The Ideological Foundations of the Alt-Right: from Paleoconservatism to Fascistisation

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the intellectual roots of the Alt-Right, the most important radical right movement in the United States in the last decades. In order to do so it employs a genealogical approach that focuses on the role of a series of intellectuals by stretching back to the birth of paleoconservatism, which was a reaction against the marginalization of the most radical elements of American conservatism in the fifties. These movements found in the presidency of Barack Obama an ideal moment for engaging in an ideological rearming that would lead to the emergence of an overtly neo-fascist youth movement that saw in Donald Trump’s electoral success a window of opportunity for exerting its metapolitical power.