[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

So what's the difference between right and alt-right?

"Right" is just mainstream conservatives, like, for example, Mitt Romney or John McCain or George Bush (both of them) or Stephen Harper or Theresa May. "Alt-right", per PsYcNeT's New Yorker link above, was originally intended to be used as an umbrella term for people with right-wing views that fell outside the current conservative mainsteam, like libertarians and anti-free traders. The term was subsequently adopted by Richard Spencer (who was either the sole or co-creator of the term, depending upon whom you ask) to describe a movement of anti-Jew, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist white supremacists.

Lucian Wintrich, of the pro-Trump tabloid the Gateway Pundit, told me that, last year, the term alt-right “was adopted by libertarians, anti-globalists, classical conservatives, and pretty much everyone else who was sick of what had become of establishment conservatism.” Wintrich counted himself among that group. “Then Richard Spencer came along, throwing up Nazi salutes and claiming that he was the leader of the alt-right,” Wintrich went on. “He effectively made the term toxic and then claimed it for himself. We all abandoned using it in droves.”

[...]

As far as anyone can tell, the phrase “alternative right” was invented in 2008. That November, Paul Gottfried, a cantankerous intellectual who calls himself a “paleoconservative,” gave a speech at the first annual meeting of the H. L. Mencken Club, a “society for the independent Right.” “We have attracted, beside old-timers like me . . . well-educated young professionals, who consider themselves to be on the right, but not of the current conservative movement,” he said. Gottfried did not utter the phrase “alternative right” in the speech—he used the term “post-paleo” instead—but his remarks were later published on the Web site Taki’s Magazine, under the headline “The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right.” The headline was written by Spencer, who was then an acolyte of Gottfried’s and an editor at Taki’s. (Gottfried later told the journalist Jacob Siegel that he and Spencer “co-created” the phrase.) In 2010, Spencer registered alternativeright.com, which now redirects to altright.com, and he has since endeavored to position himself as the face of the movement.