Crypto Analyst Predicts Epic Rally for Litecoin, Updates Outlook on Ethereum, Chainlink and Two Additional ...  The Daily Hodl
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Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum: Top 10 crypto that gave highest returns in the past one year – BGR India
The Skeptics Guide to the Future: What Yesterdays Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow – Next Big Idea Club Magazine
The Skeptics Guide to the Future: What Yesterdays Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow  Next Big Idea Club Magazine
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Incredible Creatures that Use Photosynthesis For Energy – Futurism
You have probably heard about a trend called breatharianism, a 'diet' claiming that humans can sustain themselves without food and water, surviving on only light and air. This is a potentially lethal practice and several practitioners have, quite obviously, died because of it. Animals and humans are heterotrophic organisms, unable to produce their own food, thus they depend on organic sources to provide it.
Plants, on the other hand, are autotrophic organismsthat are able to produce food out of inorganic matter. With photosynthesis, they convert water, minerals and sunlight into glucose and oxygen. Plants use glucose as their source of energy needed for growth and life. Their role in the life cycle is important, because they serve as a source of food and oxygen for other living organisms.
But nature never fails to surprise us, sometimes ''the laws'' can be broken. Scientists have found some animals that can, just like plants, survive on photosynthesis:
Sea Slug(Elysia chlorotica) is an extraordinarily beautiful slug living in the waters of the east coast of the United States and Canada. It's distinctive feature is green colored, leaf-shaped body. The slug eats algae (Vaucheria litorea), but it's not it's only source of energy!
It seems like this slug stole photosynthetic organelles (chloroplasts) and some genes from the algae, which enables them to live without eating! They can spend their days laying out in the sun and, just like plants and green algae, get their energy through photosynthesis. The symbiosis that enables algae's chloroplasts to work for slug is called kleptoplasty.
Pea Aphid (Acyrthospihon pisum) is an insect living worldwide that feeds on plants (legumes). Even though they may look like any other insect, unpleasant or even terrifying to some, they truly are amazing.
Pea Aphids are capable of producing carotenoids, pigments found in chloroplasts (photosynthetic organelles) and chromoplasts, giving them orange-reddish colour and helping chlorophyll with photosynthesis. In aphids, carotenoids are responsible for their colour, some of them don't have it and are white. It also seems like carotenoids serve not only as a beauty compound, but they can also be usedto convert sunlight into energy. However, these correlations are not yet clear and well researched.
Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum), just like the sea slug, it lives in symbiotic relationship with algae. They were found in embryos of the animal. The salamander's embryos are found in clear colored eggs, laid by the females on the underwater plants, close to the surface, so that the light can reach them.
It seems like green algae help embryos get much-needed energy for growth and development from sunlight, whileproviding anextra source of energy(this, in turn,increases theirchances ofsurvival). Spotted Salamanders are the highest developed animal species and the only ones among all vertebrae, that can directly benefit from photosynthesis. Usually, the immune system of highly developed organisms will prevent such symbiotic behavior.
These special animals just show how complex the living world is, and that the line between plants and animals may not be so well-defined. It makes us wonder where evolution will take us in the next few billions of years (if we last that long) Maybe one day, even humans could benefit from photosynthesis. Just imagine the possibilities that this kind of life opens.
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Incredible Creatures that Use Photosynthesis For Energy - Futurism
Electric Bus concept with individual-wheel drive and x-by-wire system makes it the ultimate city beast – Yanko Design
Examples of Victimless Crimes | LawInfo
Last updated May 12, 2021
Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? Yes. Criminal justice laws are created by the government to restrict unwanted behavior and actions. Many of these criminal laws are meant to protect others, such as laws against assault or abuse. However, a number of laws criminalize consensual behavior or actions where there are no victims. This may include laws against recreational drug use or prostitution.
Unfortunately, the courts and judges do not always take into account whether a crime is victimless when enforcing laws. However, your criminal defense attorney may be able to negotiate a reduced sentence or lesser penalties by showing the court that there was no identifiable victim. Talk to an experienced criminal defense lawyer for legal advice in your case.
A victimless crime is generally an illegal criminal act that does not have an identifiable victim. This generally includes actions that only involve the perpetrator or something voluntary between consenting adults. Victimless crimes are also known as crimes against the state that do not harm society.
The police may claim that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, but is that really true? There are laws in other countries that prohibit criticism of the government, which criminalizes free speech. Other countries criminalize consensual behavior like same-sex relationships or drinking alcohol. Many of the laws that criminalize harmless behavior are based on opinions about morality.
There is no set definition of a victimless crime, and each person may have a different opinion about whether a criminal offense is actually victimless. Some of the common examples of actions that may be called victimless crimes include:
There is often a fine line between what is considered a crime or not. For example, going to Las Vegas and playing poker for money is legal. However, playing a poker game for money in another state may be illegal gambling. Smoking recreational marijuana is legal in states like California andOregon, but doing the same thing in Alabama could get you thrown in jail. State criminal laws and regional attitudes can make a big difference in whether victimless activities are against the law or permissible.
Prostitution is legal in many countries. It's even legal in parts of Nevada. However, in the rest of the U.S.,solicitationof sexual acts in exchange for money is against the law. Criminalizing sex work does not eliminate the act but drives it underground. When treated as a crime, sex workers may be less willing to come forward to report more serious offenses, like violence or sexual assault.
There are many terminal diseases or debilitating conditions that leave patients suffering needlessly. For many of these people, suicide may be the best way to die with dignity. In states with assisted suicide laws, these people can make the decision to die on their own terms instead of continuing to suffer. However, in most states, suicide and assisted suicide is against the law. Prohibition of end-of-life care decisions can end up victimizing the person the laws are meant to protect.
The attitudes toward drug use are changing in the U.S. Not long ago, drugs like marijuana were illegal in all forms in all states. Now, a majority of states havemedical marijuanalaws, and a number of states are also legalizing marijuana for recreational use. More states are beginning to decriminalize drug possession, treating drug offenses as a substance abuse problem rather than a crime. Categorizing drugs as medically useful or harmful is not always based on science. However, in some states, the victimless crime of marijuana possession can still lead to a prison sentence.
Gambling is one of the most common criminal activities that people do not consider a crime. Betting on a March Madness bracket or Super Bowl pool at work may technically be against the law. A poker game between friends seems harmless, but it may violate state anti-gambling laws. However, state-sanctioned gambling may be totally legal, including the buying of lottery tickets. Many states have exceptions for charitable gaming or tribal casinos.
Homelessness is a major concern in many states. The simple response for many states is to criminalize the actions associated with homelessness instead of addressing the underlying issues. This includes laws against:
Homelessness may be the result of substance abuse, mental health conditions, domestic violence, or even an unexpected medical emergency. Criminalizing homelessness is a temporary measure that does not do anything to help those in need.
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Heres why you should look up at the stars with San Antonios astronomy clubs – San Antonio Report
Gene therapy | Description, Uses, Examples, & Safety Issues
Summary
gene therapy, also called gene transfer therapy, introduction of a normal gene into an individuals genome in order to repair a mutation that causes a genetic disease. When a normal gene is inserted into the nucleus of a mutant cell, the gene most likely will integrate into a chromosomal site different from the defective allele; although that may repair the mutation, a new mutation may result if the normal gene integrates into another functional gene. If the normal gene replaces the mutant allele, there is a chance that the transformed cells will proliferate and produce enough normal gene product for the entire body to be restored to the undiseased phenotype.
Human gene therapy has been attempted on somatic (body) cells for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, adenosine deaminase deficiency, familial hypercholesterolemia, cancer, and severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) syndrome. Somatic cells cured by gene therapy may reverse the symptoms of disease in the treated individual, but the modification is not passed on to the next generation. Germline gene therapy aims to place corrected cells inside the germ line (e.g., cells of the ovary or testis). If that is achieved, those cells will undergo meiosis and provide a normal gametic contribution to the next generation. Germline gene therapy has been achieved experimentally in animals but not in humans.
Scientists have also explored the possibility of combining gene therapy with stem cell therapy. In a preliminary test of that approach, scientists collected skin cells from a patient with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (an inherited disorder associated with certain types of lung and liver disease), reprogrammed the cells into stem cells, corrected the causative gene mutation, and then stimulated the cells to mature into liver cells. The reprogrammed, genetically corrected cells functioned normally.
Prerequisites for gene therapy include finding the best delivery system (often a virus, typically referred to as a viral vector) for the gene, demonstrating that the transferred gene can express itself in the host cell, and establishing that the procedure is safe. Few clinical trials of gene therapy in humans have satisfied all those conditions, often because the delivery system fails to reach cells or the genes are not expressed by cells. Improved gene therapy systems are being developed by using nanotechnology. A promising application of that research involves packaging genes into nanoparticles that are targeted to cancer cells, thereby killing cancer cells specifically and leaving healthy cells unharmed.
Some aspects of gene therapy, including genetic manipulation and selection, research on embryonic tissue, and experimentation on human subjects, have aroused ethical controversy and safety concerns. Some objections to gene therapy are based on the view that humans should not play God and interfere in the natural order. On the other hand, others have argued that genetic engineering may be justified where it is consistent with the purposes of God as creator. Some critics are particularly concerned about the safety of germline gene therapy, because any harm caused by such treatment could be passed to successive generations. Benefits, however, would also be passed on indefinitely. There also has been concern that the use of somatic gene therapy may affect germ cells.
Although the successful use of somatic gene therapy has been reported, clinical trials have revealed risks. In 1999 American teenager Jesse Gelsinger died after having taken part in a gene therapy trial. In 2000 researchers in France announced that they had successfully used gene therapy to treat infants who suffered from X-linked SCID (XSCID; an inherited disorder that affects males). The researchers treated 11 patients, two of whom later developed a leukemia-like illness. Those outcomes highlight the difficulties foreseen in the use of viral vectors in somatic gene therapy. Although the viruses that are used as vectors are disabled so that they cannot replicate, patients may suffer an immune response.
Another concern associated with gene therapy is that it represents a form of eugenics, which aims to improve future generations through the selection of desired traits. While some have argued that gene therapy is eugenic, others claim that it is a treatment that can be adopted to avoid disability. To others, such a view of gene therapy legitimates the so-called medical model of disability (in which disability is seen as an individual problem to be fixed with medicine) and raises peoples hopes for new treatments that may never materialize.
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Gene therapy: The Potential for Treating Type 1 Diabetes – Healthline
Many people whove recently received a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) immediately think, When will there be a cure?
While the potential for a cure has been dangling in front of people with T1D for what seems like forever, more researchers currently believe that gene therapy could finally one day soon, even be the so-called cure thats been so elusive.
This article will explain what gene therapy is, how its similar to gene editing, and how gene therapy could potentially be the cure for T1D, helping millions of people around the world.
Gene therapy is a medical field of study that focuses on the genetic modification of human cells to treat or sometimes even cure a particular disease. This happens by reconstructing or repairing defective or damaged genetic material in your body.
This advanced technology is only in the early research phases of clinical trials for treating diabetes in the United States. Yet, it has the potential to treat and cure a wide range of other conditions beyond just T1D, including AIDS, cancer, cystic fibrosis (a disorder that damages your lungs, digestive tract, and other organs), heart disease, and hemophilia (a disorder in which your blood has trouble clotting).
For T1D, gene therapy could look like the reprogramming of alternative cells, making those reprogrammed cells perform the functions your original insulin-producing beta cells would otherwise perform. If you have with diabetes, that includes producing insulin.
But the reprogrammed cells would be different enough from beta cells so that your own immune system wouldnt recognize them as new cells and attack them, which is what happens in the development of T1D.
While gene therapy is still in its infancy and available only in clinical trials, the evidence so far is becoming clearer about the potential benefits of this treatment.
In a 2018 study, researchers engineered alpha cells to function just like beta cells. They created an adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector to deliver two proteins, pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1 and MAF basic leucine zipper transcription factor A, to a mouses pancreas. These two proteins help with beta cell proliferation, maturation, and function.
Alpha cells are the ideal type of cell to transform into beta-like cells because not only are they also located within the pancreas, but theyre abundant in your body and similar enough to beta cells that the transformation is possible. Beta cells produce insulin to lower your blood sugar levels while alpha cells produce glucagon, which increases your blood sugar levels.
In the study, mouse blood sugar levels were normal for 4 months with gene therapy, all without immunosuppressant drugs, which inhibit or prevent the activity of your immune system. The newly created alpha cells, performing just like beta cells, were resistant to the bodys immune attacks.
But the normal glucose levels observed in the mice werent permanent. This could potentially translate into several years of normal glucose levels in humans rather than a longtime cure.
In this Wisconsin study from 2013 (updated as of 2017), researchers found that when a small sequence of DNA was injected into the veins of rats with diabetes, it created insulin-producing cells that normalized blood glucose levels for up to 6 weeks. That was all from a single injection.
This is a landmark clinical trial, as it was the first research study to validate a DNA-based insulin gene therapy that could potentially one day treat T1D in humans.
This was how the study worked:
The researchers are now working on increasing the time interval between therapy DNA injections from 6 weeks to 6 months to provide more relief for people with T1D in the future.
While this is all very exciting, more research is needed to determine how practical the therapy is for people. Eventually, the hope is that the AAV vectors could eventually be delivered to the pancreas through a nonsurgical, endoscopic procedure, in which a doctor uses a medical device with a light attached to look inside your body.
These kinds of gene therapy wouldnt be a one-and-done cure. But it would provide a lot of relief to people with diabetes to perhaps enjoy several years of nondiabetes glucose numbers without taking insulin.
If subsequent trials in other nonhuman primates are successful, human trials may soon begin for the T1D treatment.
Does that count as a cure?
It all depends on who you ask because the definition of a cure for T1D varies.
Some people believe that a cure is a one-and-done endeavor. They see a cure as meaning youd never have to think about taking insulin, checking blood sugars, or the highs and lows of diabetes ever again. This even means you wouldnt have to ever go back to a hospital for a gene therapy follow-up treatment.
Other people think that a once-in-a-few-years treatment of gene editing may be enough of a therapy plan to count as a cure.
Many others believe that you need to fix the underlying autoimmune response to truly be cured, and some people dont really care one way or another, as long as their blood sugars are normal, and the mental tax of diabetes is relieved.
One potential one-and-done therapy could be gene editing, which is slightly different from gene therapy.
The idea behind gene editing is to reprogram your bodys DNA, and if you have type 1 diabetes, the idea is to get at the underlying cause of the autoimmune attack that destroyed your beta cells and caused T1D to begin with.
Two well-known companies, CRISPR Therapeutics and regenerative med-tech company ViaCyte, have been collaborating for a few years to use gene editing to create islet cells, encapsulate them, and then implant them into your body. These protected, transplanted islet cells would be safe from an immune system attack, which would otherwise be the typical response if you have T1D.
The focus of gene editing is to simply cut out the bad parts of our DNA in order to avoid conditions such as diabetes altogether and to stop the continuous immune response (beta cell attack) that people who already have diabetes experience daily (without their conscious awareness).
The gene editing done by CRISPR in their partnership with ViaCyte is creating insulin-producing islet cells that can evade an autoimmune response. These technology and research are ever evolving and hold a lot of promise.
Additionally, a 2017 study shows that a T1Dcure may one day be possible by using gene-editing technology.
Both gene therapy and gene editing hold a lot of promise for people living with T1D who are hoping for an eventual future without needing to take insulin or immunosuppressant therapy.
Gene therapy research continues, looking at how certain cells in the body could be reprogrammed to start making insulin and not experience an immune system response, such as those who develop T1D.
While gene therapy and gene-editing therapy are still in their early stages (and much has been held up by the coronavirus disease 19 [COVID-19] pandemic), theres a lot of hope for a T1D cure in our near future.
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Gene therapy: The Potential for Treating Type 1 Diabetes - Healthline
History of Gene Therapy | Discovery and Evolution
References
1. Wirth T, Parker N, Yl-Hertuala. History of gene therapy. Gene. 2013;252(2):62-169.2. Food and Drug Administration. FDA continues strong support of innovation in development of gene therapy products. Press release. Accessed July 1, 2021. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-continues-strong-support-innovation-development-gene-therapy-products3. Science History Institute. James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin. Accessed July 1, 2021. https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/james-watson-francis-crick-maurice-wilkins-and-rosalind-franklin4. Nirenberg M. Historical review: Deciphering the genetic codea personal account. Trends Biochem Sci. 2004;29(1):46-54.5. Science History Institute. Herbert W Boyer and Stanley N Cohen. Accessed July 1, 2021. https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/herbert-w-boyer-and-stanley-n-cohen6. Sun M. Cline loses two NIH grants. Science. 1981;214(4525):1220.7. Blaese RM, Culver KW, Miller D, et al. T lymphocyte-directed gene therapy for ADA-SCID: initial trial results after 4 years. Science. 1995;270(5235):475-480.8. Kim YG, Cha J, Chandrasegaran S. Hybrid restriction enzymes: zinc finger fusions to Fok I cleavage domain. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996;93(3):1156-1160.9. Naldini L, Blomer U, Gallay P, et al. In vivo gene delivery and stable transduction of nondividing cells by a lentiviral vector. Science. 1996;272(5259):263-267.10. Sibbald B. Death but one unintended consequence of gene-therapy trial. CMAJ. 2001;164(11):1612.11. Hacein-Bey-Abina S, Garrigue A, Wang GP, et al. Insertional oncogenesis in 4 patients after retrovirus-mediated gene therapy of SCID-X1. J Clin Invest. 2018;118(9):3132-3142.12. Cavazzana-Calvo M, Fischer A. Gene therapy for severe combined immunodeficiency: are we there yet? J Clin Invest. 2007;117(6):1456-1465.13. Humeau L. From the bench to the clinic: story and lessons from VRX496, the first lentivector ever tested in a phase 1 clinical trial. Presented at: Beilstein Bozen Symposium; May 15-May 19, 2006; Bozen, Italy.14. Pearson S, Jia H, Kandachi K. China approves first gene therapy. Nat Biotechnol. 2004;22(1):3-4. 15. Daley J. Gene therapy arrives. Nature. 2019;576:S12-S13.16. Maguire AM, High KA, Auricchio A, et al. Age-dependent effects of RPE65 gene therapy for Leber's congenital amaurosis: a phase 1 dose-escalation trial. Lancet. 2009;374(9701):1597-1605.17. Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-ryzl) [prescribing information]. Philadelphia, PA: Spark Therapeutics, Inc.; 2017.18. Christian M, Cermak T, Doyle EL, et al. Targeting DNA double-strand breaks with TAL effector nucleases. Genetics. 2010;186(2):757-761.19. Cavazzana-Calvo M, Payen E, Negre O, et al. Transfusion independence and HMGA2 activation after gene therapy of human -thalassaemia. Nature. 2010;467(7313):318-322.20. Flemming A. Regulatory watch: Pioneering gene therapy on brink of approval. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2012 ;11(9):664.21. Pharmaphorum. Glybera, the most expensive drug in the world, to be withdrawn after commercial flop. Accessed April 29, 2021. https://pharmaphorum.com/news/glybera-expensive-drug-world-withdrawn-commercial-flop/22. Cong L, Ran FA, Cox D, et al. Multiplex genome engineering using CRISPR/Cas systems. Science. 2013;339(6121):819-823.23. Aiuti A, Roncarolo MG, Naldini L. Gene therapy for ADA-SCID, the first marketing approval of an ex vivo gene therapy in Europe: paving the road for the next generation of advanced therapy medicinal products. EMBO Mol Med. 2017;9(6):737-740.24. Strimvelis Summary of Product Characteristics, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK); 2016.25. Food and Drug Administration. FDA approves CAR-T cell therapy to treat adults with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma. Accessed April 27, 2021. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-car-t-cell-therapy-treat-adults-certain-types-large-b-cell-lymphoma26. European Medicines Agency. Yescarta. Accessed April 29, 2021. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/yescarta27. Cross R. CRISPR is coming to the clinic this year. Chem Eng News. 2018;96(2):18-19.28. Food and Drug Administration. FDA approves innovative gene therapy to treat pediatric patients with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare disease and leading genetic cause of infant mortality. Accessed April 27, 2021. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-innovative-gene-therapy-treat-pediatric-patients-spinal-muscular-atrophy-rare-disease29. European Medicines Agency. Zolgensma. Accessed May 26, 2021. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/zolgensma30. European Medicines Agency. Zynteglo. Accessed April 29, 2021. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/referrals/zynteglo31. 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Cell and gene therapy: Biopharma portfolio strategy | McKinsey
The potential importance of cell and gene therapy (CGT) to healthcare and the biopharma industry seems clear. CGT accounts for just 1 percent of launched products in major markets, with treatment of the vast majority of diseases still using small-molecule drugs. Yet those productswhich include cell therapies, such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for aggressive B-cell lymphomas, and gene therapiesto treat a range of monogenic rare diseaseshave proved transformative for patients. And there are many more in development. As of February 2020, CGT products account for 12 percent of the industrys clinical pipeline and at least 16 percent of the preclinical pipeline, but as most manufacturers do not disclose their preclinical assets, the true figure may be considerably higher (Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1
New CGT products will surely emerge from this pipeline upon the continuing discovery of indications that CGT can address and the growing industry understanding of the genetic drivers and determinants of more complex, multifactorial diseases. Indeed, the pace of CGT-asset development is similar to that of monoclonal-antibody (mAb) assets in that modalitys early years, and mAb therapy went on to transform the biopharma market (see sidebar, Cell and gene therapy: Mirroring monoclonal-antibody therapy).
Exciting clinical results are helping to propel this pace. Success rates for CGT products are higher than those for small-molecule products, probably because CGT tends to target specific disease drivers rather than the broad targets (with potential for off-target effects) of small-molecule therapy. The sample size of launched CGTs is small, so comparisons may change as the market evolves. Nevertheless, there is a marked difference thus far. Between 2008 and 2018, the R&D success rate from Phase I to launch for small-molecule products was 8.2 percent; for CGT products, it was 11 percent.
Recognizing CGTs potential, 16 of the worlds largest (by revenue) 20 biopharmacos now have CGT assets in their product portfolios. Yet most companies are moving cautiouslyonly two of the top 20 have CGT assets making up more than 20 percent of their pipelines. They are still considering whether, when, and how to reposition their portfolios. In the meantime, biotech companies remain leaders in CGT innovation.
As of February 2020, only a small percentage of launched CGT assets either originated from or are owned by a top 20 biopharmacoin both cases, only 15 percent of launched assetsindicating how much opportunity there is for such companies to increase their exposure to CGT assets (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2
The figures are not altogether surprising, given that biopharmacos expertise often lies in disease areas, not in the development of the technology platforms that generate CGT products. More often than not, the original research behind new platforms is conducted by academics (who go on to set up their own biotech companies) and investors (whose models include company origination because of the potential financial gains and the concentrated technical risk that platform investments carry). Venture-capital firms are more comfortable than established biopharmacos with such risks.
Nevertheless, given the growth potential of CGT and the promise it holds for patients, most large biopharmacos are considering increasing their presence in the market. This article is intended to help guide their decisions, describing the key considerations when assessing investment opportunities and the various entry strategiesas well as the trade-offs to be made when choosing among them.
There are many technology platforms in development that seek to address different challengesassociated with CGT. In cell therapy, work is afoot to improve the manufacture of autologous therapies to reduce the cost of goods sold or vein-to-vein time, enable breakthrough efficacy in solid tumors, and improve the patient or customer experience. In gene therapy, there are investment opportunities in platforms that aim to overcome the limitations of current vectors (such as the size of the transgene, suboptimal tropism, or the triggering of an immune response) that enable nonviral delivery methods, reduce manufacturing costs, and expand manufacturing capacity.
The decision, therefore, is about not only whether to increase investment in CGT but also which technology platforms or assets to back. Companies should thus assess each investment opportunity by both strategic fit and technology attractiveness. Strategic considerations on a CGT platform or asset include whether it complements a companys disease areas of focus, the internal pipeline would benefit from diversification with new modalities, and the company has the required capabilities, capital, and conviction.
A host of questions need to be asked to gauge the attractiveness of the technology. Has it demonstrated proof of concept? What risks remain? Does the company have enough understanding of the underlying mechanisms? Does the technology enable first-mover advantage? What are the intellectual-property considerations? Is the platform differentiated from competing platforms? And given the rapid pace of innovation in CGT, what is the risk that the technology platform quickly becomes obsolete?
CAR T-cell therapy, whereby a patients T cells are genetically engineered to express a chimeric antigen receptor that targets a specific tumor antigen, illustrates the potential risk. In a relatively short time, the field has progressed from an initial set of constructs to a second generation that has given rise to two FDA-approved products, YESCARTA and KYMRIAH, even as third- and fourth-generation products are in development.
Investment opportunities that have a strong strategic fit and high-potential technologythose that fall into the top-right quadrant shown in Exhibit 3will be attractive. For example, a CAR T-cell or T-cell-receptor platform would fall in the top right for many oncology-focused companies. In the absence of such opportunities, those in the top-left or bottom-right quadrants may still be worthwhile as a means of gaining exposure to CGT, perhaps through an early-stage investment. For example, next-generation, unproven gene-editing technologies may fall in the bottom-right quadrant for companies focused on rare diseases with known genetic drivers. Companies would have to be prepared to tolerate the associated risks, however, and not all will conclude that now is the time to make a move.
Exhibit 3
Once a manufacturer has decided that it makes strategic sense to invest in CGT and has identified an attractive technology, it must choose an entry strategy. There are three main options: build a proprietary platform, buy an existing platform or one or more of its assets, or form a partnership to gain access to assets on platforms developed by others (Exhibit 4). The three options have different profiles in the capital required, changes to the operational model needed, and risk (as measured by the degree of diversification offered across different technologies).
Exhibit 4
Companies that build a platform or platforms from scratch enjoy full control over development efforts and retain all the financial rewards of successful assets. They also get the chance to build their own CGT capabilitiesscientific, clinical, and commercialand have the freedom to adapt as the technology evolves. In return, they have to commit significant resources to internal R&D and will, in effect, be placing big, early bets on a single or very limited number of platforms. Additionally, they may need to make significant changes to operating models designed for traditional modalities.
Buying a developed platform or late-stage asset carries less technical risk (assuming robust early data), though invariably a price premium too. This means that few, if any, companies will be able to acquire a large number of them, so companies continue to bet on a single or limited number of platforms.
The third optionforming a partnership to gain access to assets on platforms that others have developedlies between these two extremes in investment cost and risk. Because partnerships in the still-nascent CGT sector are relatively cheap, biopharmacos can afford to spread their bets on where future success might lie through establishing several partnerships.
Accordingly, most biopharmacos to date have followed the partnership route when placing a stake in CGT. Between 2010 and 2014, there were a total of 16 M&A deals in the CGT space. That rose to more than 60 between 2015 and 2019. However, even in 2019, when M&A activity was strongest, partnerships accounted for more than 80 percent of total transaction activity (Exhibit 5).
Exhibit 5
Nearly all of the top 20 biopharmacos have formed at least one partnership, while ten have made an acquisition. Just one has built its own platform. Exhibit 6 details this, along with the impact that the deals have had on the composition of company pipelines.
Exhibit 6
Partnerships come in three main varieties: those that give a biopharmaco access to a single asset, those that give it access to all assets in selected therapeutic areas that might emerge from a platform, and those that give it access to all platform assets, regardless of the therapeutic area or indication.
Partnerships structured to give a biopharmaco access to a single asset are the simplest way to enter the CGT market and are often chosen by companies that have a strong focus on certain indications and believe that their competitive advantage lies in owning multiple therapies across modalities in that space. A single-asset partnership also minimizes the investment required. However, this kind of partnership may leave a biopharmaco having to introduce a new operating model for a single asset.
Partnerships structured to give a biopharmaco access to all assets from a platform in certain therapeutic areas can help companies with a strong strategic focus on a given therapeutic area strengthen their portfolios and build more expertise in that area. In addition, more assets in a new modality means more opportunity to build the relevant development and commercial expertise.
The third option, partnering to win access to all the assets in a particular modality generated by a platform, tends to be the partnership of choice for biopharmacos that believe future competitive advantage lies in access to the best technology, no matter what may be the associated indication or therapeutic area. Through such a partnership, a company can follow the science, developing the technology for the indications in which it can provide the most clinical benefit. Such a strategy requires more investment than other forms of partnership, however, and so carries more concentrated technology risk. Companies may also find themselves developing products for therapeutic areas in which they have no expertise and thus are at a competitive disadvantage.
In addition to these three kinds of partnerships with biotech companies, some biopharmacos are considering more innovative ways to allocate their limited resources across multiple CGT technologies in a manner that also boosts their chances of keeping pace with rapid innovation. By partnering with venture-capital firms or biotech originators to launch new assets, new platforms, or even new companies or by collaborating with large academic institutions to license multiple new technologies, they are making much earlier-stage bets on where future success might lie.
The CGT era is an exciting one for healthcare, and all biopharmacos will want to reassess their portfolio strategies to decide whether and to what extent to diversify their pipelines. Most big biopharmacos have chosen partnerships to explore CGT initially, though the likelihood is that many will use a combination of strategies to increase their exposure and access to several technologies as the market evolves. Yet whether a company is still testing the water or is ready to commit, it will need to think carefully about how it builds its exposure to the CGT market and be fully aware of how to assess each investment opportunity, the range of possible entry strategies, and the different advantages and risks that each carries.
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Cell and gene therapy: Biopharma portfolio strategy | McKinsey
Difference Between Ex Vivo and In Vivo Gene Therapy
Key Difference Ex Vivo vs In Vivo Gene Therapy
Gene therapy is an important technique which is used to treat or prevent genetic diseases by introducing genes for missing or defective genes. Certain diseases can be cured by inserting the healthy genes in place of mutated or missing genes responsible for the disease. Gene therapy is mostly applied for somatic cells than germline cells, and it can be categorized into two major types named Ex vivo gene therapy and In vivo gene therapy. The key difference between Ex vivo and In vivo gene therapy is that therapeutic genes are transferred to in vitro cell cultures and reintroduced into a patient in ex vivo gene therapy while genes are delivered directly to patients tissues or cells without culturing the cells in vitro in in vivo gene therapy.
CONTENTS1. Overview and Key Difference2. What is Ex Vivo Gene Therapy3. What is In Vivo Gene Therapy4. Side by Side Comparison Ex Vivo vs In Vivo Gene Therapy5. Summary
Ex vivo gene therapy is a type of gene therapy which involves exterior modification of a patients cell and reintroduction of it to the patient. The cells are cultured in the labs (outside the patients body), and genes are inserted. Then the stable transformants are selected and reintroduced into the patient to treat the disease. Ex vivo gene therapy can be applied only to certain cell types or selected tissues. Bone marrow cells are the cells frequently used for ex vivo gene therapy.
There are several major steps involved in Ex vivo gene therapy as follows;
In ex vivo gene therapy, carriers or vectors are used to deliver genes into target cells. Successful gene delivery is dependent on the carrier system, and the important vectors used in ex vivo gene therapy are viruses, bone marrow cells, human artificial chromosome, etc. Compared to the in vivo gene therapy, ex vivo gene therapy does not involve adverse immunological reactions in the patients body since the genetic correction is done in vitro. However, the success depends on stable incorporation and expression of the remedial gene within the patient body.
Figure 01: Ex vivo gene therapy
In vivo gene therapy is a technique which involves direct delivery of genes into the cells of a particular tissue inside the patients body to treat genetic diseases. It can be applied to many tissues of the human body including liver, muscle, skin, lung, spleen, brain, blood cells, etc. The therapeutic genes are introduced by the viral or nonviral-based vectors into the patient. However, the success depends on several factors such as efficient uptake of the therapeutic gene carrying vectors by the target cells, intracellular degradation of the genes within the target cells and gene uptake by the nucleus, expression ability of the gene, etc.
Figure 02: In vivo gene therapy
Therapeutic genes are introduced into patients body as a treatment for certain diseases. It is known as gene therapy and can be done in two ways namely ex vivo gene therapy and in vivo gene therapy. The difference between ex vivo and in vivo gene therapy is that gene insertion in ex vivo gene therapy is done in the cell cultures exterior to patients body and the corrected cells are reintroduced to the patient while in in vivo gene therapy genes are introduced directly into the interior target tissues without isolating the cells. The success of the both processes depends on the stable insertion and transformation of the therapeutic genes into the patient cells.
Reference:1.What is gene therapy? Genetics Home Reference. U.S. National Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.2.Evaluation of the Clinical Success of Ex Vivo and In Vivo Gene Therapy | JYI The Undergraduate Research Journal. JYI The Undergraduate Research Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 20173. Crystal, Ronald G. In vivo and ex vivo gene therapy strategies to treat tumors using adenovirus gene transfer vectors. SpringerLink. Springer-Verlag, n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017
Image Courtesy:1. ExVivoGeneTherapy plBy Pisum na podstawie pracy Lizanne Koch Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia2. In vivo gene therapy pl By Pisum na podstawie pracy Lizanne Koch Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia
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What is Gene Therapy? | FDA – U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Human gene therapy seeks to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use 1.
Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a persons genes to treat or cure disease. Gene therapies can work by several mechanisms:
Gene therapy products are being studied to treat diseases including cancer, genetic diseases, and infectious diseases.
There are a variety of types of gene therapy products, including:
Gene therapy products are biological products regulated by the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). Clinical studies in humans require the submission of an investigational new drug application (IND) prior to initiating clinical studies in the United States. Marketing a gene therapy product requires submission and approval of a biologics license application (BLA).
Long Term Follow-Up After Administration of Human Gene Therapy Products; Guidance for Industry, January 2020
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What is Gene Therapy? | FDA - U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Gene Therapy Gel Offers New Hope Against Rare Blistering Disease
THURSDAY, Dec. 15, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- An experimental gene therapy that's applied as a skin gel appears to heal wounds caused by a rare and severe genetic skin disease.
Experts called the findings "remarkable," and said they bring hope of a better quality of life to children and young adults living with the condition, called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB).
The disease affects about 3 out of every 1 million people. It's caused by a flawed gene that renders the body unable to produce a particular collagen -- a "glue" between the skin layers that is essential to its strength and integrity.
Kids born with DEB are sometimes called "butterfly children" because their skin is so fragile, even an ordinary bump or friction can cause blistering that progresses to painful open wounds.
In the most severe cases, infants have blisters or missing skin at birth, or soon after. Those children typically develop widespread scarring over their bodies and can have eye inflammation that impairs their vision. Blisters and scarring also arise along the lining of the mouth, throat and digestive tract -- which can interfere with eating and cause malnutrition.
As young adults, people with DEB face a high risk of squamous cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer that is normally highly curable, but in a person with DEB often proves deadly.
There has never been any specific treatment for DEB. Managing it is all about wound care, preventing infections, trying to relieve pain and other "supportive" therapies, said Dr. Peter Marinkovich, the senior researcher on the new study.
"We're helplessly watching blisters and wounds form, without any way to stop them," said Marinkovich, who directs Stanford University's Blistering Disease Clinic.
The new gene therapy, delivered by a skin gel applied directly to wounds, could become the first treatment for the rare disease. Krystal Biotech, the product's developer, has submitted an application for approval to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and said the agency granted it "priority review" designation.
The therapy does not correct the genetic flaw causing DEB, or cure the disease.
Instead, the gel contains a modified herpes virus that delivers two functioning copies of the gene, called COL7A1, to patients' skin cells. The cells are then able to produce the missing collagen protein -- with the goal of healing wounds.
In the new trial, published Dec. 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Marinkovich and his team found the approach did just that.
The study involved 31 children and adults with DEB. Each patient had one wound treated with the gene therapy gel, and a second, similar wound treated with a placebo (inactive) gel. In all cases, it was applied during weekly bandage changes.
After six months, 67% of wounds treated with the gene therapy were completely closed, versus 22% of those treated with the placebo gel. That included healing of longstanding -- even 10-year-old -- wounds, according to Marinkovich.
Other experts called the trial "pivotal," and said that if the therapy continues to have such benefits over the long term, it could have a "transformational" impact on patients' quality of life.
"This is a devastating disease," said Dr. Aimee Payne, a professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Payne, who wrote an editorial published with the study, said that various high-tech treatments for DEB have been attempted -- including stem cell therapies and skin grafts.
"And now this comes along, and it's a salve that you put on the skin," Payne said. "It almost seems magical."
The notion of topical treatments is new to the gene therapy field, said David Schaffer, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
A limitation of the approach is that it's transient, explained Schaffer, who wrote a separate editorial published with the study. As skin cells naturally die, the functioning COL7A1 gene is lost, too.
So the topical therapy will likely need to be repeated indefinitely. In addition, it does not penetrate the skin, Schaffer said. That means while it can be applied as needed to new wounds, it cannot prevent them.
That said, a gel capable of closing wounds could transform patients' lives, according to Schaffer. And if that healing is ultimately shown to prevent squamous cell carcinoma, he said, "that would be huge."
As for safety, the trial found no serious side effects. A theoretical concern, the experts said, is that the immune system could react against the herpes simplex virus used in the gel, or the newly produced collagen protein.
The herpes virus is genetically modified so that it cannot replicate or spread in the body. But because the virus is naturally adept at evading the immune system, Marinkovich explained, it's a good vehicle for delivering the COL7A1 gene to cells without sparking an immune response.
The skin gel does not address the internal lesions that DEB causes. But, Marinkovich said, it's possible the same gene therapy could be delivered to those areas of the body by other means -- drops for the eyes, an oral "swish" for the mouth, or suppositories for anal lesions.
Among the ongoing research steps, he said, is to treat skin lesions in younger children, as early as 6 months of age, to see if that can prevent extensive skin scarring.
Schaffer pointed to the bigger picture. Gene therapy, he said, has long been "held back" by a lack of good delivery systems. But that's changing. Just last month, Schaffer noted, the first gene therapy for hemophilia B -- delivered by a single IV infusion -- was approved by the FDA.
"Gene therapy is beginning to work," he said.
More information
The nonprofit DEBRA has more on the different forms of epidermolysis bullosa.
SOURCES: M. Peter Marinkovich, MD, associate professor, dermatology, and director, Blistering Disease Clinic, Stanford University School of Medicine; Aimee S. Payne, MD, PhD, professor, dermatology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia; David V. Schaffer, PhD, professor, chemical and biomolecular engineering, bioengineering, molecular and cell biology, University of California, Berkeley; New England Journal of Medicine, Dec. 15, 2022
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Gene Therapy Gel Offers New Hope Against Rare Blistering Disease
KeyboardEvent.keyCode – Web APIs | MDN – Mozilla
DOM_VK_CANCEL 0x03 (3) Cancel key. DOM_VK_HELP 0x06 (6) Help key. DOM_VK_BACK_SPACE 0x08 (8) Backspace key. DOM_VK_TAB 0x09 (9) Tab key. DOM_VK_CLEAR 0x0C (12) "5" key on Numpad when NumLock is unlocked. Or on Mac, clear key which is positioned at NumLock key. DOM_VK_RETURN 0x0D (13) Return/enter key on the main keyboard. DOM_VK_ENTER 0x0E (14) Reserved, but not used. Deprecated (Dropped, see bug969247.) DOM_VK_SHIFT 0x10 (16) Shift key. DOM_VK_CONTROL 0x11 (17) Control key. DOM_VK_ALT 0x12 (18) Alt (Option on Mac) key. DOM_VK_PAUSE 0x13 (19) Pause key. DOM_VK_CAPS_LOCK 0x14 (20) Caps lock. DOM_VK_KANA 0x15 (21) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_HANGUL 0x15 (21) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_EISU 0x 16 (22) "" key on Japanese Mac keyboard. DOM_VK_JUNJA 0x17 (23) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_FINAL 0x18 (24) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_HANJA 0x19 (25) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_KANJI 0x19 (25) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_ESCAPE 0x1B (27) Escape key. DOM_VK_CONVERT 0x1C (28) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_NONCONVERT 0x1D (29) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_ACCEPT 0x1E (30) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_MODECHANGE 0x1F (31) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_SPACE 0x20 (32) Space bar. DOM_VK_PAGE_UP 0x21 (33) Page Up key. DOM_VK_PAGE_DOWN 0x22 (34) Page Down key. DOM_VK_END 0x23 (35) End key. DOM_VK_HOME 0x24 (36) Home key. DOM_VK_LEFT 0x25 (37) Left arrow. DOM_VK_UP 0x26 (38) Up arrow. DOM_VK_RIGHT 0x27 (39) Right arrow. DOM_VK_DOWN 0x28 (40) Down arrow. DOM_VK_SELECT 0x29 (41) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_PRINT 0x2A (42) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_EXECUTE 0x2B (43) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_PRINTSCREEN 0x2C (44) Print Screen key. DOM_VK_INSERT 0x2D (45) Ins(ert) key. DOM_VK_DELETE 0x2E (46) Del(ete) key. DOM_VK_0 0x30 (48) "0" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_1 0x31 (49) "1" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_2 0x32 (50) "2" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_3 0x33 (51) "3" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_4 0x34 (52) "4" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_5 0x35 (53) "5" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_6 0x36 (54) "6" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_7 0x37 (55) "7" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_8 0x38 (56) "8" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_9 0x39 (57) "9" key in standard key location. DOM_VK_COLON 0x3A (58) Colon (":") key. DOM_VK_SEMICOLON 0x3B (59) Semicolon (";") key. DOM_VK_LESS_THAN 0x3C (60) Less-than ("<") key. DOM_VK_EQUALS 0x3D (61) Equals ("=") key. DOM_VK_GREATER_THAN 0x3E (62) Greater-than (">") key. DOM_VK_QUESTION_MARK 0x3F (63) Question mark ("?") key. DOM_VK_AT 0x40 (64) Atmark ("@") key. DOM_VK_A 0x41 (65) "A" key. DOM_VK_B 0x42 (66) "B" key. DOM_VK_C 0x43 (67) "C" key. DOM_VK_D 0x44 (68) "D" key. DOM_VK_E 0x45 (69) "E" key. DOM_VK_F 0x46 (70) "F" key. DOM_VK_G 0x47 (71) "G" key. DOM_VK_H 0x48 (72) "H" key. DOM_VK_I 0x49 (73) "I" key. DOM_VK_J 0x4A (74) "J" key. DOM_VK_K 0x4B (75) "K" key. DOM_VK_L 0x4C (76) "L" key. DOM_VK_M 0x4D (77) "M" key. DOM_VK_N 0x4E (78) "N" key. DOM_VK_O 0x4F (79) "O" key. DOM_VK_P 0x50 (80) "P" key. DOM_VK_Q 0x51 (81) "Q" key. DOM_VK_R 0x52 (82) "R" key. DOM_VK_S 0x53 (83) "S" key. DOM_VK_T 0x54 (84) "T" key. DOM_VK_U 0x55 (85) "U" key. DOM_VK_V 0x56 (86) "V" key. DOM_VK_W 0x57 (87) "W" key. DOM_VK_X 0x58 (88) "X" key. DOM_VK_Y 0x59 (89) "Y" key. DOM_VK_Z 0x5A (90) "Z" key. DOM_VK_WIN 0x5B (91) Windows logo key on Windows. Or Super or Hyper key on Linux. DOM_VK_CONTEXT_MENU 0x5D (93) Opening context menu key. DOM_VK_SLEEP 0x5F (95) Linux support for this keycode was added in Gecko 4.0. DOM_VK_NUMPAD0 0x60 (96) "0" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD1 0x61 (97) "1" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD2 0x62 (98) "2" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD3 0x63 (99) "3" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD4 0x64 (100) "4" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD5 0x65 (101) "5" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD6 0x66 (102) "6" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD7 0x67 (103) "7" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD8 0x68 (104) "8" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_NUMPAD9 0x69 (105) "9" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_MULTIPLY 0x6A (106) "*" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_ADD 0x6B (107) "+" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_SEPARATOR 0x6C (108) DOM_VK_SUBTRACT 0x6D (109) "-" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_DECIMAL 0x6E (110) Decimal point on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_DIVIDE 0x6F (111) "/" on the numeric keypad. DOM_VK_F1 0x70 (112) F1 key. DOM_VK_F2 0x71 (113) F2 key. DOM_VK_F3 0x72 (114) F3 key. DOM_VK_F4 0x73 (115) F4 key. DOM_VK_F5 0x74 (116) F5 key. DOM_VK_F6 0x75 (117) F6 key. DOM_VK_F7 0x76 (118) F7 key. DOM_VK_F8 0x77 (119) F8 key. DOM_VK_F9 0x78 (120) F9 key. DOM_VK_F10 0x79 (121) F10 key. DOM_VK_F11 0x7A (122) F11 key. DOM_VK_F12 0x7B (123) F12 key. DOM_VK_F13 0x7C (124) F13 key. DOM_VK_F14 0x7D (125) F14 key. DOM_VK_F15 0x7E (126) F15 key. DOM_VK_F16 0x7F (127) F16 key. DOM_VK_F17 0x80 (128) F17 key. DOM_VK_F18 0x81 (129) F18 key. DOM_VK_F19 0x82 (130) F19 key. DOM_VK_F20 0x83 (131) F20 key. DOM_VK_F21 0x84 (132) F21 key. DOM_VK_F22 0x85 (133) F22 key. DOM_VK_F23 0x86 (134) F23 key. DOM_VK_F24 0x87 (135) F24 key. DOM_VK_NUM_LOCK 0x90 (144) Num Lock key. DOM_VK_SCROLL_LOCK 0x91 (145) Scroll Lock key. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_FJ_JISHO 0x92 (146) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for "Dictionary" key on Fujitsu OASYS. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_FJ_MASSHOU 0x93 (147) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for "Unregister word" key on Fujitsu OASYS. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_FJ_TOUROKU 0x94 (148) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for "Register word" key on Fujitsu OASYS. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_FJ_LOYA 0x95 (149) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for "Left OYAYUBI" key on Fujitsu OASYS. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_FJ_ROYA 0x96 (150) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for "Right OYAYUBI" key on Fujitsu OASYS. DOM_VK_CIRCUMFLEX 0xA0 (160) Circumflex ("^") key. DOM_VK_EXCLAMATION 0xA1 (161) Exclamation ("!") key. DOM_VK_DOUBLE_QUOTE 0xA3 (162) Double quote (""") key. DOM_VK_HASH 0xA3 (163) Hash ("#") key. DOM_VK_DOLLAR 0xA4 (164) Dollar sign ("$") key. DOM_VK_PERCENT 0xA5 (165) Percent ("%") key. DOM_VK_AMPERSAND 0xA6 (166) Ampersand ("&") key. DOM_VK_UNDERSCORE 0xA7 (167) Underscore ("_") key. DOM_VK_OPEN_PAREN 0xA8 (168) Open parenthesis ("(") key. DOM_VK_CLOSE_PAREN 0xA9 (169) Close parenthesis (")") key. DOM_VK_ASTERISK 0xAA (170) Asterisk ("*") key. DOM_VK_PLUS 0xAB (171) Plus ("+") key. DOM_VK_PIPE 0xAC (172) Pipe ("|") key. DOM_VK_HYPHEN_MINUS 0xAD (173) Hyphen-US/docs/Minus ("-") key. DOM_VK_OPEN_CURLY_BRACKET 0xAE (174) Open curly bracket ("{") key. DOM_VK_CLOSE_CURLY_BRACKET 0xAF (175) Close curly bracket ("}") key. DOM_VK_TILDE 0xB0 (176) Tilde ("~") key. DOM_VK_VOLUME_MUTE 0xB5 (181) Audio mute key. DOM_VK_VOLUME_DOWN 0xB6 (182) Audio volume down key DOM_VK_VOLUME_UP 0xB7 (183) Audio volume up key DOM_VK_COMMA 0xBC (188) Comma (",") key. DOM_VK_PERIOD 0xBE (190) Period (".") key. DOM_VK_SLASH 0xBF (191) Slash ("/") key. DOM_VK_BACK_QUOTE 0xC0 (192) Back tick ("`") key. DOM_VK_OPEN_BRACKET 0xDB (219) Open square bracket ("[") key. DOM_VK_BACK_SLASH 0xDC (220) Back slash ("") key. DOM_VK_CLOSE_BRACKET 0xDD (221) Close square bracket ("]") key. DOM_VK_QUOTE 0xDE (222) Quote (''') key. DOM_VK_META 0xE0 (224) Meta key on Linux, Command key on Mac. DOM_VK_ALTGR 0xE1 (225) AltGr key (Level 3 Shift key or Level 5 Shift key) on Linux. DOM_VK_WIN_ICO_HELP 0xE3 (227) An OEM specific key on Windows. This is (was?) used for Olivetti ICO keyboard. DOM_VK_WIN_ICO_00 0xE4 (228) An OEM specific key on Windows. This is (was?) used for Olivetti ICO keyboard. DOM_VK_WIN_ICO_CLEAR 0xE6 (230) An OEM specific key on Windows. This is (was?) used for Olivetti ICO keyboard. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_RESET 0xE9 (233) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_JUMP 0xEA (234) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_PA1 0xEB (235) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_PA2 0xEC (236) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_PA3 0xED (237) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_WSCTRL 0xEE (238) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_CUSEL 0xEF (239) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_ATTN 0xF0 (240) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_FINISH 0xF1 (241) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_COPY 0xF2 (242) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_AUTO 0xF3 (243) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_ENLW 0xF4 (244) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_BACKTAB 0xF5 (245) An OEM specific key on Windows. This was used for Nokia/Ericsson's device. DOM_VK_ATTN 0xF6 (246) Attn (Attention) key of IBM midrange computers, e.g., AS/400. DOM_VK_CRSEL 0xF7 (247) CrSel (Cursor Selection) key of IBM 3270 keyboard layout. DOM_VK_EXSEL 0xF8 (248) ExSel (Extend Selection) key of IBM 3270 keyboard layout. DOM_VK_EREOF 0xF9 (249) Erase EOF key of IBM 3270 keyboard layout. DOM_VK_PLAY 0xFA (250) Play key of IBM 3270 keyboard layout. DOM_VK_ZOOM 0xFB (251) Zoom key. DOM_VK_PA1 0xFD (253) PA1 key of IBM 3270 keyboard layout. DOM_VK_WIN_OEM_CLEAR 0xFE (254) Clear key, but we're not sure the meaning difference from DOM_VK_CLEAR.
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Alt-right – Wikipedia
Far-right white nationalist movement
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2010s and establishing a presence in other countries, and then declining since 2017. The term is ill-defined, having been used in different ways by alt-right members, media commentators, journalists, and academics.
In 2010, the American white nationalist Richard B. Spencer launched The Alternative Right webzine. His "alternative right" was influenced by earlier forms of American white nationalism, as well as paleoconservatism, the Dark Enlightenment, and the Nouvelle Droite. His term was shortened to "alt-right", and popularised by far-right participants of /pol/, the politics board of web forum 4chan. It came to be associated with other white nationalist websites and groups, including Andrew Anglin's Daily Stormer, Brad Griffin's Occidental Dissent, and Matthew Heimbach's Traditionalist Worker Party. Following the 2014 Gamergate controversy, the alt-right made increasing use of trolling and online harassment to raise its profile. In 2015, it attracted broader attentionparticularly through coverage on Steve Bannon's Breitbart Newsdue to alt-right support for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Upon being elected, Trump disavowed the movement. Attempting to move from a web-based to a street-based movement, Spencer and other alt-rightists organized the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to violent clashes with counter-demonstrators. The fallout from the rally resulted in a decline of the alt-right.
The alt-right movement espouses the pseudoscientific idea of biological racism and promotes a form of identity politics in favor of European Americans and white people internationally. Anti-egalitarian, it rejects the liberal democratic basis of U.S. governance, and opposes both the conservative and liberal wings of the country's political mainstream. Many of its members seek to replace the U.S. with a white separatist ethno-state. Some alt-rightists seek to make white nationalism socially respectable, while others, known as the "1488" scene, adopt openly white supremacist and neo-Nazi stances to shock and provoke. Some alt-rightists are antisemitic, promoting a conspiracy theory that there is a Jewish plot to bring about white genocide, although other alt-rightists view most Jews as members of the white race. The alt-right is anti-feminist and intersects with the online manosphere. The alt-right also opposes Islam. The movement distinguished itself from earlier forms of white nationalism through its largely online presence and its heavy use of irony and humor, particularly through the promotion of Internet memes like Pepe the Frog. Individuals aligned with many of the alt-right's ideas, but not its white nationalism, have been termed "alt-lite".
The alt-right's membership is overwhelmingly white and male, attracted to the movement by deteriorating living standards and prospects, anxieties about the social role of white masculinity, and anger at left-wing and non-white forms of identity politics, such as feminism and Black Lives Matter. Alt-right material has contributed to the radicalization of men responsible for various murders and terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 2014. Critics charge that the term "alt-right" is merely a rebranding of white supremacism.[1][2][3][4]
The term "alt-right" is an abbreviation of "alternative right". A distinct far-right movement arising in the 2010s, it both drew on older far-right ideas, and displayed novelties. Efforts to define the alt-right have been complicated by the contradictory ways in which self-described "alt-rightists" have defined the movement, and by the tendency among some of its political opponents to apply the term "alt-right" liberally to a broad range of right-wing groups and viewpoints.[7] As the alt-right rose to wider awareness around 2016, media sources struggled to understand it;[8] some commentators applied the term as a catch-all for anyone they deemed far-right. The scholars Patrik Hermansson, David Lawrence, Joe Mulhall, and Simon Murdoch noted that in the "press and broadcast media", the term had been "used to describe everything from hardcore Nazis and Holocaust deniers, through to mainstream Republicans in the US, and right-wing populists in Europe". Consequently, because the term "alt-right" was coined by white nationalists themselves, rather than by academic observers, or by their opponents, various journalists avoided it.[12] George Hawley, a political scientist specializing in the U.S. far-right, disagreed with this approach, noting that using terms like "white supremacist" in place of "alt-right" conceals the way that alt-right differed from other far-right movements.
The 'alt-right' or 'alternative right' is a name currently embraced by some white supremacists and white nationalists to refer to themselves and their ideology, which emphasizes preserving and protecting the white race in the United States in addition to, or over, other traditional conservative positions such as limited government, low taxes and strict law-and-order. The movement has been described as a mix of racism, white nationalism and populism ... criticizes 'multiculturalism' and more rights for non-whites, women, Jews, Muslims, gays, immigrants and other minorities. Its members reject the American democratic ideal that all should have equality under the law regardless of creed, gender, ethnic origin or race.
The Associated Press[14][15]
Hermansson et al defined the alt-right as "a far right, anti-globalist grouping" that operated "primarily online though with offline outlets". They noted that its "core belief is that 'white identity' is under attack from pro-multicultural and liberal elites, and so called 'social justice warriors' (SJWs), who allegedly use 'political correctness' to undermine Western civilisation and the rights of white males". The anti-fascist researcher Matthew N. Lyons defined the alt-right as "a loosely organized far-right movement that shares a contempt for both liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism; a belief that some people are inherently superior to others; a strong Internet presence and embrace of specific elements of online culture; and a self-presentation as being new, hip, and irreverent".
In the Columbia Journalism Review, the journalist Chava Gourarie labelled it a "rag-tag coalition" operating as a "diffuse online subculture" that had "an inclination for vicious online trolling, with some roots in fringe-right ideologies".[8] In The New York Times, journalists Aishvarya Kavi and Alan Feuer defined the alt-right as "a loosely affiliated collection of racists, misogynists and Islamophobes that rose to prominence around the time of Mr. Trump's first campaign."[18] The academic Tom Pollard referred to the alt-right as a "socio/political movement" comprising "a loose amalgamation of rightist groups and causes" who "shun egalitarianism, socialism, feminism, miscegenation, multiculturalism, free trade, globalization, and all forms of gun control". The journalist Mike Wendling termed it "an incredibly loose set of ideologies held together by what they oppose: feminism, Islam, the Black Lives Matter movement, political correctness, a fuzzy idea they call 'globalism,' and establishment politics of both the left and the right".
The Southern Poverty Law Center defined the alt-right as "a set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals whose core belief is that 'white identity' is under attack by multicultural forces using 'political correctness' and 'social justice' to undermine white people and 'their' civilization".[21] The Anti-Defamation League states that "alt-right" is a "vague term actually encompass[ing] a range of people on the extreme right who reject mainstream conservatism in favor of forms of conservatism that embrace implicit or explicit racism or white supremacy".[22]
The Encyclopdia Britannica defined the alt-right as "a loose association of relatively young white nationalists (who largely disavowed racism but celebrated 'white' identity and lamented the alleged erosion of white political and economic power and the decline of white culture in the face of nonwhite immigration and multiculturalism), white supremacists, extreme libertarians, and neo-Nazis."[23][24]
The alt-right had various ideological forebears. The idea of white supremacy had been dominant across U.S. political discourse throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. After World War II, it was increasingly repudiated and relegated to the far-right of the country's political spectrum. Far-right groups retaining such ideassuch as George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party and William Luther Pierce's National Allianceremained marginal. By the 1990s, white supremacism was largely confined to neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) groups, although its ideologues wanted to return it to the mainstream. That decade, several white supremacists reformulated their ideas as white nationalism, through which they presented themselves not as seeking to dominate non-white racial groups but rather as lobbying for the interests of European Americans in a similar way to how civil rights groups lobbied for the rights of African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Although white nationalists often distanced themselves from white supremacism, white supremacist sentiment remained prevalent in white nationalist writings.
American white nationalists believed that the United States had been created as a nation explicitly for white people of European descent and that it should remain that way. Many called for the formation of an explicitly white ethno-state. Seeking to distance themselves from the violent, skinhead image of neo-Nazi and KKK groups, several white nationalist ideologuesnamely Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, and Kevin B. MacDonaldsought to cultivate an image of respectability and intellectualism through which to promote their views. Hawley later termed their ideology "highbrow white nationalism", and noted its particular influence on the alt-right. Taylor, for instance, became a revered figure in alt-right circles.
Under the Republican presidency of George W. Bush in the 2000s, the white nationalist movement focused largely on criticizing conservatives rather than liberals, accusing them of betraying white Americans. In that period they drew increasingly on the conspiracy theories that had been generated by the Patriot movement since the 1990s; online, the white nationalist and Patriot movements increasingly converged. Following the election of Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008making him the first black president of the countrythe world-views of various right-wing movements, including white supremacists, Patriots, and Tea Partiers, increasingly began to coalesce, in part due to a shared racial animus against Obama.
The alt-right drew upon several older currents of right-wing thought. One was the Nouvelle Droite, a far-right movement that originated in 1960s France before spreading elsewhere in Europe.[36][37][38] Many alt-rightists adopted the Nouvelle Droite's views on pursuing long-term cultural change through "metapolitical" strategies;[39] it thereby shares similarities with European identitarianism, which also draws upon the Nouvelle Droite. The alt-right also exhibited similarities with the paleoconservative movement which emerged in the U.S. during the 1980s. Both opposed neoconservatism and expressed similar positions on restricting immigration and supporting an openly nationalistic foreign policy, although unlike the alt-right, the paleoconservatives were typically closely aligned to Christianity and wanted to reform the conservative movement rather than destroy it.[42][43] Certain paleoconservatives, such as Samuel T. Francis, became especially close to white nationalism.
There were also links between the American right-libertarian movement and the alt-right, despite libertarianism's general repudiation of identity politics. Many senior alt-rightists previously considered themselves libertarians, and right-libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard has been cited as a particular link between the two movements due to his staunch anti-egalitarianism and support for ideas about differing IQ levels among racial groups.[48] Also cited in connection with the alt-right was the Dark Enlightenment, or neo-reactionary movement, which emerged online in the 2000s, pursuing an anti-egalitarian message. This movement intersected with the alt-right; many individuals identified with both movements. The Dark Enlightenment however was not white nationalist, deeming the latter insufficiently elitist.
According to Dean, in the 1990s, there were "alt-right" Usenet groups that consisted of fringe libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, and fans of American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand, who advocated for the abolition of the state in favor of private property and markets.[53] Prior to recently, "the American far-right did not harness the Internet quickly, effectively or widely." enough to gain traction.[54]
According to Hawley, the alt-right began in 2008. In November that year, the paleoconservative ideologue and academic Paul Gottfried gave a talk at his H. L. Mencken Club in Baltimore. Although the talk was titled "The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right", it did not contain the phrase "alternative right" itself. Gottfried observed that, as the paleoconservative movement declined, a new cohort of young right-wingers were rising to take its place in challenging the neoconservative ideology then dominant in the Republican Party and broader U.S. conservative movement.[57]
One of those endorsing Gottfried's idea was fellow paleoconservative Richard B. Spencer. Born in 1978 to a wealthy family and raised in Dallas, Texas,[60] in 2007 Spencer had dropped out of his PhD programme at Duke University to take up a position at The American Conservative magazine.[62] Spencer claimed he coined the term "alternative right" for the lecture's title, although Gottfried maintained that they were its joint creators. As "alternative right" became associated increasingly with white nationalism in subsequent years, Gottfried distanced himself from it.
After The American Conservative fired Spencer, in 2008 he became managing director of Taki Theodoracopulos's right-wing website Taki's Magazine.[66] The website initially contained contributions largely from paleoconservatives and right-libertarians, but under Spencer also gave space to white nationalists like Taylor. In 2009, Spencer used the term "alternative right" in the title of an article by white nationalist Kevin DeAnna. By 2010, Spencer had moved fully from paleoconservatism to white nationalism, although various later press sources instead called him a white supremacist.[69][70][71] Leaving Taki's Magazine, in March 2010 Spencer launched The Alternative Right webzine.[73] Early issues featured articles by white nationalists like Taylor and MacDonald as well as the Heathen Stephen McNallen. Spencer noted that "if you look at the initial articles for AlternativeRight.com, that was the first stage of the Alt-Right really coming into its own".
AlternativeRight.com consisted primarily of short essays, covering a range of political and cultural issues. Many of these reflected the influence of the French Nouvelle Droite, although this declined as the alt-right grew. Spencer later stated that he wanted to create a movement distinct from the white power image of neo-Nazi and KKK groups, noting that their approach to white nationalism was "a total nonstarter. No one outside a hardcore coterie would identify with it". In 2011, Spencer became the head of the white nationalist National Policy Institute and launched the Radix Journal to promote his views; in 2012, he stepped down from the AlternativeRight website and took it offline in December 2013. By that year, Spencer was expressing ambivalence about the "alternative right" label; he preferred to be called an "identitarian".[60]
On the Internet, Spencer's term "alternative right" was adopted and abbreviated to "alt-right". According to Slate magazine, the abbreviation "retains the former phrase's associationsthe mix of alienation and optimism embedded in the act of proudly affirming an 'alternative' directionbut compacts them into a snappier package".[57] The "alt-right" tag was created with public relations in mind, allowing white nationalists to soften their image and helping to draw in recruits from conservatism. Many white nationalists gravitated to the term to escape the negative connotations of the term "white nationalism". Spencer thought that by this point, the "Alt-Right" had become "the banner of white identity politics".
The term gained wider usage on websites like 4chan and Reddit, growing in popularity in 2015. Although there had previously been a strong left-libertarian contingent to these online spaces, there was a gradual rightward turn in chan culture centred on 4chan's politics board, /pol/, during the early-mid 2010s. According to Hawley, the alt-right was "an outgrowth of Internet troll culture", with Hermansson et al observing that "Online Antagonistic Communities" were key to the formation of the alt-right as a distinct movement.
The alt-right's emergence was marked by the online Gamergate controversy of 2014, in which some gamers harassed those promoting feminism within the gaming scene.[89] According to the journalist David Neiwert, Gamergate "heralded the rise of the alt-right and provided an early sketch of its primary features: an Internet presence beset by digital trolls, unbridled conspiracism, angry-white-male-identity victimization culture, and, ultimately, open racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic hatred, misogyny, and sexual and gender paranoia". Gamergate politicized many young people, especially males, in opposition to the perceived culture war being waged by leftists. Through their shared opposition to political correctness, feminism, and multiculturalism, chan culture built a link to the alt-right. By 2015, the alt-right had gained significant momentum as an online movement.
Notable promoters of the alt-right included Spencer,[94] Vox Day,[95] and Brittany Pettibone.[96] Earlier white nationalist thinkers were also characterized as alt-right thinkers, among them Taylor,[97] and MacDonald.[14] Other prominent alt-rightists included Brad Griffin, a member of the neo-Confederate League of the South who founded the Occidental Dissent blog, Matthew Heimbach, who established the Traditionalist Youth Network in 2013, and Andrew Anglin, who launched the Daily Stormer websitenamed after the Der Strmer newspaper active in Nazi Germanyin 2013. By 2016, Anglin called the Daily Stormer "the world's most visited alt-right website". While some of the websites associated with the alt-rightlike The Daily Stormer and the Traditionalist Youth Networkadopted neo-Nazi approaches, others, such as Occidental Dissent, The Unz Review, Vox Popoli, and Chateau Heartiste, adopted a less extreme form of white nationalism.
Far more widely visited than these alt-right websites was Breitbart News, which between 2016 and 2018 received over 10 million unique visitors a month.[103] Launched by the conservative Andrew Breitbart in 2005, it came under the control of Steve Bannon in 2012. A right-wing nationalist and populist, Bannon was hostile to mainstream conservatism. Although much of Breitbart's coverage fed into racially charged narratives, it did not promote white nationalism, differing from the mainstream conservative press more in tone than in content. Alt-rightists termed Breitbart "alt-lite";[103] this term appeared in the alt-right's language in mid-2016, used pejoratively for rightists who shared their contempt for mainstream conservatism but not their white nationalism.
In July 2016, Bannon claimed that Breitbart had become "the platform for the alt-right";[108][109] he may have been referring not to the website's official content but to its comments sectionwhich is lightly moderated and contains more extreme views than those of Breitbart itself. Several political scientists rejected the characterization of Breitbart as alt-right,[111] although press sources repeatedly described it as such,[112][113][114] and the journalist Mike Wendling termed Breitbart "the chief popular media amplifier of alt-right ideas".
In March 2016, the writers Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos published an article in Breitbart discussing the alt-right. They downplayed its most extreme elements and championed its counter-cultural value. Bokhari and Yiannopoulos' piece was subsequently widely cited in the mainstream press, with Hawley describing it as "the most sympathetic portrayal of the movement to appear in a major media venue to date". Many alt-rightists responded negatively to Bokhari and Yiannopoulos' article; The Daily Stormer referred to it as "the Product of a Degenerate Homosexual and an Ethnic Mongrel".
Many press sources subsequently termed Yiannopoulos "alt-right".[121][122] This was rejected both by Hawley, and by alt-rightists; on Occidental Dissent, Griffin asked: "What the hell does Milo Yiannopoulosa Jewish homosexual who boasts about carrying on interracial relationships with black menhave to do with us?" Other observers instead labeled Yiannopoulos "alt-light" or "alt-lite", a term also applied to rightists like Mike Cernovich and Gavin McInnes. McInnes clarified his understanding of the difference between the alt-right and alt-lite by explaining that while the former focused on the white race, the latter welcomed individuals of any racial background who shared its belief in the superiority of Western culture.
In June 2015, billionaire businessman Donald Trump announced plans to campaign to become the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election, attracting the interest of alt-rightists as well as from white nationalists more broadly, neo-Nazis, KKK groups, and the Patriot movement. Vocal in their support for Trump's campaign,[129][130][131][132] this cause energized the alt-right and gave them the opportunity for a broader audience. Niewert observed that "Trump was the gateway drug for the alt-right", with many individuals learning of the movement through their interest in Trump.
Ideologically, the alt-right remained "far to Trump's right", and Trump himself had little understanding of the movement. Many alt-rightists recognized that Trump did not share their white nationalism and would not bring about all the changes they desired; they nevertheless approved of his hard attitude to immigration, his calls for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., and for a wall to be built along the border with Mexico to curtail illegal immigration. They were grateful that he had shifted the national conversation rightward, and that he had shown that it was possible to challenge the mainstream conservative movement from the right. Griffin called on alt-rightists to "join the Trump campaign... to take down the hated cuckservative establishment".[note 2] A small minority of alt-rightists were against supporting Trump; The Right Stuff contributor "Auschwitz Soccer Ref" complained that two of Trump's children had married Jews.
A keen Twitter user, in November 2015 Trump retweeted a graphic about African-American crime statistics which included the white nationalist hashtag "#WhiteGenocide".[142] The alt-righter RamZPaul rejoiced, retweeting Trump's piece with the comment: "Trump watches and is influenced by the Alt Right". Over coming months, Trump retweeted a second tweet that had "#WhiteGenocide" as a hashtag as well as sharing other tweets issued by white supremacists.[145] The alt-right saw this as further evidence that Trump was their champion.
In August 2016, Trump appointed Bannon to lead his election campaign.[108][147] This was swiftly condemned in a Reno, Nevada speech given by the Democratic Party's nominee for the presidency, Hillary Clinton. She highlighted Bannon's claim that Breitbart was "the platform for the alt-right",[108] describing the movement as "an emerging racist ideology" and warning that "a fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party".[149][150][151] Attacking the alt-right as "racist ideas[...] anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women ideas", she accused Trump of taking them "mainstream".[152] Clinton said that while half of Trump's supporters were decent individuals "desperate for change", the other half represented a "basket of deplorables".
After Clinton's speech, traffic to alt-right websites rose and the mainstream media gave it increasing coverage;[154] Spencer and other alt-rightists were pleased, believing her speech gave them greater publicity and helped legitimize them in the public eye.[156] Many Trump supporters adopted the moniker of "deplorables", and the term was widely used on memes that the alt-right promoted online. In September, Spencer, Taylor, and Peter Brimelow held a press conference in Washington DC to explain their goals.[158][159]
When Trump won the election in November, the alt-right's response was generally triumphalist and self-congratulatory. Anglin stated: "Make no mistake about it: we did this. If it were not for us, it wouldn't have been possible"; Spencer tweeted that "The Alt-Right has been declared the winner... We're the establishment now".[162] Alt-rightists were generally supportive of Trump's decision to appoint Bannon his chief strategist,[164] and Jeff Sessions his attorney general.[166] While aware that Trump would not pursue a white nationalist agenda, the alt-right hoped to pull him further to the right, taking hardline positions that made him look more moderate, and thus shifting mainstream discourse rightward.
Wendling suggested that Trump's election signaled "the beginning of the end" for the alt-right, with the movement's growth stalling from that point. Celebrating Trump's victory, Spencer held a November meeting in Washington D.C. in which he stated that he thought that he had "a psychic connection, a deeper connection with Donald Trump, in a way we simply do not have with most Republicans". He ended the conference by declaring "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!", to which various attendees responded with Nazi salutes and chanting. This attracted significant press attention. When questioned on the incident, Spencer stated that the salutes were given "in a spirit of irony and exuberance".[170][171]
Later that month, Trump was asked about the alt-right in an interview with The New York Times. He responded: "I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group".[173] This rejection angered many alt-rightists.[174] In April 2017, many alt-rightists criticized Trump's order to launch the Shayrat missile strike against Syrian military targets; like many of those who had supported him, they believed he was going back on his promise of a more non-interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East.[175][176][177][178]
Hawley noted that the alt-right's influence on the Trump administration was "negligible". However, press sources alleged that several appointments within the Trump administration were linked to the alt-right, including Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller,[180] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn,[181] Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka,[182] Special Assistant to the President Julia Hahn,[183] and speechwriter Darren Beattie.[184] After Trump's election, the alt-right also supported the unsuccessful campaigns of several other Republicans, including Roy Moore.[185]Some Republican candidates who were alleged to have alt-right links also ran for office, among them Paul Nehlen,[186] Corey Stewart,[187][188]Josh Mandel, and Joe Arpaio.[189][190]
In 2016, Twitter began closing alt-right accounts it regarded as engaging in abuse or harassment; among those closed were the accounts of Spencer and his NPI.[192] In February 2017, Reddit then closed down the "r/altright" subreddit after its participants were found to have breached its policy prohibiting doxing.[194][195] Facebook followed by shutting down Spencer's pages on its platform in April 2018.[196] In January 2017, Spencer launched a new website, Altright.com, which combined the efforts of the Arktos publishing company and the Red Ice video and radio network.[198]
In August 2017, the Unite the Right rally took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, bringing together alt-rightists with members of other far-right movements. Many alt-rightists thought that the rally would mark a turning point in the transformation of their movement from an online phenomenon into a street-based one. At altright.com, editor Vincent Law for instance predicted before the event took place that "People will talk about Charlottesville as a turning point".[200] However, the event and its aftermath proved demoralizing for many in the movement.
Various violent acts took place at the rally. An African-American man, DeAndre Harris, was assaulted by demonstrators, while Richard W. Preston, an Imperial Wizard for the Maryland-based Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, fired a gun towards counter-protesters.[202][203] One participant in the rally, a 20-year-old from Ohio named James Alex Fields Jr., rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing 32-year old Heather D. Heyer and injuring 35 others.[204][205][206] Although Spencer condemned the killing, other alt-rightists celebrated it. Fields was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.[208][209] The car ramming incident brought much negative publicity to the event and its participants, earning the alt-right a reputation for violence.
Various commentators and politicians, including Sessions, labelled Fields' ramming attack "domestic terrorism".[212][213][214]Trump claimed that there were "some very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesville protests, stating that what he called the "alt-left" bore some responsibility for the violence. Spencer stated that he was "really proud" of the president for those comments. Amid criticism of his comments, Trump added his view that "racism is evil" and that "those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs".[216]
Various alt-rightists who attended the rally experienced personal and legal repercussions for their involvement; one attendee, the U.S. Marine Vasillios Pistolis, was for instance court-martialled.[218] Internet service providers and social media websites subsequently terminated many alt-right accounts and sites. Prominent figures like Spencer became reticent about organizing further public protests. He experimented with the use of flash demonstrations, returning to Charlottesville with a much smaller group for an unannounced protest in October.[219] Unite the Right exacerbated tensions between the alt-right and the alt-lite; Breitbart distanced itself from the alt-right, as did Yiannopoulos, who insisted he had "nothing in common" with Spencer.
The alt-right significantly declined in 2017 and 2018. This has happened for multiple reasons, including the backlash of the Unite the Right rally, the fracturing of the movement, more effective banishment of hate speech and harassment from major social media websites and widespread opposition by the American population.[223] In 2018, Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center described it as "imploding", while Marilyn Mayo of the Anti-Defamation League stated that the alt-right was in "a downward spiral, but it doesn't mean they're going to disappear".[224] That year, Heimbach was arrested for the battery of his wife and father-in-law, resulting in the dissolution of his Traditionalist Workers Party,[225][224] while Anglin went into hiding to avoid a harassment lawsuit, and Spencer canceled his speaking tour.[224] Writing for The Guardian, Jason Wilson stated that "the alt-right looks like it is crumbling".[226]
There has been widespread concern that as the chance of a large-scale political movement dies out, lone-wolf terrorist attacks from members will become common.[223] In 2017, terrorist attacks and violence affiliated with the alt-right and white supremacy were the leading cause of extremist violence in the United States.[227][228] Zack Beauchamp of Vox suggested that "other, more nakedly violent far-right movements have risen in its wake".[229] Several alt-right candidates ran as Republican candidates in the 2018 elections. The neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Arthur Jones ran for an Illinois congressional seat, the white supremacist Paul Nehlen for the Wisconsin seat of Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House,[230] and the neo-Nazi Patrick Little for the United States Senate election in California, 2018.[231][232] "Dissident right" is a term used by some groups within the alt-right to make white nationalism appear more mainstream or fun.[233][234] During October and November 2019, Turning Point USA's "Culture War" college tour was frequently targeted by the dissident right, led by Nick Fuentes, who consider some groups to be not sufficiently conservative on issues of race and ethnicity, immigration, and LGBTQ rights.[235]
The alt-right is situated on the far-right of the left-right political spectrum. It has no unifying manifesto and those who describe themselves as "alt-rightists" express varying views about what they want to achieve. There are nevertheless recurring attitudes within the movement. The alt-right's views are profoundly anti-egalitarian. It rejects many of the basic premises of the Age of Enlightenment and classical liberalism, including the liberal democracy which underpins the U.S. political system.[240] For this reason, Hawley thought that "the Alt-Right seems like a poor fit for the United States, where both the left and right have roots in classical liberalism and the Enlightenment." Similarly, the academic Thomas J. Main stated that the alt-right sought "a root-and-branch rejection of American political principles".[242]
The key division within the alt-right is between those who embrace explicitly neo-Nazi and white supremacist stances, and those white nationalists who present a more moderate image. Wendling suggested that this was "a distinction lacking a hugely significant difference". The white supremacist and neo-Nazi alt-rightists are sometimes termed "1488s", a combination of the white supremacist fourteen words slogan with 88, a coded reference to "HH", or "Heil Hitler". These neo-Nazi elements represent a minority within the alt-right. Many on the less extreme end of the movement are critical of them, believing that they "go too far" or generate bad publicity for it. Some of the latter mock the neo-Nazi and explicitly white supremacist elements as "Stormfags", a reference to the white supremacist website Stormfront.
The alt-right is a white nationalist movement, and is fundamentally concerned with white identity.[2] It views all political issues through the framework of race. Spencer described the alt-right as "identity politics for white Americans and for Europeans around the world",[251] while the alt-rightist Greg Johnson of CounterCurrents Publishing stated that "The Alternative Right means White Nationalism".[252] Not all alt-rightists actively embrace the term "white nationalist"; Spencer is among those who prefer to call themselves "identitarians". Main described the alt-right as promoting "white racialism",[240] while Hawley commented that the alt-right is, "at its core, a racist movement". Similarly, historian David Atkinson stated that the alt-right was "a racist movement steeped in white supremacist ideas". Attitudes to non-white people vary within the alt-right, from those who desire tighter restrictions on non-white immigration into the U.S., to those who call for a violent ethnic cleansing of the country.
Rejecting the idea that race is a socio-cultural construct, the alt-right promotes scientific racism, claiming that racial categories demarcate biologically distinct groups. They call this belief "race realism". A recurring tendency among alt-rightists is to rank these races on a hierarchy, according to perceived IQ. This hierarchy has Asians and Ashkenazi Jews at the top, followed by non-Jewish whites, then Arabs, and finally, black Africans. Several prominent alt-rightists, including Anglin and Spencer, have been romantically involved with women of Asian heritage.[256] Unlike earlier racist worldviews, such as those of the interwar fascists, the alt-right emphasizes the idea of racial difference above that of racial superiority, leaving the latter either implicit, or secondary, in its discourse. Most alt-rightists reject the label of "white supremacist".
Having analyzed alt-right posts online, the political scientists Joe Phillips and Joseph Yi noted that a pervasive underlying theme was the belief that white people were victims, and that white Americans had been disadvantaged by government policies, such as affirmative action for non-white groups, assistance to illegal immigrants, and the perceived denigration of "white history", like Christopher Columbus and the Confederate States of America. Alt-right online discourse also expressed much anger at the idea of white privilege, widely promoted by the American Left in the 2010s, with members citing job insecurity, under employment or unemployment, and growing mortality rates among whites as evidence that they do not lead privileged lives.
Many alt-rightists have expressed the desire to push white nationalist ideas into the Overton windowthe range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The alt-right has served as a bridge between white nationalism and traditional conservatism, and as a tool used by white nationalists to push their rhetoric into the mainstream.[259] On Twitter, alt-rightists, for instance, combined their white nationalist hashtags with others used by Trump supporters more broadly, notably #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, so as to spread their message across the broader political right.
The alt-right is typically white separatist, with its members desiring autonomy in their own white communities. Some envision breaking up the United States into multiple states, each inhabited by a different ethnic or racial group, one or more of which would represent white ethno-states. Writing in the Pacific Standard, journalist Jared Keller commented that this desire for an independent ethno-state was similar to anarcho-fascist ideas promoted by the British National Anarchist Movement.[262] Spencer compared his campaign for a white ethno-state with the early days of Zionism, which began in the 19th century with calls for the formation of a Jewish ethno-state, and resulted in the formation of Israel in the mid-20th century.
Many alt-rightists are unclear as to how a white ethno-state would emerge, but are content instead to promote the idea. Spencer commented "I don't know how we're going to get there, because the thing is, history will decide that for us... You have to wait for a revolutionary opportunity to present itself, and history will present that opportunity". He suggested that it could be achieved through "peaceful ethnic cleansing", with non-whites given financial incentives to leave. The prominent alt-rightist Greg Johnson suggested that it would come about after white nationalists became the dominant force in U.S. politics, at which point they would deport all illegal migrants, before encouraging all other people of color to emigrate.
Other alt-rightists are critical of the idea of breaking up the U.S. into ethno-states, arguing that this would mean destroying the country that their Euro-American ancestors built. They instead argue for restrictive immigration policies, to ensure that the U.S. retains its white majority.Some alt-rightists promote a pan-white empire spanning Europe and North America. Spencer noted that wanted his white ethno-state in North America to eventually form part of "a global empire" that could provide "a homeland for all white people", expanding its territory into the Middle East by conquering Istanbul, which in his words was "such a profoundly symbolic city. Retaking it, that would be a statement to the world".
Some elements of the alt-right are antisemitic, but others are tolerant of Jews.[7] Many in the alt-right believe that there is a Jewish conspiracy within the United States to achieve "white genocide", the elimination of white people as a racial group, and their replacement with non-whites. They believe that a Jewish cabal controls the U.S. government, media, and universities, and is pursuing its aim of white genocide by spreading anti-white tropes, and encouraging African-American civil rights groups. As evidence for this supposed white genocide, these far-right figures point to the depiction of inter-racial couples or mixed-race children on television, and the publication of articles discouraging women from having children early in life. They also cite apparent instances of white self-hatred, including Rachel Dolezal, an American woman of European descent who identifies as black.
This antisemitic conspiracy theory is not new to the alt-right, but has recurred among far-right groups in Western countries since the 19th century; it was the reason for the Holocaust and various anti-Semitic pogroms in European history. Andrew Anglin, one of the most prominent alt-right ideologues and a member of its neo-Nazi wing, stated "the core concept of the movement, upon which all else is based, is that Whites are undergoing an extermination, via mass immigration into White countries which was enabled by a corrosive liberal ideology of White self-hatred, and that the Jews are at the center of this agenda". Anglin stated that in the alt-right, "Many people also believe that the Jews should be exterminated".[275][276] Other alt-rightists, like Spencer, welcome the involvement of Jews within their movement.
The alt-right sought to hasten the downfall of U.S. conservatism, and conservatives were often the main target of alt-right wrath.The prominent alt-right ideologue Brad Griffin stated "Alt Right is presenting itself as a sleek new challenger to mainstream conservatism and libertarianism... Alt Right was designed to appeal to a younger audience who reject the Left, but who don't fit in on the stuffy or banal Right either". The alt-right places little emphasis on economic issues. Unlike mainstream U.S. conservatives, alt-rightists do not tend to favor laissez-faire economics, and most appear to support President Trump's protectionist economic measures.[282]
The alt-right also rejects what it regards as the left-wing dominance of modern Western society.Phillips and Yi noted that alongside "white identity politics", the alt-right promotes "a message of expressive transgression against left-wing orthodoxy ('political correctness')". Political correctness has been characterized as one of the alt-right's "bugbears"; Nicole Hemmer stated on NPR that political correctness is seen by the alt-right as "the greatest threat to their liberty".[285] Alt-rightists often employ the term "Cultural Marxism"originally coined in reference to a specific form of Marxist thought, popularised among the U.S. right-wing in the 1990sin reference to a perceived leftist conspiracy to alter society. They apply the term "Cultural Marxism" to a broad range of left movements.
Anglin claimed that the goal of the alt-right was to form an authoritarian government.[275][276]Writing in The New Yorker, the journalist Andrew Marantz claimed that neo-monarchists were among the alt-right.[287]The alt-right has no specific platform on U.S. foreign policy, although it has been characterized as being non-interventionist,[289] as well as isolationist.[290] Generally, it opposes established Republican Party views on foreign policy issues. Alt-rightists typically opposed President Bush's War on Terror policies, and spoke against the 2017 Shayrat missile strike.[289][290] The alt-right has no interest in spreading democracy abroad and opposes the United States' close relationship with Israel.
The alt-right often looks favorably on Russian President Vladimir Putin, viewing him as a strong, nationalistic white leader who defends his country from both radical Islam, and Western liberalism. Spencer praised Putin's Russia as the "most powerful white power in the world", while prominent alt-rightist Matthew Heimbach called Putin "the leader of the free world". Although during the Cold War, the American Right often presented the Soviet Union as the main threat to the U.S., links between the American far-right and Russia grew during the 2000s, when prominent far-right activists like David Duke visited the country; the latter described Russia as being "key to White survival". The far-right Russian political theorist Aleksandr Dugin is also viewed positively by the alt-right.[295] Dugin has written for Spencer's websites, and Spencer's estranged wife, the ethnically Russian Nina Kouprianova, has translated some of Dugin's work into English. Many alt-rightists also regard Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as a heroic figure for standing up to rebel groups in the Syrian Civil War. Heimbach has endorsed a Shi'ite axis between al-Assad's Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, seeing them as allies in the global struggle against Zionism.
Favoring a more patriarchal society, the alt-right is anti-feminist. Unlike many U.S. conservatives, the alt-right does not argue its anti-feminist position from traditional Christian perspectives, but claims that it is rooted in what it calls "sex realism", arguing that as a result of their biological differences, men and women are suited to different tasks in society. Lyons commented that the alt-right was misogynistic and presented women as irrational and vindictive. Although a minority in the movement, the alt-right has female members who support its anti-feminist stance;[300][301][302] some prominent alt-right women, such as Lauren Southern, have experienced harassment and abuse from within the movement.[301][300] The Daily Stormer, for instance, banned female contributors, and called for reduced female involvement in the white nationalist movement, producing an angry response from various white nationalist women. Within feminist circles, the alt-right's desired future was repeatedly compared to the Republic of Gilead, the fictional dystopia in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and its 2017 television adaptation.
The alt-right intersects with the manosphere, an online anti-feminist subculture, including the men's rights movement, which believes that men face more oppression in Western society than women. It adopts the movement's view that feminism has undermined and emasculated men, and believes that men should aggressively reassert their masculinity so as not to become "beta males" or "cucks". There has been some clear influence between the two movements; prominent manosphere ideologue Roosh V, for instance, attended an NPI conference, and quoted anti-Semitic material from white nationalist sources in his articles. Some alt-right figures have distanced themselves from the manosphere and its proponents; Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents Publishing was of the view that "the manosphere morally corrupts men", because it does not promote "the resurgence of traditional and biologically based sexual norms".
The alt-right displays far less interest in homosexuality and abortion than the U.S. conservative movement, with alt-rightists taking varying perspectives on these topics. Hawley suggested that the alt-right was more broadly sympathetic to legal abortion access than the conservative movement; many alt-rightists support abortion access, because of its disproportionate use by African-American and Hispanic-American women. Some on the alt-right consider homosexuality to be immoral and a threat to the survival of the white race, with alt-right trolls having employed homophobic terminology like "faggot".[310] Others adopt a more tolerant stance, and have praised gay white nationalists. This reflects a broader trend among white nationalists to denigrate gay culture, while being more tolerant of gay writers and musicians whose views they sympathize with, like James O'Meara, and Douglas Pearce.
The alt-right is broadly secular. Many of its members are atheists,[314] or highly skeptical of organized religion and God.[314] Some alt-rightists identify as Christians; The Right Stuff, for instance, hosted an alt-right Christian podcast called "The Godcast". There are also individuals in the movement who do not believe in Christian teachings but identify as cultural Christians, admiring the Christian heritage of Western society. Others on the alt-right oppose Christianity entirely, criticizing it for its Jewish roots, for being a universal religion that seeks to cross racial boundaries, and for encouraging what they see as a "slave morality" that they contrast with perceived ancient aristocratic values. Some elements pursue modern Paganism.[319] White evangelical leaders of the Southern Baptist Church have angered the alt-right by expressing support for refugees entering the U.S., calling for measures to help undocumented migrants gain legal status, and urging members not to display the Confederate Battle Flag. Despite this, alt-right hostility to Christianity has waned over time, with many alt-right commentators identifying as Christian, while rejecting mainstream Christian politics and most mainstream Christian religious leaders, especially Pope Francis. The Mormon-related hashtag #DezNat which targets pornography, the LGBTQ community, Mormon apostates and progressives, sometimes violently (see blood atonement) has also been linked to the alt-right.[322]
Several press sources have linked the alt-right to Islamophobia,[18][323][324] and Wendling stated that alt-rightists view Islam as a fundamental threat to Western society. Hawley expressed the view that "ironically, people on the Alt-Right are less Islamophobic than many mainstream conservatives". He observed that many U.S. conservatives criticized Muslim migration to the United States, because they regarded Islam as a threat to liberty; the alt-right has made little use of this argument. For alt-rightists, migration from Islamic-majority countries is undesirable not because the migrants are Muslims, but because most of them are non-white; it is equally opposed to non-white migrants who are Christian or non-religious.
Alt-right groups live, recruit and coordinate (and hence evolve) online. And from what we can already see, they do so pretty much exactly like the pro-ISIS groups evolve and coordinate, but Facebook has so far been less quick to shut them down.
Neil Johnson, extremist researcher[327]
The academic Timothy J. Main characterized it as an "ideological movement" interested more in spreading its ideas, rather than operating as a social movement or political party,[328] while according to Hawley, the alt-right was "a disorganized mob that broadly shares a number of goals and beliefs".The alt-right is not an organized movement, and has no formal institutions or leading elite. It is a predominantly online phenomenon, lacking print newspapers, and has little radio or television presence. It had no think tanks that influenced government policy, and could not command the open allegiance of any major politicians or mainstream pundits. Unlike many counter-cultural movements, it lacked soft power in the form of original bands, songs, films, and other cultural artifacts, of which it produced very few. According to Hawley, it was the movement's success in using the Internet that allowed it "to punch above its weight in the political arena".
The alt-right made use of a large number of blogs, podcasts, forums, and webzines, in which it discussed far-right political and cultural ideas. The use of the Internet by the far-right was not pioneered by the alt-right; the white supremacist web forum Stormfront had, for instance, been active since 1996. Where the alt-right differed was in its members willingness to leave far-right websites, and engage in trolling on other parts of the Internet, such as the comments sections of major news websites, as well as popular social media applications, such as YouTube, and Twitter. According to Hawley, it was the alt-right's use of trolling which put it "into the national conversation". The movement's online structure had strengths, in that it allowed members to say things anonymously online, that they would not be willing to say on the street, or any other public place. The lack of any formal organization also meant that nobody could be kicked out of the alt-right.
As the alt-right developed, a number of formal, real world events were held, particularly through the National Policy Institute. Members of the alt-right have also attended events organized by an older far-right white nationalist group, American Renaissance. These events have gained a more limited audience than the alt-right's online activities. This may be because operating online allows members of the alt-right to operate anonymously, while to attend events they must often expose themselves to journalists and protesters, thus making it more likely that their views will become publicly known. U.S. alt-rightists have also sought to build links with other far-right and white nationalist groups elsewhere in the world. Heimbach, for instance, addressed meetings of the Golden Dawn in Greece and the National Democratic Party of Germany. Various U.S.-based alt-rightists used social media to encourage support for the Alternative for Germany party in that country's 2017 federal election. The scholar Sitara Thobani argued for a convergence between the U.S. alt-right and Hindu nationalism in India.
Main argued that a characteristic of the alt-right was its use of vitriolic language, including "race-baiting, coarse ethnic humor, prejudicial stereotyping, vituperative criticism, and the flaunting of extremist symbols".[240] In The New Yorker, the journalist Benjamin Wallace-Wells noted that the alt-right sought to test "the strength of the speech taboos that revolve around conventional politicsof what can be said, and how directly";[129] members often made reference to freedom of speech when calling for their views to be heard in public discourse. Alt-rightists promoted their messages through Twitter hashtags such as "#WhiteGenocide", "#WhiteLivesMatter" and "#StandUpForEurope". A recurrent tactic of alt-rightists is to present themselvesas white menas victims of oppression and prejudice; this subverts many leftist arguments about other social groupings being victims and is designed to infuriate leftist opponents.
The alt-right also make heavy use of imagery drawn from popular culture for its own purposes. For instance, the American singer Taylor Swift is often held up as an idealized example of "Aryan" beauty. When describing their own conversion to the movement, alt-rightists refer to themselves as having been "getting red pilled", a reference to a scene in the 1999 film The Matrix in which Neo, the protagonist, chooses to discover the truth behind reality by consuming a red pill. On alt-right blogs and message boards, members often discuss how they were "red-pilled" originally. Members that encourage others to conceal their actual beliefs to more easily spread their messages refer to this tactic as "hiding one's power levels", in reference to a scene from the anime Dragon Ball Z.[344][345] Alt-rightists have also adopted milk as a symbol of their views; various members have used the words "Heil Milk" in their online posts while Spencer included an emoji of a glass of milk on his Twitter profile along with the statement that he was "very tolerant... lactose tolerant!" The animal studies scholar Vasile Stnescu suggested that this notion drew upon the 19th-century pseudoscientific idea that Northern Europeans had become biologically superior to many other human populations, because they consumed high quantities of milk and meat products.
The alt-right makes strong use of humor and irony. As noted by Nagle, the alt-right's use of humor renders it difficult to tell "what political views were genuinely held and what were merely, as they used to say, for the lulz". By presenting an image which was much less threatening than that of earlier white nationalist groups, the alt-right was able to attract people who would be willing to visit its websites but who would not have considered attending neo-Nazi or KKK events. As noted by Hawley, "whereas older white nationalists came across as bitter, reactionary, and antisocial, much of the Alt-Right comes across as youthful, light-hearted, and jovialeven as it says the most abhorrent things about racial and religious minorities". Members of the alt-right sometimes mocked the earnestness and seriousness of earlier white nationalists such as William Pierce.
Another of the tactics employed online by alt-rightists is to parody their leftist opponents. One American alt-rightist, for instance, created a Twitter account for a fictional individual whom they described as an "LGBTQ+ pansexual nonbinary POC transwoman" who was a "Journalist for BLM [Black Lives Matter]. Always stayin woke". Alt-rightists also orchestrated pranks, again, to cause alarm among opponents. For instance, during the 2016 presidential campaign, alt-rightists presented claims that they were plotting to send representatives posing as officials to voting booths, where they would suppress ethnic minority turnout. There was no such plot, but press sources like Politico presented these claims as fact. This tendency toward trolling rendered it difficult for journalists to learn more about the alt-right, because any members they talked to were willing to deceive them for their own amusement. Nagle argued that the alt-right had inherited a transgressive style descending from the Marquis de Sade in the 18th century, but that with the alt-right this "the transgressive anti-moral style" reached "its final detachment from any egalitarian philosophy of the left or Christian morality of the right".
The alt-right makes heavy use of memes,[358][359] adopting much of its "image- and humor-based culture", including its heavy use of memes, from the online subcultures active at 4chan, and later 8chan. These memes are used to try and influence public opinion. The prevalence of such memes in alt-right circles has led some commentators to question whether the alt-right is a serious movement rather than just an alternative way to express traditionally conservative beliefs,[358][129] with Chava Gourarie of the Columbia Journalism Review stating that provoking a media reaction to these memes is for some creators an end in itself.[8]
One of the most commonly used memes within the alt-right is Pepe the Frog.[362][363] The Pepe meme was created by artist Matt Furie in 2005 and over following years spread through the Internet, being shared by pop stars like Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry. By 2014, Pepe was one of the most popular online memes, used among far-right trolls on 4chan and from there adopted by the alt-right. After Trump tweeted a meme of Pepe as himself, and his son Donald Trump Jr. posted a Pepe meme shortly after, alt-righters and 4channers began spreading the meme with political intent. According to writer Gary Lachman, Pepe became "the unofficial mascot of the alt-right movement". The use of Pepe spawned the satirical worship of the Ancient Egyptian frog-headed deity Kek, as well as satirical nationalism of the nonexistent nation of "Kekistan".[367][368] "Clown World", a phrase used by the alt-right to express their distaste towards societies perceived to be too liberal or multiracial, is often used in conjunction with images of Pepe dressed like a clown, who they dub "Honkler".[369] Another alt-right mascot was Moon Man, an unofficial parody of McDonald's 1980s Mac Tonight character.[371][372] Alt-rightists posted videos to YouTube, in which Moon Man rapped to songs they had composed like "Black Lives Don't Matter" by a text-to-speech synthesizer.
The alt-right used specific terms for individuals outside the movement. Whites who were not part of the movement were called "normies"; homosexuals, and whites who socialized with people of color, were referred to as "degenerates". An alt-right acronym was "WEIRD", for "Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic people". Mainstream conservatives were denigrated as "cuckservatives", a portmanteau of "cuckold" and "conservative".[376][377][378] The term "cuckold" pertains to a man with an unfaithful wife; the alt-right saw this as analogous to the role of the U.S. conservative movement in assisting non-whites in the U.S.[note 3] Various terms were used for leftists. Those who expressed progressive views, particularly online, were characterized as "social justice warriors" (SJWs). Individuals who expressed leftist opinions on Tumblrand who alt-rightists often stereotyped as fat, ugly feministswere called "Tumblrinas". The term "snowflake", short for "special snowflake", was used as a pejorative for such individuals,[383] and in reference to leftist uses of "trigger warnings", alt-rightists expressed a desire to "trigger" leftists by upsetting them. Leftists who professed victim status while harassing or bullying others were labeled "crybullies", while leftists who were perceived to be stupid were labeled "libtards", a neologism of "liberal" and "retard". "NPC", derived from "Non-player characters" which are ubiquitous in video games, is used to disparage opponents of the alt-right by implying they are incapable of independent thought, and can only mindlessly repeat the same arguments and accusations against the alt-right.[386]
When referring to African-Americans, alt-rightists regularly employed the meme "dindu nuffin"a bastardization of "didn't do nothing"in reference to claims of innocence by arrested African-Americans. On this basis, alt-rightists referred to black people as "dindus".[387] Events involving black people were called "chimpouts", rhetorically linking them with chimpanzees. Alt-rightists also used memes to ironically support the Black Egyptian hypothesis, often using stereotypical African-American vernacular such as "We wuz kangz n shieet" ("We was kings and shit").[387] Following the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020, "jogger" was adopted by some members as an euphemism for "nigger" in reference to how Arbery was killed while jogging, and because both words sounded similar. Refugees were often referred to as "rapefugees", a reference to incidents like the 201516 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany, in which non-white refugees were reported to have sexually assaulted white women.Another meme the alt-right employed was to place triple parentheses around Jewish names; this started at The Right Stuff to highlight the presence of Jewish Americans in the media and academia.[392][387] One alt-rightist created a Google Chrome plug in that would highlight Jewish names online.
Alt-rightists often utilized older white nationalist slogans, such as the Fourteen Words: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children", that "Anti-racist is a code for anti-white", and that "Diversity is a code word for white genocide". From the latter, alt-rightists produced the hashtag reduction "#WhiteGenocide" for use on Twitter, highway billboards, and flyers. Also used was the slogan "It's OK to be white" as a way of expressing a supposed reverse racism towards white people by minorities.[398] The use of "Deus Vult!" and various other crusader iconography was employed to express Islamophobic sentiment.[399][400][401] Also apparent were "helicopter ride" memes, which endorse documented cases of leftists being dropped from helicopters by Chilean and Argentine juntas. Similarly, the term "Right-Wing Death Squad" (usually abbreviated as RWDS) also callbacks to the "helicopter ride" meme and to refer to far-right, fascist death squads.[387][402] Additional online features of the alt-right included references to Fashwave, a neo-fascist subgenre of electronic music microgenre vaporwave.[404]
Wendling noted that campaigns of abuse for political ends were "a classic alt-right tactic", while Hawley called the alt-right "a subset of the larger Internet troll culture". This trolling both contributed to creating racial discord, and generated press attention for the movement. Those most regularly targeted were Jewish journalists, mainstream conservative journalists, and celebrities who publicly criticized Trump. Such harassment was usually spontaneous rather than pre-planned, but in various cases, many alt-right trolls piled on once the harassment had begun. After criticizing Trump and the alt-right, the conservative journalist David A. Frenchwho is whitereceived much abuse referencing his white wife and adopted black daughter. Alt-right trolls sent him images of his daughter in a gas chamber, and repeatedly claimed that he liked to watch his wife have sex with "black bucks". As a result of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, the artist Arrington de Dionyso, whose murals are frequently displayed at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, also experienced abuse from the alt-right.[410][411] In 2017, a wave of threats began being made to Jewish Community Centers which some press sources attributed to the alt-right.[412] Another Jewish target was the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who was sent messages stating that he and his children "will go to the ovens".[8]
Not all targets were U.S. citizens. In what it called "Operation: Filthy Jew Bitch", The Daily Stormer encouraged its followers to send abuse to the British Member of Parliament (MP) Luciana Berger, who is Jewish; images sent to her featured a yellow star on her head, accompanied by the hashtag "Hitlerwasright". One UK-based alt-rightist was convicted for his involvement in the campaign.[414] In another instance, Anglin commented on the June 2016 murder of the British MP Jo Cox by a far-right activist, by saying that "Jo Cox was evil and she deserved to die. Her death was not a tragedy, it was justice". While celebrating violence, The Daily Stormer is cautious to remain on the legal side of U.S. incitement laws.
The alt-right's anonymized and decentralized nature makes it difficult to determine how many individuals are involved in it, or the demographic attributes of this membership. The movement's members are concentrated in the United States, but with participants present in other Anglophone countries, such as Canada, Britain, and Australia, as well as in parts of continental Europe. While acknowledging that the U.S. was "central" to the alt-right, Hermansson et al stressed that it was an "international phenomenon".
Alt-rightists have provided their own opinions on its numbers; in 2016, Anglin thought it had a "cohesive constituency" of between 4 million and 6 million people, while Griffin believed it had a core membership in the hundreds of thousands, with a larger range of sympathizers.[418] Main determined that, between September 2016 and February 2018, alt-right websites received a combined average of 1.1 million unique visitors per month, compared to 46.9 million unique visitors to broader right-wing sites, and 94.3 million for left-wing sites.[419] He deemed the size of the alt-right to be "miniscule".[420]
The alt-right is majority male,[300] although Hawley suggested that about 20% of its support might be female.[300] From the nature of the online discourse as well as the attendees of events organized by NPI and American Renaissance, Hawley believed that the majority of alt-right participants are younger on average than the participants of most previous American far-right groups. Wendling believed that a large portion of the alt-right were university students or recent graduates, many bearing a particular grudge against the political correctness encountered on campus; the alt-right ideologue Greg Johnson believed that the movement was attracting a higher percentage of better-educated Americans than prior white nationalist groups, due to declining opportunities and standards of living for graduates during the 2010s. Wendling also thought that alt-rightists tried to position themselves as "a cool posse of young intelligent kids" but that this was misleading. He determined that many of those active on alt-right forums were middle-aged men from working-class backgrounds.
On interviewing young alt-rightists, Hawley noted that many revealed that they embraced far-right politics in response to the growing racial polarization of the Obama era; in particular, the public debates around the shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Hawley suggested that many of these young people were willing to embrace the idea of dismantling the United States in favor of a new, white ethno-state, because they had grown up in the U.S. during the post-civil rights era. In contrast, he thought, older white nationalists were keener to retain links to patriotic American imagery, because they nostalgically recalled a period of U.S. history when segregation and overt white dominance were a part of life, and believed that this system could be reinstated. The psychologists Patrick S. Forscher and Nour S. Kteily conducted a study of 447 self-identified alt-right members, and found that they had higher rates of dark triad traits than non-Trump supporters.[428] Forscher and Kteily also noted that the alt-rightists' psychological profiles bore similarities to those of Trump supporters more broadly, although displayed greater optimism about the economy, a higher bias against black people, and a higher rate of support for white collective action than other Trump supporters.
The political scientist Philip W. Gray cited several reasons for the alt-right's emergence. In his analysis, new online media had reduced the conservative movement's ability to enforce its boundaries against the far-right, while the growing distance of World War II meant that pride in the U.S. victory over Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy provided less of a barrier to the American far-right, than it had when large numbers of people still remembered the conflict. Gray also argued that the alt-right was a reaction against the left-wing racial and social agitation of the 2010s, in particular the Black Lives Matter movement, and the popularization of concepts like white privilege and male privilege, as well as events like the racial unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson, and the shooting of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.
The scholar of American studies Annie Kelly argued that the alt-right was influenced by a pervasive "discourse of anxiety about traditional white masculinity" in mainstream U.S. culture. In her view, much of the "groundwork" for this discourse was set forth by the conservative movement, in the years following the September 11 attacks in 2001. Hawley concurred that some U.S. conservatives, such as Ann Coulter, had contributed to the alt-right's rise through their attacks on political correctness, as part of which they had "effectively delegitimized complaints about hate speech and racism". Some conservatives, like columnist Matt K. Lewis, have agreed with this assessment.
Drawing comparisons with the tale of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the commentator Angela Nagle also suggested that "the hysterical liberal call-out" culture of the 2010s, in which "everyone from saccharine pop stars to Justin Trudeau [was called] a 'white supremacist' and everyone who wasn't With Her a sexist" made it more difficult for people to recognize when a far-right movement really emerged online. Disagreeing with Nagle's view that the alt-right was primarily a "response to the stupidity of marginal Internet liberalism", the anti-fascist reporter Jay Firestonewho had spent three months undercover in New York's alt-right communityinstead argued that it was a "response to decades of decline in standards of living for working people, amid the proliferation of unemployment and meaningless, dead-end jobs".[435]
"The sprawling networks the alt-right has built around its poisonous, racist ideology have violence at its core in its pursuit of a white ethnostate. The white, male grievance culture that the leaders of the alt-right are incubating has already inspired more than 40 deaths and left more than 60 people injured.
And unfortunately, the alt-right seems likely to inspire more, as it moves further into the real world. Its leaders continue to abdicate all responsibility for the violence their ideology inspires and are becoming increasingly recalcitrant in the face of widespread condemnation.
... After a year [2017] of escalating alt-right violence, we are probably in for more".
The Southern Poverty Law Center, 2018[436]
In 2017, Hawley noted that the alt-right was not a violent movement, but that this could potentially change. From their analysis of online discourse, Phillips and Yi concluded that "rather than violence, most Alt-Right members focus on discussing and peacefully advocating their values". They added that presenting the alt-right as a violent, revolutionary movement, or equating all alt-rightists with the 1488 scenewhich was a "rhetorical tactic" for progressiveswas "an intellectual failure akin to treating all Muslims or black nationalists as radicals and terrorists".
Conversely, Wending noted that there were individuals on the extreme end of the alt-right willing to use violence. He stated that "the culture of the alt-right is breeding its own brand of terrorists: socially isolated young men who are willing to kill". The alt-right movement has been considered by some political researchers a terrorist movement and the process of alt-right radicalization has been compared to Islamic terrorism by political scientists and leaders.[440][441][442][443][444] A paper on the subject stated that it clearly fell under an extremist movement, saying that "alt-right adherents also expressed hostility that could be considered extremist: they were quite willing to blatantly dehumanize both religious/national outgroups and political opposition groups".[445]
In February 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center assembled a list of 13 violent incidents between 2014 and 2018 perpetrated by alt-right influenced people, in which 43 people died and 67 people were injured. The perpetrators of these events were all male between the ages of 17 and 37, with an average age of just over 25 years old (only three of them were over 30). All but one was American; the other was Canadian.[436] Dylann Roof spent much time reading alt-right websites before carrying out the 2015 Charleston church shooting. However, he took greater interest in older white nationalist writers and groups, like the Council of Conservative Citizens and the Northwest Front. In December 2017, the 21-year old William Edward Atchison shot dead two students at Aztec High School in Aztec, New Mexico before killing himself. Atchison's online activity had included posting pro-Hitler and pro-Trump thoughts on alt-right websites like The Daily Stormer, under such usernames as "Future Mass Shooter" and "Adam Lanza", and joking about school shootings, in particular the Columbine High School massacre.[448][449]
An alt-righter named Taylor Wilson, who had attended the Unite the Right Rally, was charged with attempting a terror attack on an Amtrak train in October 2017. It was reported that he held a business card from the American-based neo-Nazi political party National Socialist Movement.[450] In October 2018, Robert Bowers opened fire on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 and injuring 6. He was a member of a fringe social network called Gab, where he posted a message indicating an immediate intent to harm just prior to the shooting; Bowers had a history of extreme antisemitic postings on Gab.[451] The website is a favorite of alt-right users who are banned or suspended from other social networks.[452][453]In August 2019, the self-described alt-right member James Patrick Reardon of New Middleton, Ohio was arrested, accused of threatening violence against local Jewish communities; an arsenal, or weaponry, was found in his home.[454][455]
Various far-right militant groups have been linked with the alt-right. The Rise Above Movement (RAM), based in Southern California, has been linked to various violent acts, including participation in the Unite the Right rally. According to Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, RAM constituted "an alt-right street-fighting club".[456] Several press sources also described the Atomwaffen Division, a militant neo-Nazi group founded in the U.S. in 2013, as being part of the alt-right.[457][458] The group was responsible for five murders, several of which were of other alleged group members.[459] Far-right groups outside the U.S. have also been influenced by the alt-right. The Stawell-Times News noted that Antipodean Resistance, an Australian neo-Nazi group, had links to the alt-right online subculture.[460] The group, which makes use of Nazi symbols such as the swastika and the Nazi salute, has explicitly called for the legalization of the murder of Jews.[461][462] The group was initially involved in vandalism and organizing training camps, although various commentators warned that it might turn to terrorism, and should be proscribed.[463]
Hawley thought that, because of its use of novel tactics not previously used by the far-right, "the Alt-Right represents something genuinely new on the American political scene", while Main believed that the alt-right represented "the first new philosophical competitor in the West" to the liberal democratic system since the fall of the Soviet Union.[240] Lyons stated that the alt-right "helped revitalize White nationalist and male supremacist politics in the United States", while according to Niewert, the alt-right gave white nationalism "a fresh new life, rewired for the twenty-first century". Kelly noted that while it was "important not to overstate" the size of the alt-right, its success lay primarily in its dissemination of far-right ideas and in making anti-leftist rhetoric more acceptable in mainstream discourse.
A December 2016 Pew Research Center survey found 54% of U.S. adults had heard "nothing at all" about the alt-right, 28% had heard "a little", and 17% "a lot".[466] A poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found that 10% of respondents supported the alt-right, to 50% who opposed it. An Ipsos and Reuters poll found 6% of respondents supported the movement. Such polls indicate that while millions of Americans are supportive of the alt-right's message, they remain a clear minority.
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Kevin MacDonald (evolutionary psychologist) – Wikipedia
American psychologist and white supremacist
Kevin B. MacDonald (born January 24, 1944) is an American antisemitic conspiracy theorist,[1][2][3] white supremacist,[4][5][6] and retired professor of evolutionary psychology at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).[7][8] In 2008, the CSULB academic senate voted to disassociate itself from MacDonald's work.[9][10]
MacDonald is known for his promotion of an antisemitic theory, most prominently within The Culture of Critique series, according to which Western Jews have tended to be politically liberal and involved in politically or sexually transgressive social, philosophical, and artistic movements, because Jews have biologically evolved to undermine the societies in which they live.[11][12][7] In short, MacDonald argues that Jews have evolved to be highly ethnocentric, and hostile to the interests of white people. In an interview with Tablet magazine in 2020, MacDonald said: "Jews are just gonna destroy white power completely, and destroy America as a white country."[13]
Scholars characterize MacDonald's theory as a tendentious form of circular reasoning, which assumes its conclusion to be true regardless of empirical evidence. The theory fails the basic test of any scientific theory, the criterion of falsifiability, because MacDonald refuses to provide or acknowledge any factual pattern of Jewish behavior that would tend to disprove his idea that Jews have evolved to be ethnocentric and anti-white.[14] Other scholars in his field dismiss the theory as pseudoscience analogous to older conspiracy theories about a Jewish plot to undermine European civilization.[15]
MacDonald's theories have received support from antisemitic conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazi groups.[16][17] He serves as editor of The Occidental Observer,[1][18] which he says covers "white identity, white interests, and the culture of the West".[18] He is described by the Anti-Defamation League as having "become a primary voice for anti-Semitism from far-right intellectuals"[19] and by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "the neo-Nazi movement's favorite academic".[11] He has been described as part of the alt-right movement.[20] By 2010, MacDonald was one of the eight members of the board of directors of the newly founded American Third Position (known from 2013 as the American Freedom Party),[11] an organization stating that it "exists to represent the political interests of White Americans".[21]
MacDonald claims a suite of traits he attributes to Jews, including higher-than-average verbal intelligence and ethnocentricism, have culturally evolved to enhance their ability to outcompete non-Jews for resources. MacDonald believes Jews have used this purported advantage to scheme to advance Jewish group interests and end potential antisemitism by either deliberately or inadvertently undermining the power of the European-derived Christian majorities in the Western world.[22][23][24]
MacDonald was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin to a Roman Catholic family.[25] His father was a policeman and his mother was a secretary. He attended Catholic parochial schools and played basketball in high school. He entered the University of WisconsinMadison as a philosophy major and became involved in the anti-war movement, which brought him into contact with Jewish student activists.[25]
Between 1970 and 1974, he worked towards becoming a jazz pianist, spending two years in Jamaica, where he taught high school.[26][bettersourceneeded] By the late 1970s, he had left that career.
MacDonald is the author of seven books on evolutionary theory and child development and is the author or editor of over 30 academic articles in refereed journals. He received his B.A. from the University of WisconsinMadison in 1966, and M.S. in biology from the University of Connecticut in 1976. In 1981, he earned a PhD in biobehavioral sciences from the University of Connecticut, where his adviser was Benson Ginsburg, a founder of modern behavioral genetics. His thesis was on the behavioral development of wolves[13] and resulted in two publications.[27]
MacDonald completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Ross Parke in the psychology department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983. MacDonald and Parke's work there resulted in three publications.[28]
MacDonald joined the Department of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach (CSU-LB) in 1985, and became a full professor in 1995. He announced his retirement at the end of 2014.[29]
MacDonald served as Secretary-Archivist of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society and was elected as a member of the executive board from 1995 to 2001. He was editor of Population and Environment from 1999 to 2004, working with Virginia Abernethy, the previous editor, who he persuaded to join the editorial board, along with J. Philippe Rushton, both "intellectual allies" according to the SPLC.[25] He is an associate editor of the journal Sexuality & Culture and makes occasional contributions to VDARE, a website focused on opposition to immigration to the United States and classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[30]
MacDonald wrote a trilogy of books analyzing Judaism and secular Jewish culture from the perspective of evolutionary psychology: A People That Shall Dwell Alone (1994), Separation and Its Discontents (1998), and The Culture of Critique (1998). He proposes that Judaism is a group evolutionary strategy to enhance the ability of Jews to outcompete non-Jews for resources. Using the term "Jewish ethnocentrism", he argues that Judaism fosters in Jews a series of marked genetic traits, including above-average verbal intelligence and a strong tendency toward collectivist behavior, as manifested in a series of influential intellectual movements. MacDonald says that not all Jews in all circumstances display the traits he identifies.[24] Separation and Its Discontents contains a chapter entitled "National Socialism as an Anti-Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy". Heidi Beirich of the SPLC in 2007 wrote that MacDonald argues that Nazism emerged as a means of opposing, to use his term, "Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy". He contends Jewish "group behavior" created understandable hatred for Jews. Thus in MacDonald's opinion, writes Beirich:
"anti-Semitism, rather than being an irrational hatred for Jews, is actually a logical reaction to Jewish success. In other words, the Nazis, like many other anti-Semites, were only anti-Semitic because they were countering a genuine Jewish threat to their well-being."[25]
MacDonald published a series of three articles in The Occidental Quarterly on the alleged similarities between neoconservatism and other movements that he claims are Jewish-dominated. He argues that "Taken as a whole, neoconservatism is an excellent illustration of the key traits behind the success of Jewish activism: ethnocentrism, intelligence and wealth, psychological intensity, and aggressiveness."[24]
MacDonald testified in the unsuccessful libel suit brought by the Holocaust denier David Irving against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, the only witness for Irving who spoke on his behalf willingly.[31] Irving said MacDonald would need to be on the witness stand for three days, but his testimony only lasted a few hours.[32] MacDonald was asked by Irving, who served as his own defence counsel, if he (Irving) was an anti-Semite, an idea MacDonald rejected: "I have had quite a few discussions with you and you almost never mentioned Jews - never in the general negative way."[33] He was asked by the plaintiff if he "perceived the Jewish community as working in a certain way in order to suppress a certain book" and responded in the affirmative, asserting there were "several tactics the Jewish organizations have used."[11] MacDonald was quoted as saying he was an "agnostic" in regards to the Holocaust, though he denied the accuracy of the quote.[25][34]
Deborah Lipstadt's lawyer Richard Rampton thought MacDonald's testimony on behalf of Irving was so unsatisfactory that he did not cross examine him.[32][35] MacDonald later commented in an article for the Journal of Historical Review, published by the Institute for Historical Review, a Holocaust-denying organisation, that Lipstadt and Jewish groups were attempting to restrict access to Irving's work because it was against Jewish interests and agenda.[1][25] On the Holocaust itself, MacDonald later said that "he ha[d] never doubted the Holocaust took place, but because he ha[d] not studied its history he describe[d] himself as an 'agnostic' on the subject."[34]
At the time of its release, A People That Shall Dwell Alone received mixed reviews from scholars, although his subsequent books were less well received.
John Tooby, the founder of MacDonald's field of evolutionary psychology, criticized MacDonald in an article for Salon in 2000. He wrote, "MacDonald's ideasnot just on Jewsviolate fundamental principles of the field." Tooby posits that MacDonald is not an evolutionary psychologist.[25]
MacDonald has been accused by some academics in Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization of employing racial "techniques of scapegoating [that] may have evolved in complexity from classical Nazi fascism, but the similarities are far from remote."[36]
Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, wrote that MacDonald's work fails "basic tests of scientific credibility."[11] Pinker, while acknowledging that he had "not plowed through MacDonald's trilogy and therefore run the complementary risks of being unfair to his arguments, and of not refuting them resoundingly enough to distance them from my own views on evolutionary psychology", states that MacDonald's theses are unable to pass the threshold of attention-worthiness or peer-approval, and contain a "consistently invidious portrayal of Jews, couched in value-laden, disparaging language".[37][38]
Reviewing MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents in 2000, Chair of Jewish Studies Zev Garber writes that MacDonald works from the assumption that the dual Torah is the blueprint of the eventual Jewish dominion over the world, and that he sees contemporary anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and attacks against Israel as "provoked by Jews themselves." Garber concludes that MacDonald's "rambling who-is-who-isn't roundup of Jews responsible for the 'Jewish Problem' borders on the irrational and is conducive to misrepresentation."[12][39]
In 2001, David Lieberman, a Holocaust researcher at Brandeis University, wrote "Scholarship as an Exercise in Rhetorical Strategy: A Case Study of Kevin MacDonald's Research Techniques", a paper in which he notes that one of MacDonald's sources, Jaff Schatz, objected to how MacDonald used his writings to further his premise that Jewish self-identity validates anti-Semitic sentiments and actions. "At issue, however, is not the quality of Schatz's research, but MacDonald's use of it, a discussion that relies less on topical expertise than on a willingness to conduct close comparative readings", Lieberman wrote.[40] Lieberman accused MacDonald of dishonestly using lines from the work of Holocaust denier David Irving. Citing Irving's Uprising, published in 1981 for the 25th anniversary of Hungary's failed anti-Communist revolution in 1956, MacDonald asserted in the Culture of Critique:
The domination of the Hungarian communist Jewish bureaucracy thus appears to have had overtones of sexual and reproductive domination of gentiles in which Jewish males were able to have disproportionate sexual access to gentile females.
Lieberman, who said that MacDonald is not a historian, debunked those assertions, concluding, "(T)he passage offers not a shred of evidence that, as MacDonald would have it, 'Jewish males enjoyed disproportionate sexual access to gentile females.'"[41]
While most academics have not engaged MacDonald on his views about Judaism, Nathan Cofnas of the University of Oxford published a negative critique of MacDonald in the journal Human Nature in 2018. Cofnas argued contra Pinker that scholars needed to critically engage with MacDonald's work, in part because it had proved "enormously" influential among anti-Semites. Cofnas's own conclusion was that MacDonald's work relied upon "misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts" and that the "evidence actually favors a simpler explanation of Jewish overrepresentation in intellectual movements involving Jewish high intelligence and geographic distribution."[14]
In an April 2018 commentary in The Wall Street Journal, political scientist Abraham Miller wrote that MacDonald's theories about Jews were "the philosophical and theoretical inspiration" behind the slogan "Jews will not replace us" used at the 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally.[42]
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claims of MacDonald that "he put the anti-Semitism under the guise of scholarly work... Kevin MacDonald's work is nothing but gussied-up anti-Semitism. At base it says that Jews are out to get us through their agenda... His work is bandied about by just about every neo-Nazi group in America."[43]
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) includes MacDonald in its list of American extremists, "Extremism in America", and wrote a report[44] on MacDonald's views and ties. According to the ADL, his views on Jews mimic those of anti-Semites from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[45]
Heidi Beirich wrote in an SPLC Intelligence Report in April 2007:
"Not since Hitler's Mein Kampf have anti-Semites had such a comprehensive reference guide to what's 'wrong with Jews.' His work is widely advertised and touted on white supremacist websites and sold by neo-Nazi outfits like National Vanguard Books, which considers them 'the most important books of the last 100 years.'"[25]
MacDonald claims the SPLC has misrepresented and distorted his work.[46]
A California State University (CSULB) spokeswoman stated, "The university will support MacDonald's academic freedom and freedom of speech." MacDonald was initially pressured to post a disclaimer on his website: "nothing on this website should be interpreted to suggest that I condone white racial superiority, genocide, Nazism, or Holocaust denial. I advocate none of these and strongly dissociate myself and my work from groups that do. Nor should my opinions be used to support discrimination against Jews or any other group."[47] He has since removed that disclaimer. In addition, the Psychology Department in 2006 issued three statements: a "Statement on Academic Freedom and Responsibility in Research,"[48] a "Statement on Diversity,"[48] and a "Statement on Misuse of Psychologists' Work."[48]
A spokeswoman for CSULB, said that at least two classes a year taught by all professorsincluding MacDonaldhave student evaluations, and that some of the questions on those evaluations are open-ended, allowing students to raise any issue. "Nothing has come through" to suggest bias in class, she said. "We don't see it."[49] Jonathan Knight, who handles academic freedom issues for the American Association of University Professors said if there are no indications that MacDonald shares his views in class, "I don't see a basis for an investigation" into what goes on in his courses.[49]
Late in 2006, a report issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center after an on-campus investigation labelled his work anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi propaganda, and described increasing concern about Macdonald's views by CSULB faculty members.[50] In late 2007, California State UniversityLong Beach's Department of Psychology began the process of formally disassociating itself from MacDonald's views on Judaism, which in some cases are "used by publications considered to publicize neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology." The department's move followed a discussion of MacDonald's December forum presentation at a meeting of the department's advisory committee that concerned his ethics and methodologies.[50]
In April 2007, a colleague of MacDonald's, Martin Fiebert,[51] criticized MacDonald for "bigotry and cultural insensitivity", and called it "troubling" that MacDonald's work was being cited by white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations.[16]
In an e-mail sent to the college's Daily Forty-Niner newspaper, MacDonald said that he had already pledged not to teach about race differences in intelligence as a requirement for teaching his psychology class, and expressed that he was "not happy" about the disassociation. The newspaper reported that in the email, MacDonald confirmed that his books contained what the paper described as "his claims that the Jewish race was having a negative effect on Western civilization."[50] He said in an interview posted on his website by February 2008 that he had been the victim of "faculty e-mail wars" and "tried to defend myself showing that what I was doing was scientific and rational and reasonable and people have not responded."[52]
The Department of Psychology voted to release an April 23, 2008 statement saying, "We respect and defend his right to express his views, but we affirm that they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the Department." The department expressed particular concern that "Dr. MacDonald's research on Jewish culture does not adhere to the Department's explicitly stated values."[53]
On May 5, the school's academic senate issued a joint statement disassociating the school from MacDonald's anti-Semitic views, including specific statements from the Psychology department, the History department, the Anthropology department, the Jewish Studies program, and the Linguistics department. The statement concludes: "While the Academic Senate defends Dr. Kevin MacDonald's academic freedom and freedom of speech, as it does for all faculty, it firmly and unequivocally disassociates itself from the anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views he has expressed."[54]
The senate considered but rejected the use of the word "condemns" in the statement.[10]
MacDonald has contributed to The Occidental Quarterly on many occasions, a publication of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank.[11] The Occidental Quarterly was described by the Anti-Defamation League in 2012 as "a racist print publication that mimics the look and style of academic journals."[55] The Occidental Quarterly published MacDonald's monograph, Understanding Jewish Influence: A Study in Ethnic Activism, in 2004.[11] Journalist Max Blumenthal reported in a 2006 article for The Nation that the work "has turned MacDonald into a celebrity within white nationalist and neo-Nazi circles."[56]
In October 2004, MacDonald accepted the Jack London Literary Prize of $10,000 from The Occidental Quarterly; the SPLC states it is a white supremacist organization.[25] In his acceptance speech, he opined: "The best way to preserve ethnic interests is to defend an ethnostatea nation that is explicitly intended to preserve the ethnic interests of its citizens." According to MacDonald, one of the functions of such a state would be to exclude non-European immigrants who are attracted to the state by its wealth and prosperity. At the conclusion of his speech, he remarked:
The alternative faced by Europeans throughout the Western world is to place themselves in a position of enormous vulnerability in which their destinies will be determined by other peoples, many of whom hold deep historically conditioned hatreds toward them. Europeans' promotion of their own displacement is the ultimate foolishnessan historical mistake of catastrophic proportions.[57]
In November 2016, MacDonald was a keynote speaker at an event hosted in Washington, D.C. by the National Policy Institute, which NPR described as a "white nationalist think tank"[58] led by Richard B. Spencer.[59] The event concluded with Spencer leading the chant, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory."[58]
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised MacDonald's work on his website.[25][60] MacDonald has appeared on Duke's radio program on multiple occasions, saying he agrees with the "vast majority" of Duke's statements.[61]
When MacDonald won his award from The Occidental Quarterly, the ceremony was attended by David Duke; Don Black, the founder of white supremacist site Stormfront; Jamie Kelso, a senior moderator at Stormfront; and the head of the neo-Nazi National Vanguard, Kevin Alfred Strom. In 2005, Kelso told The Occidental Report that he was meeting up with MacDonald to conduct business. MacDonald is featured in the Stormfront member Brian Jost's anti-immigration film, The Line in the Sand, where he "blam[ed] Jews for destroying America by supporting immigration from developing countries."[25]
In January 2010, it became known that MacDonald had accepted a position as one of the eight members of the board of directors of the newly founded American Third Position (known from 2013 as the American Freedom Party),[11] which states that it "exists to represent the political interests of White Americans".[21] A statement on their website reads, "If current demographic trends persist, European-Americans will become a minority in America in only a few decades time. The American Third Position will not allow this to happen. To safeguard our identity and culture, and to secure an American future for our people, we will immediately put an indefinite moratorium on all immigration."[62]
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Grimes says she couldn’t afford house without Elon Musk’s help
Singer Grimes raised eyebrows after claiming she simply couldnt afford to buy a house without ex Elon Musks financial help.
The Genesis hitmaker, who shares two children with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, took to Twitter on Monday to ask her followers to join her in petitioning against rising house prices in Texas.
My fellow Texans! Petitions can feel useless but I guarantee local politicians are taking these seriously, she tweeted.
Plz sign to reduce housing costs in Austin. Theres effective legislation on the table here but we need public support.
But despite her good intentions, some followers criticized the singer for petitioning for something that they claimed didnt affect her.
Grimes you are set, your opinion on the housing market is invalid, wrote one Twitter user.
It wasnt long before the mom-of-two responded, writing, First of all I couldnt afford to buy a house that fits my kids in Austin atm without help from their dad which is INSANE cuz Im a p[retty] successful artist.
Secondly, these arent my opinions, Ive just agreed to help out some actual experts/ policy makers, she added.
The critic doubled-down, adding, Thats what Im meaning, their dad will help and get it done. Youre set.
It seems as though Grimes isnt the only one Musk supports financially.
The billionaire recently revealed that he and his brother, Kimbal, have provided financial backingfor their father Errolsince he ran out of money decades ago.
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Grimes says she couldn't afford house without Elon Musk's help
Grimes shares rare photo of her and Elon Musk’s daughter Exa
Grimes is giving fans a rare glimpse of her and Elon Musks 9-month-old daughter, Exa.
The singer, 34, posted a photo via Twitter Sunday of the toddler wearing a black onesie and pink headband.
My daughter is dancing to techno over this copy of the birth of tragedy by nietzsche, she wrote. what a queen.
Grimes and the SpaceX founder, 51, also share 2-year-old son X AE A-XII.
While the Juno Award winner announced her first pregnancy in early 2020, she kept Exas arrival via surrogate under wraps until three months after the infant was born in December 2021.
Shes a little colicky, Grimes told Vanity Fair in March, noting that she and Musk call the newborn Y. I dont know what I was thinking [trying to hide her].
Although the on-again, off-again couple were fluid at the time of the interview, the musician clarified that she had split from the Tesla CEO by the time the story was published.
Me and E have broken up *again* since the writing of this article haha, but hes my best friend and the love of my life, and my life and art are forever dedicated to The Mission now, she tweeted.
Four months later, news broke that Musk had secretly welcomed twins with his Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis in November 2021.
Musk confirmed the news to Page Six exclusively in July, saying, Bravo to big families. [I want] as many as I am able to spend time with and be a good father [to].
Musk is also the father of twins Vivian and Griffin, 18, and triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian, 16, with his ex-wife Justine Musk.
In April, Vivian filed to legally change her name and gender, citing the reason as gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.
The teenagers request was granted two months later.
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Grimes shares rare photo of her and Elon Musk's daughter Exa
Grimes – IMDb
Claire Elise Boucher (born March 17, 1988), better known by the stage name Grimes, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer and music video director. Born and raised in Vancouver, she first became involved with the underground music scene and began recording her own experimental music while attending McGill University in Montreal.
Boucher released the studio albums Geidi Primes and Halfaxa through Arbutus Records in 2010, and signed a secondary recording contract with 4AD in 2011. Her third studio album Visions (2012) and its singles "Genesis" and "Oblivion" received widespread critical acclaim; it was hailed as "one of the most impressive albums of the year so far" by The New York Times was nominated for the Polaris Prize, and received the Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year. Her fourth studio album Art Angels was released in 2015 and has since become her highest-charting project in the United States peaking at number 36.
Grimes' music has been noted by critics and journalists for its atypical combination of vocal elements, as well as a wide array of influences across electronica and pop, hip hop and R&B, experimental and medieval music. In 2013, Grimes was awarded the Webby Award for Artist of the Year.
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