The American Far Right Is Not a Glitch
A Brief Overview of 21st-Century American Reactionary Chauvanism/Fascism
What we call the “far right” in the United States is often framed as a fringe phenomenon—an outgrowth of poor education, economic anxiety, or internet radicalization. However, this neglects a larger pattern. The far right has historically adapted to the needs of power. Elites cultivate, protect, and retool it when the systems they oversee begin to lose legitimacy.¹
Fascism, historically and globally, has served a clear function: to preserve ruling-class dominance during periods of social instability by redirecting mass discontent away from structural critique and toward scapegoats.² Whether in interwar Europe or neoliberal America, it mobilizes fear to reinforce hierarchy, often using populist rhetoric to mask elite-serving agendas.³
The post-Reagan American far right, with its roots from the 1990s to the present, follows this same pattern—shifting tactics, language, and aesthetics to maintain a base of supporters willing to defend hierarchy, punish dissent, and attack any effort toward justice or redistribution.⁴ From militia movements in the wake of Waco and Ruby Ridge to Tea Party astroturf populism to Trump-era nationalism to tech-enabled neo-reactionaries—each iteration has provided ideological cover and mobilization capacity for elite interests threatened by growing demands for equity.⁵
These dynamics are not abstract; they play out in homes, chatrooms, and communities. As Elle Reeve documents in The Black Pill, radicalization is often deeply personal, but it is enabled by a social ecosystem that rewards cruelty, flattens complexity, and erodes empathy.⁶ Behind ironic memes and culture war jokes is a sustained, emotionally manipulative effort to recruit people into movements that serve state and corporate power by punching down.⁷
I. 1990s–2000s
Militia Movements, Post–Cold War Fractures, and Anti-Government Rage
The end of the Cold War left a strategic and ideological vacuum in U.S. politics. With communism no longer available as a unifying adversary, the inherent contradictions of capitalism—rising wealth inequality, deindustrialization, and the erosion of public services—became increasingly visible. Instead of addressing these systemic issues, political elites intensified cultural conflicts to divert public frustration. Conservative think tanks and media outlets promoted narratives that scapegoated marginalized communities—immigrants, Black Americans, and LGBTQ+ people—while championing deregulation and tough-on-crime policies.
Events like Ruby Ridge (1992), the Waco siege (1993), and the Oklahoma City bombing (1995) reflected a growing perception among many, particularly conservative white men, that the federal government had become tyrannical. For Black communities, this belief was long-held and grounded in lived experience. But among white conservatives—especially John Birch Society types—the paranoia emerged from a perceived loss of privilege. Due to this positional privilege, their critique of state power rarely extended to a systemic analysis of capitalism or empire. Instead, it often veered into conspiracy theories rooted in antisemitism and racial grievance.
These sentiments gave rise to a hyper-individualist libertarianism fused with white survivalist ideology. The burgeoning Internet provided new organizing tools for white nationalists, conspiracists, and militia groups—often under banners like “freedom,” “patriotism,” and “constitutionalism.” Yet, this movement was never truly about dismantling the state—it was about preserving and redirecting its power toward a particular racial, religious, and cultural order.
This era also saw the rise of extremist digital platforms such as Stormfront, launched in 1996 by former KKK leader Don Black, which offered a digital haven for white supremacist ideology. It marked a turning point where hate groups gained an unprecedented ability to coordinate, recruit, and spread propaganda on a global scale.
Fractures Within Conservatism
The 1990s also ushered in prominent paleoconservative figures like Pat Buchanan, whose platform emphasized nationalism, traditionalism, and non-interventionism—often in opposition to the globalist, neoliberal agenda of neoconservatives. This internal right-wing conflict revealed a broader tension between isolationist populism and aggressive U.S. militarism.
Simultaneously, conservative media became a powerful force in reshaping American political discourse. Rush Limbaugh, through his bombastic and often inflammatory radio broadcasts, channeled right-wing grievances into a sustained assault on liberal institutions, feminism, multiculturalism, and civil rights. His rhetoric fused entertainment with outrage, making political polarization profitable and accessible to a mass audience.
Fox News, launched in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, institutionalized this model on television. Billing itself as “fair and balanced,” Fox positioned itself as a corrective to mainstream journalism but functioned primarily as a propaganda machine for right-wing populism and neoconservativism. It offered a continuous stream of fear-based messaging, moral panic, and demonization of perceived liberal elites—further radicalizing its viewers and reinforcing narratives of Christian persecution, racial resentment, and cultural decline.
Together, Limbaugh and Fox News created a media ecosystem that served as both a feedback loop and incubator for reactionary politics, normalizing conspiratorial thinking and cultivating deep public distrust in democratic institutions.
The advent of the Internet only deepened these fractures, with conspiracy theories flourishing in online echo chambers. Figures such as William Cooper and Alex Jones emerged as influential voices, promoting apocalyptic paranoia and government distrust.
Post-9/11: Redirected State Power
The attacks of September 11, 2001 reshaped the landscape. Where communism had once served as the defining national enemy, new specters—terrorism, "Islamification", and immigration—took its place. These fears bolstered xenophobia and intensified Christian nationalism. Anti-Muslim bigotry surged alongside broader anti-immigrant sentiment, reinforced by expanded state surveillance, detention policies, and media-driven moral panic.
This era also saw elements of the libertarian right oppose the Bush administration's neoconservative militarism. Figures like Ron Paul adopted anti-war and anti-surveillance stances but often framed their critiques through conspiratorial, anti-federalist rhetoric that echoed militia narratives from the 1990s.
Conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones thrived in the post-9/11 media environment, promoting claims of government false flag operations and "deep state" machinations. These narratives deepened public distrust and laid critical groundwork for the radicalization that would intensify in the following decade.
By the late 2000s, this atmosphere gave rise to the Tea Party movement—a convergence of libertarian, populist, and reactionary forces galvanized by economic anxiety, racial resentment, and opposition to the Obama presidency. While nominally focused on government spending and taxation, the Tea Party often served as a vehicle for birtherism, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and thinly veiled white identity politics. Media outlets like Fox News and figures like Glenn Beck amplified its message, giving it a national platform.
One of the movement's most visible avatars was Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee. Palin's folksy populism, attacks on "coastal elites," and embrace of culture war talking points helped normalize extremist rhetoric within mainstream Republican politics. Her popularity with Tea Party voters demonstrated how conspiratorial thinking, religious nationalism, and anti-intellectualism were becoming pillars of the emerging American right.
Key Figures of the Era (1990s–2000s Significance)
William Pierce – Author of The Turner Diaries, Pierce’s National Alliance was a central organizing force for white nationalism in the 1990s.
David Duke – Former KKK Grand Wizard who rebranded white nationalism for post-civil rights America through electoral campaigns and media appearances.
William Cooper – Author of Behold a Pale Horse, William Cooper’s writings were a cornerstone of far-right libertarian and militia radicalization.
Roger Ailes – Founding CEO of Fox News, whose propaganda media model that shaped American conservatism into a grievance-based movement.
Rupert Murdoch – Owner of Fox News, whose media empire gave the far-right a platform to reach millions through fear, nationalism, and deregulation rhetoric.
Pat Buchanan – Paleoconservative leader who championed anti-immigrant, anti-globalist, anti-LGBTQ+ and other culture war narratives.
Alex Jones – Conspiracy theorist and media personality whose Infowars platform mainstreamed deep-state paranoia, anti-globalist rhetoric, and violent populism.
Ron Paul – Libertarian Congressman who influenced the Tea Party movement via conspiracy rhetoric around the Federal Reserve, gold standard, and anti-tax.
Bo Gritz – Vietnam veteran and militia figure viewed as a heroic symbol in anti-government extremist circles, with direct ties to the Ruby Ridge standoff.
Don Black – KKK Grand Wizard and founder of Stormfront, the first major white nationalist website for neo-Nazis, Klan members, and the broader far-right.
Rush Limbaugh – Right-wing radio host who normalized far-right talking points and outrage driven conspiracism in mainstream conservative media.
Glenn Beck – Fox News host who pushed apocalyptic and conspiratorial narratives.
Lou Dobbs – Cable news host known for promoting anti-immigrant, nationalist, and economic protectionist rhetoric.
Michael Savage – Far-right radio personality who promoted anti-Muslim, nativist, and violently anti-liberal commentary.
Steve Emerson – Investigative journalist who spread anti-Muslim conspiracy theories in policy and popular media through think tanks and news appearances.
Sarah Palin – 2008 Republican VP nominee and Tea Party icon who brought white grievance, anti-intellectualism, and culture war politics into the mainstream.
Michelle Malkin – Conservative commentator who promoted anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and internment-defending rhetoric.
Sharron Angle – Tea Party politician whose calls for “Second Amendment remedies” about conspiracy theories about Muslims.
Key Narratives
“Deep State” betrayal of the American people
“Globalist” conspiracies (often coded antisemitism)
Gun rights as sacred resistance to tyranny
Christian persecution and narratives of moral decline
Anti-Black and anti-immigrant backlash masked as “constitutional liberty”
II. 2010–2017
The Alt-Right
The aftermath of the Great Recession, the prolonged failures of the War on Terror, and the ongoing erosion of public trust in institutions created fertile ground for a new wave of far-right reaction. This movement coalesced in online spaces, initiating a contemporary rebranding of white nationalist activism cloaked in irony, meme culture, and pseudo-intellectualism. This movement became known as the Alt-Right. This also includes the supposed Alt-lite, who sought to distance itself from overt antisemitism of the Alt-Right, but this distinction makes little difference in practice, as they are all white nationalist activists.
The Alt-Right emerged in the digital ecosystem of forums, podcasts, video channels, and blogs. Its adherents weaponized internet culture—memes, irony, and anonymity—to radicalize disaffected young people, particularly men, under the guise of humor and so-called "free speech absolutism." What developed was a decentralized, leaderless movement fueled by outrage and nihilism, thriving on virality and exploiting algorithm-driven platforms to amplify its reach and influence.
A key flashpoint was Gamergate (2014), a misogynistic online harassment campaign masquerading as a call for ethics in video game journalism. It became a recruitment tool for the far right, promoting a reactionary narrative of male victimhood, anti-feminism, and resentment toward perceived liberal overreach. From this environment, figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and Andrew Anglin emerged as culture war provocateurs, using internet trolling to normalize white supremacist rhetoric under the banner of "free speech." In reality, their ideologies are fundamentally opposed to free expression, seeking to silence dissent and suppress marginalized voices in order to enforce cultural and political hegemony. Fascists have historically used free speech laws to embed into spaces, but when in power, take those rights away.
Pepe, Kekistan, and the Memes
Alt-Right communities weaponized internet memes and absurdist humor to smuggle extremist ideology into mainstream discourse. Symbols like Pepe the Frog, originally a benign cartoon, were repurposed with Nazi iconography, lynchings, and Holocaust references—camouflaged by layers of irony and plausible deniability. Kekistan, a fictional country with a parody Nazi flag and frog-god mythology, allowed far-right actors to mock identity politics while embedding white nationalist ideology in satire. These symbols aided in creating in-group cohesion and detachment from reality, cloaking hate under the guise of humor.
A wider symbolic lexicon, including the "OK" hand gesture, triple parentheses (((echoes))), and slang like "red pill," "NPC," and "cuck", functioned as coded language for recruitment, plausible deniability, and the gamification of harassment. This culture blurred the line between irony and ideology, leading to real-world violence. The Southern Poverty Law Center identified these trends as central to modern white nationalism.
Donald Trump 2016
On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. His speech began with a now-infamous statement:
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best... They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Trump launched a campaign rooted in racial grievance, anti-immigrant fearmongering, and xenophobic caricatures. His announcement marked a reawakening of overt white nationalism within mainstream electoral politics. Throughout his campaign and presidency, these themes remained central. His slogan, "Make America Great Again," invoked a mythologized past shaped by white hegemony and ethnonationalist identity. He amplified conspiracy theories like birtherism, equated immigration with criminality, and called for a ban on Muslims entering the country.
The very next day, on June 17, 2015, a white supremacist entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. During a Bible study session, he murdered nine African Americans—parishioners and community leaders—and injured a tenth. The victims were:
Clementa C. Pinckney, 41 – Senior pastor and South Carolina state senator
Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, 54 – Librarian and lifelong church member
Susie Jackson, 87 – Choir member and church matriarch
Ethel Lee Lance, 70 – Church custodian
Depayne Middleton-Doctor, 49 – Minister and school administrator
Tywanza Sanders, 26 – Recent college graduate and aspiring entrepreneur
Daniel Simmons, 74 – Retired pastor
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45 – Minister and high school speech coach
Myra Thompson, 59 – Bible study teacher and church leader
The massacre was premeditated and ideologically driven. The shooter later confessed he hoped to ignite a race war in the United States. His motivations were shaped by extremist websites like the Council of Conservative Citizens, whose spokesperson, Jared Taylor, is a key figure in the Alt-Right movement. These influences informed his explicitly neo-Nazi worldview, which cast racial integration as the downfall of Western civilization and fantasized about restoring a white ethnostate.
The Council of Conservative Citizens removed its website following public backlash. Still, it released a chilling statement claiming the shooter had some "legitimate grievances" against Black people, asserting that the site merely "accurately and honestly reports black-on-white violent crime." Harold Covington, founder of the neo-Nazi Northwest Front, condemned the shooting only tactically, ominously calling it "a preview of coming attractions."
That "preview" soon came into sharper focus. The same ideological currents that radicalized the Charleston shooter were converging around the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. Trump's campaign became a megaphone for the Alt-Right and Alt-Lite, which flooded online spaces with memes, disinformation, and coded hate speech. By appointing Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, which branded itself "the platform for the Alt-Right," Trump built a direct bridge between white nationalist media and the executive branch. Among the most notorious figures elevated by this ecosystem was Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who openly advocated for the "peaceful ethnic cleansing" of racial minorities in the United States, the re-enslavement of Haitians by white people, and voiced admiration for American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell. The Alt-Right reintroduced fascist ideology into mainstream political discourse under the guise of free speech and "identity politics" for white Americans.
During Trump's campaign and early presidency, far-right violence surged across the U.S.—from the Charleston church massacre to the Portland train stabbings, from mosque bombings to the rise of armed militias in public life. Extremists perceived the ideologies Trump evoked as green lights for action. Spencer himself regularly used Nazi rhetoric and gestures in public. After Trump's 2016 election victory, Spencer declared, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" prompting attendees to respond with Nazi salutes. In the following months, Spencer quoted Nazi propaganda, denounced Jews, and encouraged his supporters to "party like it's 1933". At the height of his following, Spencer was routinely greeted with Nazi salutes as he entered public events.
Unite the Right
The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11–12, 2017, marked the culmination of this era of violent, white supremacist extremism. Organized by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, fascists, and Alt-Right leaders to protest against the removal of Confederate monuments. The night before the official event, torch-wielding men marched through the University of Virginia campus chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil”—slogans lifted directly from Nazi ideology. The rally was organized white nationalist Jason Kessler, who fought a legal battle to keep the demonstration at Lee Park. The city complied, despite safety concerns, and violence erupted almost immediately as heavily armed white supremacists clashed with counterprotesters. Police declared the rally an unlawful assembly before it had officially begun.
That morning, former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke declared, “We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump.” After the rally, Duke praised Trump’s response, tweeting, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.” Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer celebrated Trump’s refusal to explicitly condemn the white supremacists: “He didn’t attack us... No condemnation at all... Really, really good. God bless him.”
The rally ended in tragedy when a white supremacist attendee deliberately drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more. The driver was later convicted of first-degree murder and federal hate crimes, receiving multiple life sentences. Additional violence included the brutal beating of DeAndre Harris by white supremacists, captured on video. In the aftermath, President Trump refused to unequivocally denounce the white nationalists, infamously stating there were “very fine people on both sides.”
Leaked audio captured Richard Spencer shortly after the rally unleashing a hateful and unfiltered tirade. The leaked audio laid bare the violent, dehumanizing, genocidal worldview at the core of this movement:
”I am so mad. I am so fucking mad at these people. They don’t do this to fucking me. We’re going to fucking ritualistically humiliate them. I am coming back here every fucking weekend if I have to. Like this is never over. I win. They fucking lose. That’s how the world fucking works. Little fucking k*kes. They get ruled by people like me. Little fucking oct*r**ns. My ancestors fucking enslaved those little pieces of fucking shit. I rule the fucking world. Those pieces of shit get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them. That’s how the fucking world works. We are going to destroy this fucking town.”
Here’s your “very fine people”.
Key Figures of the Era
Richard Spencer – White nationalist credited with coining "Alt-Right"; promoted racial separatism and staged high-profile provocations.
Andrew Anglin – Founder of The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi propaganda site known for explicit antisemitism and online harassment
Matthew Heimbach – Co-founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party, advocated for a white ethnostate and pushed a fascist-Nazi hybrid ideology.
Mike Enoch – Founder of The Right Stuff and co-host of The Daily Shoah podcast, promoting overt antisemitism and white nationalism
Nicholas Fuentes – Far-right live streamer and Holocaust denier, spearheaded the "Groyper" movement targeting mainstream conservatives from the right
Augustus Sol Invictus – White nationalist and failed U.S. Senate candidate known for esoteric fascism, paganism, and violent rhetoric
Jason Kessler – Organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville; tied to neo-Nazi groups and street-level violence
Milo Yiannopoulos – Media provocateur who popularized anti-feminist and anti-trans rhetoric under the guise of free speech
Gavin McInnes – Founder of the Proud Boys, positioned himself as "Alt-Lite" while promoting misogyny, Islamophobia, and political violence.
Faith Goldy – Canadian commentator who endorsed white nationalist slogans and appeared on The Daily Stormerpodcast
Lauren Southern – YouTube influencer who pushed the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory and participated in anti-immigrant stunts
Paul Joseph Watson – Infowars contributor who trafficked in Islamophobia, white genocide narratives, and globalist conspiracy rhetoric
Jack Posobiec –"Far-right" influencer and Pizzagate promoter; spread disinformation and laundered white nationalist talking points
Steve Bannon – White House Chief Strategist and architect of Trump's far-right populist strategy; instrumental in mainstreaming Alt-Right ideologies
Stephen Miller – Senior Trump advisor and lead author of xenophobic immigration policies, including family separation
Donald Trump – U.S. President whose appointments, policies, and public statements openly aligned with Alt-Right ideology and empowered white nationalist movements
Key Events
Breitbart News and The Daily Stormer – Far-right media platforms that served as echo chambers for racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and conspiracism, amplifying white nationalist ideology and normalizing hate speech in digital spaces.
Gamergate (2014) – A coordinated online harassment campaign that radicalized internet communities, fueled misogynistic attacks under the guise of “ethics in journalism,” and created a gateway for far-right and white supremacist recruitment online.
Charleston church shooting (2015) – A white supremacist terrorist attack at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina, where nine African American parishioners were murdered during Bible study. The attack was ideologically motivated and intended to incite a race war. The shooter cited white nationalist propaganda from groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens.
Muslim Ban / Executive Order 13769 (2017) – Trump’s policy barring entry from several Muslim-majority countries. Widely condemned as discriminatory, it was seen as a policy victory for the Alt-Right and a signal of institutional Islamophobia.
Unite the Right rally (2017) – A violent white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, organized by neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and fascist groups. It culminated in the murder of anti-racist protester Heather Heyer, when one attendee drove a car into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.
This overview of the American far right continues in Part III: 2017–2021, Part IV: 2021–2024, and Part V: 2024–Present, to be published in a forthcoming post.
https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangle_Banner_(Wallace%2C_Dorian)
Footnotes
Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press, 2016); Jessie Daniels, Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); Zack Beauchamp, “How YouTube Radicalized the Right,” Vox, April 3, 2019.
These works explain how racial resentment, digital culture, and emotional identification—not just economic anxiety—have shaped far-right identity.Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage, 2005); Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (Routledge, 1993); Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism (Columbia University Press, 2019).
These scholars show that fascism functions to rescue elite power during periods of democratic erosion or economic collapse, especially under neoliberal conditions.Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (Monthly Review Press, 2000 [1950]); Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (International Publishers, 1971); Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (Oxford University Press, 1944).
These texts outline how fascism masks structural violence with nationalism, myth, and ideology, and how empire and racial capitalism laid its foundation.Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (Viking, 2017); Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Harvard University Press, 2018); Joe Lowndes, “The Right and the Labor Movement in the United States,” in Working for Democracy, ed. Paul Buhle and Alan Dawley (University of Illinois Press, 1992).
These works track how the U.S. far right has used economic policy, anti-unionism, and racial backlash to maintain elite control under the guise of “freedom.”Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Harvard University Press, 2018); Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Haymarket Books, 2016); Leon Trotsky, Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (1932).
Each of these authors shows that repression is not incidental to capitalism—it becomes central during moments of social rupture. Fascism is one form that repression takes.Elle Reeve, The Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2024).
Reeve’s investigation into online far-right spaces shows how deeply coordinated propaganda systems restructure personal grievances.Joan Donovan and Emily Dreyfuss, Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America (Bloomsbury, 2022).
This work demonstrates how irony, disinformation, and digital storytelling are deployed to dehumanize, deflect criticism, and normalize radical ideologies.