right on mainstream US politics in the Trump era. Given the degree of formal alignment between Trump and a number of key voices within the movement, we first examine the strength of the association between affect for the Alt‐Right and support for Republican Party between 2016 and 2018. We also examine relative levels of affect for the Alt‐Right among Whites between this period, tracking a number of important changes. We find that, while affect for the Alt‐Right was strongly associated with support for Republican candidates such as Trump in the 2016 election cycle, we find a somewhat weaker relationship between affect for the Alt‐Right and White support for Trump and down ballot Republican candidates in 2018. We also find that, after rising between 2016 and 2017, levels of affect for Alt‐Right appear to have declined by 2018. The results are therefore reflective of exponential rise of the Alt‐Right during the 2016 election and the movement's subsequent implosion after the 2017 ‘United the Right’, rally in Charlottesville, VA.

White Americans’ Evaluations of the Alt-Right

“…This loop extends in both directions. For example, Trump referred to the alt-right as "very fine people,"and alt-right figure Richard Spencer invoked Trump's name in a famous salute in a conference space in Washington (Thompson & Hawley 2021) 8. YouGov uses opt-in online panels, collected and managed by YouGov, in concert with propensity score matching and poststratification weighting to generate its results.…”

“…7.This loop extends in both directions. For example, Trump referred to the alt-right as “very fine people,”and alt-right figure Richard Spencer invoked Trump’s name in a famous salute in a conference space in Washington (Thompson & Hawley 2021)…”

Alt‐right gangs and far‐right extremists: From the margins to the mainstream

“…Some scholars suggest that the term alt-right softens the imagery of white supremacy, thereby softening the social stigma associated with racial/anti-Semitic hate and misogyny Mudde, 2018). George Hawley (2021;Thompson & Hawley, 2021) contends that following the disastrous 2017 "Unite the Right Rally" in Charlottesville the alt-right has dissolved back to margins and lost much of its appeal and influence. Yet, others argue that the alt-right has shifted from the fringes to the mainstream, normalizing their extreme right-wing viewpoints (see Blazak, 2022;Campbell, 2022;Reid et al, 2020;Sunderland, 2022;Winter 2019).…”

Gayservatives on Gab: LGBTQ+ Communities and Far Right Social Media

“…Far right and White nationalist movements in the United States (and around the world; see Fielitz & Thurston, 2019) have long used the Internet to promote their ideas and their aims (e.g., Bjork-James, 2020; Daniels, 2018; Thompson & Hawley, 2021). However, it was not until the emergence of the “alt-right” on platforms such as 4chan and Reddit, and their influence in the 2016 US presidential election, that this phenomenon came more fully into the public consciousness (Hawley, 2017; Thompson & Hawley, 2021; Wendling, 2018).…”

“…Far right and White nationalist movements in the United States (and around the world; see Fielitz & Thurston, 2019) have long used the Internet to promote their ideas and their aims (e.g., Bjork-James, 2020; Daniels, 2018; Thompson & Hawley, 2021). However, it was not until the emergence of the “alt-right” on platforms such as 4chan and Reddit, and their influence in the 2016 US presidential election, that this phenomenon came more fully into the public consciousness (Hawley, 2017; Thompson & Hawley, 2021; Wendling, 2018). Although the alt-right as such has largely declined since 2017, it has always overlapped with other “radical pro-White movements” (Hartzell, 2018, p. 7), and it is clear that online far right movements continue to exist (and even inform mainstream US conservatism).…”