MARTHA MACCALLUM: Donald Trump's rise in the political arena propelling the term “alt-right” into the national spotlight. The alt-right movement, a small off-shoot of the GOP, known for its rejection of multiculturalism and distrust of immigration and immigrants. While most Republican leaders have distanced themselves, some of Trump's actions have empowered members of the movement. While Hillary Clinton, expected to attack Trump in a speech over his quote, “disturbing alt-right political philosophy.” Doug McKelway unravels all of this for us in Washington. So what is exactly is the alt-right? Is it described accurately there or not?
DOUG MCKELWAY: Well, you know, it depends on who you ask, Martha. The mainstream media is fond of portraying the alt-right as a mob of unruly, racist, bigoted, sexist, uneducated white males who have been unleashed and feel empowered by Donald Trump's rejection of political correctness. This is the behavior you often see portrayed in videos published by mainstream media showing violence and bigoted behavior outside of Trump rallies perpetrated by Trump supporters. Mainstream media outlets are much less inclined to feature videos that portray violence directed at Trump supporters. But even many conservatives reject the alt-right, such as former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, who resigned from that publication in part because of his former employer's alliance with the alt-right.
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BEN SHAPIRO: The alt-right issort of a nationalist, populist movement that is shot through with white supremacism and -- and anti-Semitism, and you can see it in the Breitbart comment sections.
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MCKELWAY: But the alt-right is much more than that, another branch of it reflected in the activism of people like Milo Yiannopoulos, a flamboyant, openly gay conservative activist who writes for Breitbart and who goes about college speaking tours, ruthlessly savaging the left's obsession with micro-aggressions and safe spaces -- things of that sort. He gets under their skin, Martha.
MACCALLUM: He sure does. So how do they come up with these tactics? What's the background here, Doug?
MCKELWAY: Well, the alt-right is using the same tactics that the left has used for generations now, basically fighting fire with fire. That is a big part of it, it's demonstrated in something that Mike Rowe -- you might know him, the popular host of the Dirty Jobs show -- something that he posted on Facebook recently. “It's okay to poke fun as Trump supporters as uneducated white men,” he says, but Rowe asks rhetorically -- and I'm quoting here -- “If the media didn't care about the lack of college among black men supporting Obama, why do they care so much about the lack of college among white men supporting Trump? Moreover when exactly did a lack of college education become synonymous with a lack of education?” Rowe notes that tradesmen, mechanics, welders, carpenters make up a part of the Trump base, and they are hardly without education. They are highly skilled.
