美国国家公共电台 NPR What You Need To Know About The Alt-Right Movement

What You Need To Know About The Alt-Right Movement

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

You know, the presidential campaign has really tipped into brutal 1 new territory, with both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump 2 accusing one another of racism 3 and bigotry 4. Yesterday morning, the Clinton campaign released a video featuring white supremacists backing Donald Trump, and then Hillary Clinton came out swinging in a 30-minute speech in Reno, Nev. She laid out her case for Trump as a, quote, "profoundly dangerous racist 5."

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HILLARY CLINTON: No one should have any illusions about what's really going on here. The names may have changed. Racists now call themselves racialists. White supremacists now call themselves white nationalists. The paranoid fringe now calls itself alt-right, but the hate burns just as bright.

GREENE: OK, that was Hillary Clinton there yesterday. Donald Trump, we should remember, called Hillary Clinton a bigot at a rally in Mississippi on Wednesday night. Yesterday, ahead of Hillary Clinton's speech, he suggested that his opponent was going to try and label people who support him.

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DONALD TRUMP: She lies, and she smears 6, and she paints decent Americans, you, as racists. She bullies 7 voters who only want a better future and tries to intimidate 8 them out of voting for a change.

GREENE: All right, we want to spend a little time this morning looking at what it means to be alt-right. That was the term that Hillary Clinton used in her speech. And she's just the latest to pick up this term for a small radical 9 fringe. To talk about this, we've reached Nicole Hemmer. She's a professor of presidential history at the University of Virginia, and she has a book coming out soon called "Messengers Of The Right: Conservative Media And The Transformation 10 Of American Politics." Professor Hemmer, good morning.

NICOLE HEMMER: Good morning.

GREENE: So you've spent time studying the alt-right and you write about them, so just tell us who they are.

HEMMER: So it's actually kind of hard to know the exact contours of the alt-right since it's mostly an online community. It doesn't really have any sort of in-person organization. But it's a group that has a mix of beliefs about white nationalism, about anti-feminism, about anti-progressivism.

And it's also about, at least in part, saying the most unthinkable thing possible because they believe that that strikes a blow against political correctness. And they see political correctness really as the greatest threat to their liberty. So they believe that saying racist or anti-Semitic things - it's not an act of hate but an act of freedom. And I think that attitude is key to understanding this alt-right.

GREENE: You know, I have interviewed a lot of supporters of Donald Trump who say that they don't like political correctness. They say, you know, when Donald Trump speaks, it's like he is saying the kinds of things that we like saying when we're drinking beers in our backyard. But they would never consider themselves as racist. I mean, do you agree when Hillary Clinton seems to be painting a lot of supporters of Donald Trump as - as alt-right, as racist?

HEMMER: I think that she was saying that Donald Trump's rhetoric 11 and his policies opens the door to mainstream 12 the alt-right and to mainstream these hate groups. I didn't necessarily hear her as saying that all Donald Trump supporters were members of the alt-right. I actually think that the alt-right represents a very small percentage of Trump supporters. But the danger here is that they're amplified 13 and they're legitimized by the Trump campaign. I certainly don't think that the majority of Trump's supporters in any way comport 14 to this alt-right that Clinton was talking about.

GREENE: So she is getting some criticism for giving the alt-right more of a platform than they might have had otherwise. But doesn't Donald Trump have to own some of that by bringing on Steve Bannon as the campaign CEO? He owns Breitbart, this conservative news media outlet 15. They've claimed to be the platform for the alt-right. So, I mean, describe the link between Trump and the alt-right.

HEMMER: So the alt-right was attracted to Trump. They see him as a vessel 16 for getting their ideas out there. But it was the hiring of Steve Bannon and this connection with Breitbart that brought the alt-right to the front of the conversation. You know, Breitbart - you mentioned that it was conservative. It doesn't actually define itself any more as conservative, not even really right wing. They define themselves as populist nationalist. And over the past year, they have really become the mainstream source for the alt-right, so the way that it gains legitimacy 17. So by putting Breitbart front and center in his campaign, Trump has elevated the alt-right. Journalists were going to be writing about this, and have been writing about it, since Steve Bannon was brought on to the campaign.

GREENE: What is Trump trying to do by bringing Bannon on?

HEMMER: You know, it's difficult to discern exactly what's going on. I think he sees Bannon as someone who can package his provocativeness 18 in a more appealing way. I think that was also the idea behind bringing in Roger Ailes, bringing in Kellyanne Conway...

GREENE: These are his new big campaign people.

HEMMER: Right. I think it's about trying to find a way to take his message, which I think he believes in, but to make it more appealing to a broader swath of people. I think he was scared by his plummet 19 in the polls and he's looking for a way to turn that around and believes these people can do it.

GREENE: So in a sense, I mean, what we have here is a moment when Donald Trump needs more supporters. He feels like, you know, that sort of message about political correctness might draw more people in, might whip up more support. Hillary Clinton is hoping that a lot of people will see this connection to a group that is considered white nationalist and they might say, you know, I don't want to be part of this campaign at all.

HEMMER: Right. You should think about Hillary Clinton's alt-right speech as a direct response to Donald Trump's attempt to pivot 20. She's reminding those undecided voters that whatever the new moderate face of Donald Trump might be, here are the things that he has said, and here are the implications of the things that he's said and the people who he's brought into his campaign. And so she's really reaching out to that group and trying to bat back any attempt by the Trump campaign to pivot.

GREENE: Professor Hemmer, thanks so much for talking to us. We appreciate it.

HEMMER: Thanks for having me.

GREENE: That's Nicole Hemmer. She is a professor of presidential history at the University of Virginia, and she's the author of a forthcoming book called "Messengers Of The Right: Conservative Media And The Transformation Of American Politics."

POST-BROADCAST CLARIFICATION: Hillary Clinton said Thursday that Donald Trump has a “profoundly dangerous” disregard for the nation’s values and that he is “a man with a long history of racial discrimination.” She did not refer to him as a “profoundly dangerous racist” as the introduction to this report could imply.