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Analysis of 30,000 Twitter accounts provides a map of online extremists--support for Trump binds them
Trump Is the Glue That Binds the Far RightAn analysis of 30,000 Twitter accounts provides a map of online extremists—and reveals that support for Trump is what holds them together.
OCT 29, 2018
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/trump-alt-right-twitter/574219/
. . .
To fully understand the alt-right, it’s important to move past these competing patterns of belief and look at structural elements that cross ideological lines. This is where the alt-right finds its best opportunities for cohesion. Commonalities shared by a majority of the alt-right’s component movements included:
Opposition to immigration or Muslims: Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate was endemic in the network, frequently paired with articles from anti-immigrant news sources, which ranked among the most tweeted and retweeted content. Aside from its cynical use as a rhetorical dodge against charges of racism, anti-immigrant rhetoric helped unite white nationalists with other nationalists who are not overtly concerned with race, including people of color who advanced anti-immigrant views and themes. Anti-Muslim bigotry was not always paired with anti-immigrant themes, but the two traveled together often enough to justify collapsing them into one category.
Conspiracy theories: Accounts for prominent conspiracy websites and their associated personalities ranked among the top influencers. QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory, was the third-most-tweeted hashtag in the data set, although this ranking was exaggerated by coordinated tweeting activity by that theory’s adherents. An alternative-news ecosystem was shared by people with sometimes very divergent views.
Support for Trump: This, more than anything else, was the glue that held the alt-right social network together. Support for Trump was shared by virtually all parts of the network and was reflected in nearly every metric, including tabulations of the most followed, most retweeted, and most influential accounts; the most used words in Twitter profiles; and in the top two hashtags (#maga, which outperformed all other hashtags by a wide margin, and #trump).
The alt-right bloc synchronizes activity that starts on the far-right edge of mainstream conservatism and continues through the far reaches of genocidal white supremacy. There are common goals threaded through its various factions, including undermining the purveyors of real information about the world with a barrage of conspiratorial alternatives, eroding support for immigration within multiple demographic groups, and, most visibly, providing political support to Trump.
This provides the movement with an impact and a reach well in excess of what traditional white supremacy can now accomplish, even as it empowers the implementation of nationalist political policies. . . .
To fully understand the alt-right, it’s important to move past these competing patterns of belief and look at structural elements that cross ideological lines. This is where the alt-right finds its best opportunities for cohesion. Commonalities shared by a majority of the alt-right’s component movements included:
Opposition to immigration or Muslims: Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate was endemic in the network, frequently paired with articles from anti-immigrant news sources, which ranked among the most tweeted and retweeted content. Aside from its cynical use as a rhetorical dodge against charges of racism, anti-immigrant rhetoric helped unite white nationalists with other nationalists who are not overtly concerned with race, including people of color who advanced anti-immigrant views and themes. Anti-Muslim bigotry was not always paired with anti-immigrant themes, but the two traveled together often enough to justify collapsing them into one category.
Conspiracy theories: Accounts for prominent conspiracy websites and their associated personalities ranked among the top influencers. QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory, was the third-most-tweeted hashtag in the data set, although this ranking was exaggerated by coordinated tweeting activity by that theory’s adherents. An alternative-news ecosystem was shared by people with sometimes very divergent views.
Support for Trump: This, more than anything else, was the glue that held the alt-right social network together. Support for Trump was shared by virtually all parts of the network and was reflected in nearly every metric, including tabulations of the most followed, most retweeted, and most influential accounts; the most used words in Twitter profiles; and in the top two hashtags (#maga, which outperformed all other hashtags by a wide margin, and #trump).
The alt-right bloc synchronizes activity that starts on the far-right edge of mainstream conservatism and continues through the far reaches of genocidal white supremacy. There are common goals threaded through its various factions, including undermining the purveyors of real information about the world with a barrage of conspiratorial alternatives, eroding support for immigration within multiple demographic groups, and, most visibly, providing political support to Trump.
This provides the movement with an impact and a reach well in excess of what traditional white supremacy can now accomplish, even as it empowers the implementation of nationalist political policies. . . .
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