There Is No 'Alt-Left,' No Matter What Trump Says

Hours after a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, organized by white nationalists, turned deadly, President Donald Trump blamed "many sides" for the violence that transpired. Three days later, at an impromptu press conference at Trump Tower, the president doubled down on this message, condemning groups "on both sides" of the fighting. “What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right?” the president said.

Many people know the phrase alt-right, a term coined by white nationalist Richard Spencer to describe the white nationalist movement. But "alt-left" is a term that's recently floated around in various corners of the internet. It gained some popularity earlier this year, when violent riots erupted in Berkeley, California, during protests over an appearance by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley.

White nationalist David Duke defined the term after President Trump referenced it Tuesday.

Fox News' Sean Hannity and InfoWars' Paul Joseph Watson have also offered their own definitions.

Ultimately, the intent seems to be to frame alt-left as the opposite of alt-right and create a false equivalence between groups on the far ends of the right and left. But here's the thing: No left-wing group has ever called itself the alt-left. And the groups smeared by the alt-left label don't include anything like the heinousness of overt white supremacism that has increasingly defined the alt-right.

It's a blanket term some right-wing media commentators and white nationalists have taken to throwing over groups they disagree with, like the umbrella of "fake news" they use to describe stories they disagree with. Doing so manages to both minimize the ugliness of the alt-right and vastly overstate the actions and intentions of leftist groups.

So how did "alt-left" make it to the president's vernacular? It's unclear, but, as the public has seen, the president is known to borrow language he hears in media reports.

Regardless, the president's reference to the alt-left pleased some people, and certain alt-right activists further seeded the term across Twitter.

But there's really only one thing that happens when a prominent politician uses a word or phrase hitherto native to the web: Each side tries to reclaim it with memes. Remember when Hillary Clinton defined the alt-right in a campaign speech? Twitter had some definitions of its own—and the same thing is happening here.

Plus, because actual fascists attended the Charlottesville rally, left-wing Twitter spun up plenty of Nazi-themed attacks.

Will any of that deter far-right commentators' use of the phrase? Probably not. But whether they heard it or not, the internet's ultimate message was clear. Take it away, Regina.

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