The editors over at ThinkProgress want you to know something: they ain’t gonna use euphemisms or sugarcoat the truth like a few of their fellow media entities are. They are going to call racists and Neo-Nazis—like Richard Spencer and Steve Bannon—what they are: racists and Neo-Nazis. It doesn’t matter that Spencer and Bannon are now being helped by some of the most powerful broadcast companies on the planet to polish up their image and deny that “alt-right” is a white supremacist media platform. They’re kicking the term “alt-right” to the curb, down into the alley, and up into a garbage bin.
Spencer and Bannon are of course free to describe themselves however they’d like, but journalists are not obliged to uncritically accept their framing. A reporter’s job is to describe the world as it is, with clarity and accuracy. Use of the term “alt-right,” by concealing overt racism, makes that job harder.
With that in mind, ThinkProgress will no longer treat “alt-right” as an accurate descriptor of either a movement or its members. We will only use the name when quoting others. When appending our own description to men like Spencer and groups like [the National Policy Institute], we will use terms we consider more accurate, such as “white nationalist” or “white supremacist.”
“White nationalist” refers to a specific ideology held by many of those who adopt the “alt-right” label. A white nationalist is someone who believes the United States should be governed by and for white people, and that national policy should radically advance white interests. White supremacists are a broader and more inchoate group, comprised of those who believe in the innate superiority of white people.
Thank you, ThinkProgress, for having backbone. For having integrity. For thinking.