The Alt-Right: What Everyone Needs to Know®

What Everyone Needs to Know

by George Hawley

In recent years, the so-called Alt-Right, a white nationalist movement, has grown at an alarming rate. Taking advantage of high levels of racial polarization, the Alt-Right seeks to normalize explicit white identity politics. Growing from a marginalized and disorganized group of Internet trolls and propagandists, the Alt-Right became one of the major news stories of the 2016 presidential election, and exploded into public consciousness after its march through Charlottesville in summer 2017. Discussions of the Alt-Right are now a regular part of political discourse in the United States and beyond. In The What Everyone Needs to Know® , George Hawley, one of the world's leading experts on the conservative movement and right-wing radicalism, provides a clear explanation of the ideas, tactics, history, and prominent figures of one of the most disturbing movements in America today. Although it presents itself as a new phenomenon, the Alt-Right is just the latest iteration of
a longstanding radical right-wing political tradition. Throughout, Hawley discusses the other primary ideological influences on the libertarianism, paleoconservatism, neo-reaction, and the Men's Rights Movement. The Alt-Right represents a genuine challenge to pluralistic liberal democracy, but its size and influence are often exaggerated. Whether intentionally or not, President Donald Trump energized the Alt-Right in 2016, yet conflating Trump's variety of right-wing politics with the Alt-Right causes many observers to both overestimate the Alt-Right's size and downplay its radicalism. Hawley provides a tour of the contemporary radical right, and explains how it differs from more mainstream varieties of conservatism. Dispassionate and accessible, this is an essential overview for anyone seeking to understand to this disruptive and dangerous political movement.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

Published December 5, 2018

About the author

I am an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama. My research interests include demography, electoral behavior, political parties, immigration policy, and the conservative movement in America.

I earned my Ph.D in political science from the University of Houston and my undergraduate degrees in political science and print journalism from Central Washington University.

Before entering graduate school, I worked in politics in Washington, DC, for multiple groups and individuals. While my teaching and academic research keep me busy, I am also an active consultant and media commentator (and always looking for new projects).

Although I am a proud native of the Pacific Northwest, I presently enjoy life with my wife and children here in the heart of Dixie.

Reviews

[Benjamin Davey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book while researching for my dissertation on Alt-Right radicalisation, and this book helped me understand the subject tremendously. I found Hawley to be knowledgable and engaging and I would earnestly recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is structured as a collection of questions (e.g. "What is a troll?", "What are the Turner Diaries?", "Who is Steve Bannon?"), which the author provides short (1-2 page, usually) answers to. The questions are grouped into chapters, but the groupings are pretty arbitrary.

The questions and answers are pretty basic and structured similarly to blog entries, with many references to other questions. The sourcing is fairly thin, although I never saw any information that stuck out as wrong.

My problem with the book is that reading it felt like reading a simple encyclopedia. If I had just read an article on the alt-right and wanted some more background on some specific concepts, this book would be a good place to look, but the book's structure makes it difficult to read cover-to-cover. The book would be much better with some added sections that connected the different concepts.

[Chris Weigl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is much more doom and gloom than it needs to be and the striking thing about this book is that the author never once considered the idea that both sides might be wrong. Extremism on both the left and the right should be condemned.

The reason we can’t agree on anything right now is because both sides are more intent on blaming each other for the worlds problems instead of trying to fix them. A politician can’t merely accomplish his policy goals anymore. He needs to beat the other side in the process.

There can be no bipartisanship when neither side is concerned with getting it right; each side is far too busy trying to beat the other that they never get around to making policy. It doesn’t matter who started it, let’s start fixing it.

[Jack Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 'The Alt-Right: What Everyone Needs to Know' political scientist George Hawley seeks to illuminate the nature of the American 'Alt-Right' for the general reader. Hawley sees the Alt Right as a contemporary manifestation of the white supremacist politics that evolved out of groups such as the KKK and the NSM - adapting to the cultural and technological epoch of the 21st century. The nebulous, decentralised and esoteric nature of the alt-right has led to great confusion about the movements character, size, and overall goals. Hawley seeks to dispel this through analysing the broad historical trends that have come to define the radical right in America, as well as the various figures, language and tactics that are integral to the alt-right.

Hawley believes that the essence of the alt-right is the blatant racism and antisemitism that its followers espouse. He locates the alt-right as a diverse coalition of individuals and groups on the extreme right, significantly more extreme than American conservatives. The book goes to lengths to explain the unique nature of the alt-right, distinguishing it from more traditional elements of American conservatism and nationalism. This includes a discussion of the 'Alt-lite', adjacent figures and movements who have reiterated similar viewpoints but with less explicit language. Ranging from explicit neo-Nazis to 'white identitarians', there is a breath of discussion as to the variety of such a diffuse movement and the internal conflicts and debates that circulate within. Hawley characterises the alt-right as a largely online phenomenon: connecting through a web of forums, and in the comments section of journals. This includes a discussion of their esoteric, memetic language which he argues has evolved as a unique element of the alt-right, a useful tactic for engendering media responses. Ultimately Hawley sees the goals of the alt-right as attempting to 'inject' their ideas into mainstream discourse through repetition of their talking points. He diagnoses their fortunes as poor - but that there is still time for their image to be rehabilitated and for them to shift the Overton window in their favour. The discussion of the Alt-right cements it as a largely American phenomenon. Bar some discussion of Identity Evropa, it neglects to mention the transformation of the radical right elsewhere in the world - a chapter of which I feel would have helped cement the unique nature of the American Alt-right.

This book is undeniably geared towards the widest possible audience, and has been structured around that concept. Chapters are subdivided into discussions of individuals, figures, or tactics that general readers can easily hop in and out of. Whilst this sounds like a welcome addition to a challenging topic, it ultimately complicates the flow of the writing and hinders the ability of Hawley to craft a trajectory for his narrative/thesis. At points the book feels more like a 'field guide' for the radical right, with specific subsections devoted to figures and their credentials. This need to jump from person-to-person can make the book simultaneously easy and difficult to follow.

Hawley's book is an excellent reference guide to the nature of the radical right in the US, and would be a welcome addition to the library of anyone undertaking any personal research into the topic. One particular element that I really love is Hawley's recommendations for further reading. Instead of introducing a list at the very end of the book (which often goes unread by general readers), Hawley peppers his personal recommendations throughout his writing. As such, this book is a decent text to complement a basic narrative understanding of recent events surrounding the Alt-right.

TLDR: Accessible introduction to the radical right in the US, suffers from structural issues.

[Julesreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by someone who appears to be a conservative, this book is a good enough primer for anyone interested in the alt-right—which should be everyone. Sections like “what is a meme” should tell you who this book is aimed that, but that said, these kinds of books only do so much anyhow. You want to know the alt-right? Go to their podcasts, their forums, and watch the videos and read the articles of their influencers and “leaders.” Read Alt-America for a much more comprehensive book on this subject. Still, this is good for those who are aging out of the political sphere.

[I Read, Therefore I Blog · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Hawley is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama and in this concise, comprehensive (for an ever-developing movement) book that’s a must-read for anyone interested in the subject, he sets out what the Alt-Right is, how it’s comprised, how it developed, how it ties in with mainstream conservatism and (in what I found to be the least successful part of the book) how to challenge it.

[Elliot Kaufman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much and not enough.

[Muriel Truax · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good concise summary and analysis of the Alt-Right and its place in US coalitions.

[Charlotte Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5