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I am curious, because I saw it written many times here, but had no chance to investigate more.
What happened to the Alt-Right movement, and what makes it very different from the dissident right of now?
I think the terms just changed.
Alt right originally just meant the same thing that MAGA does now. It was conservatives who didn't identify with the likes of Mitt Romney or the Bushes. Alt rights were in favor of limited, but useful government, in favor of religion, but as a structure for families and communities, not the weird evangelical stuff you used to see from conservatives (so: Catholic).
Eventually the media succeeded in convincing people that "alt right" was equivalent to neo nazi, so people stopped using the term. I still people say it to each other ironically. For instance: "I don't think that the CIA should be telling facebook what news stories to allow on their platform because I think that is election interference. I guess I'm an alt right neo fascist."
what? This isn't true at all.
from wikipedia
from alternativeright.com (sorted by earliest first, i.e. from field)
The URLs say enough already - "julius-evola-radical-traditionalism", "hbd-human-biodiversity/liberals-face-reality", "left-right/the-failure-of-conservatism", "authors/steve-sailer",
"From wikipedia" should lose you any argument.
Also, "alternative right" is not "alt right" for the same reason that "Afro-American" is not "African-American"--"these two phrases are almost the same so they mean the same thing" is not how the culture war works.
I don't have any particular reason to believe that this particular fact, that Spencer ran an Alternative Right website in 2010, is being editorialized by Wikipedia.
I have my skepticism about that instance popularizing the term "alt-right," since I figure Spencer would claim influence whether or not it actually existed. But "alternative right" clearly existed, and it clearly had overlap with the HBDers and the Steve Sailers who would later wave the alt-right flag.
Also, it's one more source than either you or the parent provided.
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Wikipedia is in almost all contexts a better source, in practice, than any random news website or blog. It is especially a great way to get broad context on a topic or issue, which is precisely what OP doesn't have! And in this case it is accurate. Nevertheless, it's confirmed with "primary sources" from alternativeright.com, and elsewhere from /r/altright. Sure, it's morally biased against the right, but that doesn't prevent it from having detailed and mostly accurate articles on it.
Sure, but richard spencer, when he was still emphatically alt-right, used both, and was using alt-right to describe a "movement" in 2011. That objection doesn't make sense in relation to the way people used the term. I've talked to a lot of far-right people over the past decade, and have seen 'alt-right' used to describe their own white nationalist/fascist/extreme right movement many times, and used to describe their own 'maga / conservative who dislikes bush movement' not many at all.
Not on topics related to American contemporary culture war, of which Alt Right is a prime example.
Gamergate wikipedia article is sufficient to prove my point:
... it would make sense to include attacks on wikipedia as a source in a context where: wikipedia was being used to support incorrect claims - wikipedia was making incorrect claims - or wikipedia was a key pillar of my argument. But in no cases is that true here - what was being debated was vaguely "did a significant group of people call themselves alt-right, or was it a media term to label conservatives". And I was using it to show how easily accessible that information is, and also supported it with direct links, so I don't see why it's worth questioning wikipedia here. And the wikipedia article very effectively answers that question -
I think the connection between the alt-right and white supremacy is more 'very close' than 'entirely', but that's very complicated, and this is a decent introduction to the topic.
This is also a decent introduction to the topic, and would've been very useful for the people who claimed 'nobody called themselves alt-right" to read. The mention of dailystormer, occidental dissent, paleoconservatism, dark enlightenment, etc - those are definitely relevant!
So, given that many people in this thread would have been informed by reading just the first two paragraphs of the wikipedia article, the claim that "[wikipedia is not a better source than a random blog / not a great way to get broader context] on topics related to American contemporary culture war" is, imo, false. The rest of the article is certainly morally against the alt-right ... but that's to be expected, everyone is against the alt-right, they're "nazis"! Outgroup, the hated enemy, etc, it's really not worth expecting anything else. The rest of the article is also worth reading - much of it is misleading, of course, and wikipedia's article about priming is also misleading, writing things that are entirely accurate is ... quite hard, but it's still worth reading.
If you think that Wikipedia is a decent introduction to culture war issues, then the only words I have to describe are unflattering. Gullible comes to mind. Naive, willfully naive, and stridently naive are some others
Wikipedia is controlled by admins and editors and their bias permeates anything remotely controversial, and is prevalent across the entire English language site. The kind of things are and are not relevant, noteworthy, acceptable curtains, be and so on, provide a hundred thousand absurd for the common PMC bias to sleep through.
But none of this is new. I learning it in 2014 and 2015 regarding the gamergate article, which cannot be described as useful by anyone operating in good faith.
Did you even check the talk page to get a sense of the changes that have occurred, why, and when?
... I'm very far-right, and very clearly stated that wikipedia is biased against the right in the original post. (what is "PMC" bias? Does the new york times like chief financial officers, or corporate lawyers, in their rhetoric? Why aren't CEOs PMC, and hence wikipedia biased towards CEOs?)
If you have an organized source that's informative and detailed on a wide range of culture war issues in a wiki or article, as opposed to news format, that you think is better than wikipedia here, post it.
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SPLC also distinguishes Richard Spencer as the premier author/person of the alt right movement, whether rightly or wrongly.
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