Alt-America Reveals the Forces That Revived the Radical Right and Imperil Our Democracy
Rachel Janik interviews David Niewert about his new book
Typically, people in the radical right constantly are warring with each other. That has to do with the kind of personalities the movement attracts. They are contentious, paranoid, overly suspicious and extremely egotistical. Our country has been lucky in terms of the radical right because of that.
Unfortunately, our luck ran out with Donald Trump. It became very clear by late 2015 that he was successfully coalescing all these radical right movements under a single banner, and they all had somebody to root for.
Describe what you mean by “Alt-America.”
“Alt-America” is a term that I coined because I realized we had this epistemological bubble. I actually think we’re reaching an epistemic crisis in this country because of it. This bubble was created back in the 1990s, or at least that was when I observed it. I was writing about militias and it was clear they created this alternative universe for themselves, where up is down and right is wrong, and the New World Order is secretly conspiring to enslave us all.
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