Your Handy Field Guide to the Many Factions of the Far Right, From the Proud Boys to Identity Evropa

The most controversial part of the political far-right in this country has more pseudonyms than Lord Voldemort. Some days the movement—built in large part on racism and xenophobia—is white nationalism; others it's white supremacy or just plain old far-right extremism. The Pepe the Frog-obsessed wing goes by either the "alt-right" or the "so-called alt-right" (or the "alt-lite"), and people get worked up over which phrasing you use. Some media outlets have given up trying to put a name to its members at all, and rely on faux-job titles like "commentator," "firebrand," or "provocateur" to put these extremists into context.

But, to crib from JK Rowling again, the mysteriousness of these groups just makes them seem more threatening. So in order to cut through the memes and get to the meaning, we put together a field guide to the various species of the far right, as well as the genus they belong to. (Don't worry, we'll have one for their far-left counterparts tomorrow.) Now you can finally tell your Proud Boy from your Traditionalist Worker.

Genus Identitarian

In any crowd of far-right agitators, there's probably a few who call themselves National Socialists or Klansmen—especially since David Duke has become a Twitter maven. But more prominent online and at the "Free Speech" rallies rippling across the United States are newer "identitarian" groups led by younger men. Identitarians claim allegiance to an ideology that originated in France and calls for an end to multiculturalism, as well as unity among people (and nation-states) of the same ethnic backgrounds. In practice, that looks a lot like racism and xenophobia, but hey, semantics.

Identity Evropa
Nathan Damigo, Identity Evropa's founder, calls himself an identitarian, but his organization also has clear roots in the Ku Klux Klan: Damigo read a bunch of David Duke while serving time for armed robbery, and came out the other side a fascist. If his name sounds familiar, it's likely because his profile grew after sucker punching an antifascist protester in Berkeley. The group is only a year old, and its standard M.O. seems to be posting fliers emblazoned with white pride slogans and images of classical sculpture on college campuses. (If your social media profile image happens to Michelangelo's David, you may want to switch that up; classical European art iconography is increasingly common on white nationalists' accounts.)

__Traditionalist Workers' Party (TWP) __
TWP is an extra-Christian identitarian political party—or at least it's trying to be. Its founder, Matthew Heimbach, kicked things off in 2015 by up a few candidates up for local election. Outside the political arena, they're a bit more effective: One of their rallies in Sacramento last year ended with seven stabbings after fights broke out between TWP members and far-left antifa activists. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Heimbach a "rising star in the white supremacist world."

Richard Spencer's Alt-Right
"Alternative right" as coined by undercut poster child Richard Spencer is really a catch-all term: it's anybody who isn't a fan of mainstream conservatism, and believes that multiculturalism and political correctness are a global scourge attempting to destroy white culture and people. If someone tweets about #whitegenocide, Spencer would probably consider them part of his team. That includes both Damigo and Heimbach, both of whom took up tiki torches and helped Spencer protest the planned removal of a Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia last week. (That's Damigo in the blue sweater vest behind him.)

Genus Neoreaction

All the groups above are overtly white supremacists, a position they justify by calling themselves "realists" and citing junk science. This next set of people beat around the bush a bit more, and generally fall under the heading of neoreaction, or NRx for short. These guys didn't have to look as far as France for an ideological north star—neoreaction is generally credited to online pseudo-pundit Mencius Moldbug, a pen name of computer programmer Curtis Yarvin. Summed up simply, members of the NRx movement believe that democracy has failed, and the only way forward is to return to a more autocratic style of government. And while that might sound like they're just some misguided monarchists, the particular shade of autocracy they're going for is a white male autocracy. It's just white supremacy under a slightly thicker coat of paint than identitarianism. Many people who might otherwise call themselves alt-right—especially the STEM-minded ones in and around the tech industry—consider themselves part of the NRx movement.

The Alt-Light
For the most part, the alt-light (who sometimes call themselves the New Right) are just prominent alt-right figures who resent the racist implications of being labeled as such: Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson, for example. But down at the level of rank and file, most of the Pepe-slinging trolls are probably more alt-light than -right. For them it's as much about being provocative and edgy and pissing people off than any actual ethnonationalist ideology. The number of actual white supremacists who are active on the internet tends to get skewed by Poe's Law: on the internet, it's almost impossible to tell who is sincere in their extremist beliefs and who's in it for the lulz.

The Proud Boys
The Proud Boys, who claim to espouse "Western chauvinism," are a fratty, white power-y redux of the Men's Rights movement—except they say it's not about race, and that honoring a traditional patriarchal domestic structure isn't sexist. Less central to their beliefs but mostly just hilarious, their name comes from an *Aladdin *song called "Proud of Your Boy." They also happen to be led by mustachioed Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes. And if the rumors are true, theirinitiation proceedings include getting a tattoo and abstaining from masturbation, getting jumped in in a ritual that looks a lot like a pile of puppies, and beating up an antifascist.