Donald Trump\u2019s candidacy for the US Presidency, and in particular his recent appointment of Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman\u00a0of the right-wing media site Breitbart to head up his campaign, has brought fresh attention to the so-called \u201calt-right\u201d in America. The term was first coined in 2008 and is commonly used to describe hitherto fringe groupings of far right activists, white nationalists\/supremacists and fascists in the US. \u00a0Their closest parallels are to European far right movements, but the history of slavery, segregation and Anglo-Saxonism gives racist and ethno-facism in the US particular specificity. That any of this has been brought anywhere near the mainstream of US conservatism is a measure of what Trump\u2019s candidacy both represents and has become.<\/p>\n
The Guardian has recently carried a primer <\/a>on the alt-right, and an excellent\u00a0long read<\/a> on intellectuals associated with their activities. The Spectator<\/a> has also discussed the phenomenon. Here <\/a>the Washington Post talks to the racists \u201ccheered by Trump\u2019s latest strategy\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s anti-immigrant rhetoric may be seen as a resurrection of the Republicans\u2019 erstwhile \u201cSouthern Strategy\u201d, as the Atlantic outlines here<\/a>, substituting Islam for godless communism. Unsurprisingly, his ratings amongst African-Americans are rock bottom<\/a>. \u00a0Conversely, his support amongst conservative evangelicals is holding firm<\/a> \u2013 chiefly because they see him as their only hope for preventing a liberal swing in the Supreme Court. The New York Times also examines how to think about the Latino vote here<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a welter of comment and analysis, a couple of older pieces are also worth reading, to give historical context to Trump and the alt-right. The invention of race in the fledgling USA, as a means ideologically to justify and sustain slavery, was the subject of an essay by Barbara Jeanne Fields in the New Left Review in 1990<\/a>.<\/p>\n