@mdk Understanding who the guy is, is definitely important to understanding the context of the twitter poll, a bit more research is needed to better understand the point I'm making too.
@The Harbinger of Ferocity Well my counter argument is that while historically the loudest and proudest of the far-right white supremacists would march loudly and say "white power" with no apology, there is absolutely no doubt that this form of white nationalism in modern times is a little more subversive and strategic on how they proclaim their views. It's definately a mixed bag. People like Andrew Anglin of the daily stormer is an open Neo-Nazi who celebrates, hitler's birthday. But someone like Richard Spencer calls himself an 'identitarian' and considers his veiws to be fairly mainstream. These are two ways of presenting the same argument. And they both consider themselves to be Alt-Right.
Understanding the individuals in this group is very important in understanding not only their motives but also their tactics and behavior. But I agree with you in the sense that there was already a bunch of WNs out there, and these people aren't nessecarily aren't just regular people who woke up to become racists. I did a lengthy post about stormfront a couple pages back, did you read it?
@SleepingSilence Okay so strawman right away, I never have once said that true conservative ideals aren't about treating people with merit, you might have me confused with someone else, but it invalidates your perspective a bit when you say something like that.
Also there are many things happening at the same time, yes there is a general meme culture getting bigger and bigger and yes not all of it has to do with Donald trump. But the Alt-Right definitely does exist and is very easily defined group, so no I wont agree that it never existed.
Remember Alt-Right wasn't created on some 4 chan board it was coined by Richard Spencer himself back in 2008. As the break off of the most extremist wing of the Ron Paul movement, which he described himself. Its a group that preaches white nationalism, and they don't even try to deny this. If you don't like the term alt right because at has been used incorrectly regarding some people then fine, I don't like it either.
But Richard Spencer, Vox Day, Red Ice Radio, Baked Alaska, Tara McCarthy, Millennial Woes, Andrew Anglin, Kyle Chapman, Jason Kessler, Matthew Hiembach, Bre Fauchex, Brittany Pettibone, Emily Youcis, Matt Forney, Matthew Drake, Nick Feuntes, James Allsup, David Sedner, Nathan Damiago.... and I honestly could name more but you get the point. All of these people are self admitted white nationalists/white identitarians and they all call themselves the alt right. There is no universe in which the Alt Right aren't clearly defined and dont exist.
Now I'm not for a second saying that they are as big as they claim to be or that they have any real power in government,
as I don't equate these people with the general republican party. In fact most of these guys do their recruiting from apolitical but disenfranchised male groups such as gamer-gaters, mens rights activists, and 4 chan trolls who to be honest, arent really democratic or republican, just a lot of directionless young people who want to be edgy. If you don't know who the people who I've stated above are, please do a little bit of research on them before responding to me so that we are on the same page.