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Early last November, just before Election Day, Barack Obama was driven through the crisp late-night gloom of the outskirts of Charlotte, as he barnstormed North Carolina on behalf of Hillary Clinton. He was in no measure serene or confident. The polls, the analytics, remained in Clintons favor, yet Obama, with the unique vantage point of being the first African-American President, had watched as, night after night, immense crowds cheered and hooted for a demagogue who had launched a business career with blacks-need-not-apply housing developments in Queens and a political career with a racist conspiracy theory known as birtherism. During his speech in Charlotte that night, Obama warned that no one really changes in the Presidency; rather, the office magnifies who you already are. So if you accept the support of Klan sympathizers before youre President, or youre kind of slow in disowning it, saying, Well, I dont know, then thats how youll be as President.

Donald Trumps ascent was hardly the first sign that Americans had not uniformly regarded Obamas election as an inspiring chapter in the countrys fitful progress toward equality. Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, had branded him the food-stamp President. In the right-wing and white-nationalist media, Obama was, variously, a socialist, a Muslim, the Antichrist, a liberal fascist, who was assembling his own Hitler Youth. A high-speed train from Las Vegas to Anaheim that was part of the economic-stimulus package was a secret effort to connect the brothels of Nevada to the innocents at Disneyland. He was, by nature, suspect. You just look at the bodylanguage, and theres somethinggoing on, Trump said, last summer.In the meantime, beginning on the day of Obamas first inaugural, the Secret Service fielded an unprecedented number of threats against the Presidents person.

And so, speeding toward yet another airport last November, Obama seemed like a weary man who harbored a burning seed of apprehension. Weve seen this coming, he said. Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails.

For half a century, in fact, the leaders of the G.O.P. have fanned the lingering embers of racial resentment in the United States. Through shrewd political calculation and rhetoric, from Richard Nixons Southern strategy to the latest charges of voter fraud in majority-African-American districts, doing so has paid off at the ballot box. There were no governing principles, Obama said. There was no one to say, No, this is going too far, this isnt what we stand for.

Last week, the world witnessed Obamas successor in the White House, unbound and unhinged, acting more or less as Obama had predicted. In 2015, a week after Trump had declared his candidacy, he spoke in favor of removing the Confederate flag from South Carolinas capitol: Put it in the museum and let it go. But, last week, abandoning the customary dog whistle of previous Republican culture warriors, President Trump made plain his indulgent sympathy for neo-Nazis, Klan members, and unaffiliated white supremacists, who marched with torches, assault rifles, clubs, and racist and anti-Semitic slogans through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. One participant even adopted an ISIS terror tactic, driving straight into a crowd of people peaceably demonstrating against the racists. Trump had declared an America First culture war in his Inaugural Address, and nowas his poll numbers dropped, as he lost again and again in the courts and in Congress, as the Mueller investigation delved into his miserable business history, as more and more aides leaked their dismayhe had cast his lot with the basest of his base. There were some very fine people among the white nationalists, he said, and their culture should not be threatened.

Who could have predicted it? Anyone, really. Two years ago, the Daily Stormer, the foremost neo-Nazi news site in the country, called on white men to vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests. Trump never spurned this current of his support. He invited it, exploited it. With Stephen Bannon, white nationalism won prime real estate in the West Wing. Bannon wrote much of the inaugural speech, and was branded The Great Manipulator in a Time cover story that bruised the Presidential ego. But Bannon has been marginalized for months. Last Friday, in the wake of Charlottesville, Trump finally pushed him out. He is headed back to Breitbart News. But he was staff; his departure is hardly decisive. The culture of this White House was, and remains, Trumps.

When Trump was elected, there were those who considered his history and insisted that this was a kind of national emergency, and that to normalize this Presidency was a dangerous illusion. At the same time, there were those who, in the spirit of patience and national comity, held that Trump was our President, and that he must be given a chance. Has he had enough of a chance yet? After his press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower last Tuesday, when he ignored the scripted attempts to regulate his impulses and revealed his true allegiances, there can be no doubt about who he is. This is the inescapable fact: on November 9th, the United States elected a dishonest, inept, unbalanced, and immoral human being as its President and Commander-in-Chief. Trump has daily proven unyielding to appeals of decency, unity, moderation, or fact. He is willing to imperil the civil peace and the social fabric of his country simply to satisfy his narcissism and to excite the worst inclinations of his core followers.

This latest outrage has disheartened Trumps circle somewhat; business executives, generals and security officials, advisers, and even family members have semaphored their private despair. One of the more lasting images from Trumps squalid appearance on Tuesday was that of his chief of staff, John Kelly, who stood listening to him with a hangdog look of shame. But Trump still retains the support of roughly a third of the country, and of the majority of the Republican electorate. The political figure Obama saw as a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party has not yet come unmoored from the Partys base.

The most important resistance to Trump has to come from civil society, from institutions, and from individuals who, despite their differences, believe in constitutional norms and have a fundamental respect for the values of honesty, equality, and justice. The imperative is to find ways to counteract and diminish his malignant influence not only in the overtly political realm but also in the social and cultural one. To fail in that would allow the death rattle of an old racist order to take hold as a deafening revival.

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Donald Trump's True Allegiances - The New Yorker

Kurt Andersen

Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images

Kurt Andersens new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, tackles many of the themes he has written about over the course of his career, including how our politics is influenced by broader trends in American culture and society. Andersen, who hosts a radio show about culture, Studio 360, which recently joined the Slate podcast fold, and co-founded Spy magazine (which was known for, among other things, going after Donald Trump), connects our insane current moment to the timeless idea of American exceptionalism, a creed that he believes always contained a certain naivet and gullibility. Whats worse, he argues, is that this idea became co-mingled with the individualism and selfishness of the 1960shelping to birth Donald Trump and much more. (A long much-debated excerpt from Andersens book appears as the current cover story in the Atlantic.)

Isaac Chotiner is a Slate staff writer.

I spoke by phone with Andersen recently. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed whether there is a connection between religious belief and conspiracy theories, whether America is crazier than anywhere else, and whether Donald Trump has changed over the past three decades.

Isaac Chotiner: Why has America gone insane?

Kurt Andersen: There are so many reasons. Some of the main strands I follow are extreme religiosity from the beginning, which has effloresced, especially in the last century and especially in the last few decades, into something extraordinary compared to anything else in the developed world.

Individualism is another way we went insane, when individualism got out of control, along with the 1960s, and along with the various forms of show business into which we can imagine ourselves and other beings.

Why do you think the 60s are partially to blame for where we are right now?

Only partially. This excerpt of the book that appeared in the Atlantic this month, thats what they were interested in.

Well the excerpts like 400,000 words.

No, its only 380,000 words. I guess what I believe happened, among all the great things that happened in the 60s, like civil rights and the beginning of womens equality and the fun and everything else, was this new relativism, thats the simplest word, that all forms of truth-finding are equally valid, whether scientific or magical. It became uncool and in some cases impermissible to say, No, thats fine if you want to believe that, but science is superior.

That, in the general sense, began as a thing on the left, to which conservatives at the time were up in arms. One of the things that happened, of course, is that 50 years on, that kind of relativism and that kind of do your own thing, believe your own thing, and have your own truth has consequentially empowered forces and individuals on the right.

OK but what is the causal connection there? Because if it was some sort of causal connection between the relativism in the 60s and the nightmare of our politics today, wouldnt you expect it to impact the left more?

You would if history and culture worked in obvious and predictable ways, but they dont. No, I dont believe that Donald Trump read Foucault and thought, My God, truth is all relative.

Among all the great things that happened in the 60s was this new relativism, thats the simplest word, that all forms of truth-finding are equally valid.

I think we agree on that, yeah.

I do believe that as academic relativism and indeed as countercultural relativism grew in the 60s, two separate but connected things, they so pervasively affected the way Americans think, that that was one thingnot the only thing, perhaps not even the main thingthat empowered and permitted the whatever we want place we are in today, and the, Oh no, I dont believe. I believe that theres some conspiracy of journalists and scientists pretending that climate change is the result of human activities, and/or I believe that some other conspiracy is responsible for the fact that autism is caused by vaccines. I dont want to follow into the Donald Trumpian both sides are at fault. While there are people on the left who fall prey to impossible and implausible and dubious conspiracy theories and science-denying and all the rest, it is highly asymmetrical.

You are talking about people who believe things without reason. Im trying to understand: Is there some data or something that youre looking at that makes you think this is where this trend started, that people became more unreasonable in the 60s?

There is data that Ive looked at extensively and report in the book extensively about the false things that people believe compared to earlier times. No, theres no data that supports my speculative cultural history, that part of how we got herepart, not allis this general abdication by gatekeepers and the establishment in the academy and elsewhere who used to say, No, this is much, much closer to the truth than this, rather than at the beginning to say, No, were not going to do that as much. Is there data or survey research to say that that was part of the cause? No, its my opinion.

In your book you quote a bunch of survey data thats alarming, like about people thinking Obama is the Antichrist, and you write, Why are we like this? The short answer is because were Americansbecause being American means we can believe anything we want; that our beliefs are equal or superior to anyone elses, experts be damned. Once people commit to that approach, the world turns inside out, and no cause-and-effect connection is fixed. The credible becomes incredible and the incredible credible.

The world is full of countries where there is strong religious belief and a strong belief in conspiracies. What is it specifically that you think is American about that rather than this is how human beings are, that we believe weird stuff?

The lines you just read, of course, are from the introductory chapter, so they are meant, just for the record, to be a high gloss that then I would spend 400 pages going into detail about.

I can read the whole book in this interview. We could do that.

Oh, stop. No, but in terms of just the religious stuff, theres this massive set of survey data about how much more religious we are, more prayerful we are, than other developed countries. Im not saying America is so different from Pakistan. Im saying America is different from Canada and Japan and Europe and Australia and the rest of the developed world, and we are, by every measure of religiosity. Again, its not just believe in God or not. Its the very detailed beliefs that we have as a people. That is just the clearest and starkest and most data-proven truth that we are different.

Tocqueville thought we were different than the French 170 years ago, but we have gotten more different. As I said, thats one of the things where its not at all anecdotal or purely anecdotal or speculative or anything else. Its just entirely true.

Is there data or survey research to say that that was part of the cause? No, its my opinion.

Dont the French believe in things like vaccine skepticism more than we do?

There is vaccine skepticism in Europe. Theres no question about that. No, that is not uniquely American. The degree to which American have stopped vaccinating their children was higher than anywhere else. We are the mother country of that. Its not unique to us.

I think of unfounded opinions as falling into two categories. One is religious belief or things like that, which I think are probably pretty deeply held and maybe even partially innate. Then you have a belief like you mentioned earlier, that global warming is fake, which really is not the type of belief that anyone could possibly gain unless they were following very specific news sources that were intent on lying to them. Do you think they are connected?

Yeah, I do, and I think they are synergistic. Climate change is one thing, which of course the Bible doesnt talk about, but on the other hand, there are things that are both. For instance evolution and creationism, and should evolution be taught without creationism in public schools. Thats where, of course, they overlap.

One thing Ill say about what I say about religion. Again, I am not a crusading Richard Dawkinsstyle atheist. I dont know. Maybe God exists. I dont know, so Im not saying, You people who believe in God, youre idiots. I am entirely open to the various shades and flavors and degrees of hunches and religious belief and all that. What I really focus on, and why I focus on it, and why I get down to the specifics of lets look at what most American Protestant Christians believe, is the extremism of these beliefs. Yeah, do you believe in God? Fine. Do you go to church? Great. Do you believe that Jesus was resurrected? OK, whatever. I dont know. I dont, but OK. When we got to faith healing and speaking in tongues and these specifics, which I grant its impolite of me to say, No, this is really nutty, Im sorry. Its important to me to not allow but its my faith to be the cloak that protects every belief that is a matter of faith from criticism, ridicule, doubt.

So yes, of course theyre different, but to me, theyre not entirely different.

Right, but some of the beliefs America has about religion or conspiracy theories are very similar in other parts of the world, whereas I think it would be very hard for any country in the world that did not have a very specific media environment like America has to not believe in global warming. The first thing feels more universal.

I think thats true. We can thank the Kochs, among others, for helping create that media environment. Indeed, I talk a lot about the media environment that has been built, the fantasyland infrastructure, that has built in the last 30 years, which has been crucial for sure. But I think in the simplest, most reductionist way, when you start with a people who are so much more prone to rationally insupportable religious beliefs, it seems natural to me that you will also have a country, partly as a result, in which people are willing to say, Yeah, I dont believe in climate change, either. Yes, of course, a media structure arose to teach them that, but a media structure could arise to teach them that in Denmark, and I dont think youd end up with half of the Danes believing that climate change doesnt exist.

Hopefully that wont happen and we will not be able to test that proposition.

Can you tell me about your personal experiences with our current president, if youve had any? And as someone whos been following him for decades, what do you make of the man you see today and whether theres anything surprising or different to you about where we are?

Ive never met him. I have received letters from him threatening legal action, and massive legal action, of course back when I was running Spy magazine. Other than that, my exchanges with him have just been him saying Im terrible in places like the New York Post. No, Ive never met him, but I have watched him. I did watch him closely and carefully in the late 80s, and early 90s, then stopped for 15 years until six years ago, mostly. People say, Hes always the same person. Hes a racist. As much as he was a jerk thenand occasionally, as in the ad he took out saying that the accused and later exonerated Central Park attackers, which indicates evidence of a racialist animosity or racismthe anger and racism and far-right stuff, there was very little evidence of that back in the day. He was a joke. I think what hes fallen into is because he doesnt believe much of anything; he has instincts, and I think weve seen in the last few days that he has actual instincts about white supremacy, frankly. I dont think he has well-formed beliefs, but he has instincts, guy-at-the-bar angry instincts. That is his thing. That is his fundamental thing.

What about just watching him as a person? The one thing, as someone whos watched a lot of old clips of him on Letterman and Howard Stern, is he seems to have less of a sense of irony now. He was always ridiculous, but he had some sense of himself as a character before, whereas now the mask has fallen or slipped, whatever the phrase is.

I think thats absolutely true. There are many changes. In addition to that fact that he no longer pretends to be in on the joke, and he was always pretending to be in on the joke, but he was more articulate. He seemed happier, frankly. He seemed happier. Look at him. You never see him laugh.

As Slates resident interrogator, Isaac Chotiner has tangled with Newt Gingrich and gotten personal with novelist Jonathan Franzen. Now hes bringing his pointed, incisive interview style to a weekly podcast in which he talks one-on-one with newsmakers, celebrities, and cultural icons.

It was very smart of you to publicize him in Spy magazine, therefore ensuring hell be president, therefore ensuring you can write a book about America going haywire.

Thank you. It was a very long-term plan, and they seldom work out as well as this one.

Well not for the country, but for you.

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Are the '60s to Blame for Donald Trump? - Slate Magazine

Since the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. has been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. For some students and alumni ofthe evangelical Christian school inLynchburg, Va., Libertys perceived alignment with the president has been a source of shame and anger, a group of graduates wrotelast week.

Last week, manyreached their breaking point. After Trumps equivocation about neo-Nazi groups followingthe violence in Charlottesville, Falwell once again voiced his unwavering support for the president, tweeting that he was so proud of Trump forhis bold truthful statement on the tragedy.

President Trump on Aug. 15 said that "there's blame on both sides" for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

In response,Liberty Universitygraduates are calling on fellow alumni to take a stand against by returning their diplomas. They are also writing letters to Falwells office and to the Board of Trustees, calling for his removal.More than 260 people have joined a Facebook group titled Return your diploma to LU.

By publicly revoking all ties, all support present and future, the graduates hope to send a message to the school that could jeopardize future enrollment, finances and funding, according to the Facebook group. They are urging graduates to return their diplomas to Falwells office by Sept. 5.

In addition, several alumni have written letter to university officials calling on Falwell to disavow Trumps statements, NPR reported. In it, the graduates said Falwells characterization of Trumps remarks were incompatible with Liberty Universitys stated values, and incompatible with a Christian witness.

This sort of sends a wake-up call that you cant just align the entire university with Donald Trumps stance on a whim, Chris Gaumer, a former Student Government Association president and a 2006 graduate,told CNN.

[Liberty University students protest association with Trump]

Gaumer wrote on Facebook thatLiberty University graduates are ashamed, embarrassed, horrified. And sending back their diplomas is the least we like minded can do.

On Instagram, he also wrote, Many reasons to return LU degree, like a class called Creation Studies, but no reason more important than Falwell Jr. backing Trump backing white supremacists.

Responding to the students criticism on ABCs The Week Sunday, Falwell attempted to clarify his stance and said the students misunderstood him.

Falwell, who attended law school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said Trump left the door open for the incident to be considered domestic terrorism.

Hehas inside information that I dont have, Falwell said on The Week. I dont know if there were historical purists there who were trying to preserve some statues.

Falwell called the Charlottesville clashes pure evil versus good and said theres no good white supremacist.

I understand how some people could misunderstand his words, Falwell said of Trump. Yes, he could be more polished and politically correct but thats the reason I supported him, because hes not.

Most of Trumps evangelical advisers have refrained from criticizing him for his response to Charlottesville. But on Friday, New York City megachurch pastor A.R. Bernard announced that he had stepped down from the unofficial board of evangelical advisers to Trump, The Washington Posts Sarah Pulliam Bailey reported. Bernards Brooklyn-based Christian Cultural Center, which claims 37,000 in membership, has been described by the New York Times as the largest evangelical church in New York City.

Falwell, son of the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, has served as an essential evangelical voice in support of Trump. In some instances, his university community has followed suit. Students at the school voted overwhelmingly for Trump in November.Of the 3,205 votes cast on campus, Trump took 2,739, while Hillary Clinton received just 140.

As The Posts Joe Heim wrote:

Perhaps no Christian leader in the United States has more closely aligned himself with Trump than Falwell. The Liberty president delivered a glowing tribute to Trump during a campaign visit in January 2016. And his support was critical after the release in October of the Access Hollywood video in which Trump was overheard bragging lewdly about groping and trying to have sex with women. Falwell went to bat for Trump, saying that his comments were reprehensible but that were all sinners, every one of us. Weve all done things we wish we hadnt.

In May,Trump delivered the commencement address to Libertys Class of 2017.

President Trump delivered his first commencement address as president at Liberty University, a Christian school in Lynchburg, Va. (The Washington Post)

Many of the students at Liberty, the nations largest Christian university, have been critical of Trump since before the election. In October, a statement issued by the group Liberty United Against Trump admonished Trump as well as Falwell for defending the then-candidate after he made the vulgar comments about women in the 2005 video. In the weeks that followed, more than 2,000 Liberty students and faculty signed the statement.

Falwell has shown himself to be unabashedly in service of money and power, at the expense of others, not of the message of the gospel he claims, Liberty graduates wrote in the Facebook group for the diploma return protest.He is unfit to lead any institution, but particularly one that professes a moral, ethical, or religious mission.

Many graduates on social media declared their intentions to join the protest and write their own letters to university officials.

Truth is, Ive been ashamed of the source of my diploma since long before Jerry Jr. started backing Trump, one alumna, Lauren Martin Day, wrote on Facebook.Grateful to know there are some other sensible alums decrying that deplorable institution.

She added that she took Liberty University off her resume over a decade ago and never looked back.

In a similar vein, 2002 graduate Rebekah Tilleytold NPR that she no longer wanted to be associated with her alma mater because the name can be so loaded.

Theres such a strong affiliation now between Liberty University and President Trump that you know that reflects badly on all alumni, Tilley said.

Not everyone supported the efforts to return diplomas. Some stood byFalwell, and others criticized the students as snowflakes.

Phil Wagner, who received both his bachelors and masters from Liberty University, told NPR that he disagrees with the presidents comments, he wont be sending back hisdegrees.I earned it, Wagner said. I worked hard for it. But he does plan to send a respectful letter to university officials, he added.

The affiliation between Trump and Falwellis even affecting some prospective students.

Chadwick Brawley, who identified himself as an African American Christian Worship Pastor, wrote that he had beenexcited about enrolling in the Doctor of Worship program at Liberty this month.

Postingon Libertys official Facebook page, Brawley wrote that Christian leaders had a valuable opportunity after the hatred, bigotry and violence in Charlottesville to take a stand.

You used your platform to escalate hate and further divide, Brawley wrote to Falwell. Supporting President Trumps lamentable response to the situation showed me who you are, what you support and how youre aligned politically and spiritually. Because of who I am, I find it extremely difficult to align myself with you and Liberty University. The search begins for other schools at which I may apply; schools that will appreciate my African-American heritage, perspective, gifts, genius and money.

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Liberty University graduates return diplomas because of support for Trump by Jerry Falwell Jr. - Washington Post

Lana Lokteff, pictured, runs an alt-right media company to promote her white nationalist ideologies. But critics say that kind of outspokenness from a growing number of female allies is at odds with how men in the movement view women's roles. Courtesy of Lana Lokteff hide caption

Lana Lokteff, pictured, runs an alt-right media company to promote her white nationalist ideologies. But critics say that kind of outspokenness from a growing number of female allies is at odds with how men in the movement view women's roles.

Last weekend, when white nationalists descended on Charlottesville to protest, it was clear that almost exclusively white, young males comprised the so-called alt-right movement there were women, but very few.

So where were the white women who weren't out protesting in the streets?

For the most part, journalist Seyward Darby discovered, they're online.

"It wasn't easy" seeking out the women of the alt-right, Darby tells NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro. "I spent a lot of time in the underbelly of the Internet Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, 4chan, places like that digging up contact information."

In the Harper's Magazine September issue, journalist Seyward Darby digs into the aims of the alt-right's women allies. Courtesy of Harpers hide caption

Darby dives into the motivations behind the alt-right female alliance in her cover story for the latest issue of Harper's Magazine, "Rise of the Valkyries." She began her reporting around the time anti-Trump activists were organizing January's Women's March, when she wondered: What do the women who aren't in the resistance think about what's happening?

Many of these women came into the alt-right initially as anti-feminists.

"They were people who felt that the feminist progressive agenda was not serving them in some cases they felt like it was actively disregarding them because they wanted more traditional things: home, family, etc.," she says. "And they came into the movement through that channel and then ultimately adopted more pro-white and white nationalist views."

One of those women was Lana Lokteff, a Russian-American from Oregon who co-runs Red Ice, an alt-right media company, with her Swedish husband, Henrik Palmgren.

The couple decided to make this their cause around 2012, Darby says, when they say they saw a lot of "anti-white sentiment." Around the time of several high-profile police shootings of young, black men, Lokteff "felt that Black Lives Matter and these other reactive forces were being unfair to white people and that then sort of spun into a conspiracy about how the establishment, so to speak, is out to oppress, minimize and silence white people."

Lokteff, who promotes alt-right ideologies on the couple's YouTube channel, has been persistently trolled by the men of the movement. Darby wanted to understand what attracts women to a movement that is often hostile to them.

In her piece, she quotes Andrew Anglin, who runs the (now blacklisted) neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer as saying the white woman's womb "belongs to the males of society." And alt-right pioneer Richard Spencer, who acknowledges that women make up a small percentage of the movement, believes women are not suited for some roles in government, reports Mother Jones: "Women should never be allowed to make foreign policy," he tweeted during the first presidential debate. "It's not that they're 'weak.' To the contrary, their vindictiveness knows no bounds."

The thing they are most interested in is promoting the white race and they see [President Trump] as an opportunity someone whose coattails they can ride.

Seyward Darby, on whether alt-right members support Trump

According to Lokteff and other alt-right women allies she spoke to, Darby says, "It's not that men who support the alt-right don't like women, it's that they see women as fundamentally different than men," with equally important roles, which are "to perpetuate white bloodlines, to nurture family units, to inculcate those families with pro-white beliefs."

But the growing contradiction, as Darby points out, "is that people like Lana Lockteff and other women that I spoke to are outspoken."

She adds, "They sort of see themselves as straddling a line between the male and female norms, because they think that at this point in their movement, the more people they can bring in, the more people they can convince that they are on the right side of history, the better, and that includes appealing to more women."

To recruit women to the movement, Darby says, the key is to stoke fear.

Asked how she would pitch the alt-right to conservative white women who voted for Trump, but are also wary of being labeled a white supremacist, Lokteff told her, "we have a joke in the alt-right: How do you red-pill someone? ("Red-pill" is their word for converting someone to the cause.) And the punch line was: Have them live in a diverse neighborhood for a while," Darby says. "She also said that when she is talking to women she reminds them that white women are under threat from black men, brown men, emigrants, and really uses this concept of a rape scourge to bring them in."

And while there are schisms in the aims of alt-right activists, and how best to get there, she adds, "There are some people Lana Lokteff being one of them, Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute who are really trying to find some semblance of civic legitimacy."

On how she understands the term "alt-right"

The answer seems to be different depending on who you ask. ... It's not a formal, structured group. It is more a new term for people who believe in white nationalism, who do not like political correctness, who do not like feminists, who do not like Jewish people, and who generally think that liberalism and diversity have led to the decline of Western civilization. So, I would hesitate to call the alt-right a hate group for instance, but the alt-right does include hate groups.

On being struck by parallels she saw, between the 1920s KKK and Nazi Germany versus today, in how white supremacists saw the role of women

In the 1920s, which is one of the heydays of the KKK, a woman named Elizabeth Tyler became the head of the group's national propagation department, which is essentially sending people out to recruit more members. And she managed to boost the membership by something like 85,000 people. She also founded the first women's wing of the movement. She was considered a seminal figure in the KKK. She was ultimately pushed out, in part, because the men in the movement were threatened by her strength and her power.

On what women bring to these movements

On a very basic level numbers. I think that the people who run these extremist groups, however loose or organized they are, recognized that there is strength in numbers. And to be a truly robust movement women are a large portion of the population. ...

Whether we're talking about white nationalism in the [19]20s, in Nazi Germany, today so much of the ideology is about the importance of family, the importance of protecting the white race, which involves making sure women are there to have children.

On how the language of feminism is being used to recruit women

They do sort of occupy an almost feminist-seeming space in the movement or some of them do, I should say. The ones who are more outspoken, the ones who are trying to bring more people into the movement. But of course, they would never say that. They would never want to be compared to feminists. ... They think that feminists have corrupted what women see as their core desires.

On how women act as a camouflage, to appeal to others they might want to recruit on a more personal level

There's a wonderful scholar named Kathleen Blee at the University of Pittsburgh and she has written a few books about women in right-wing extremism. One of the things she talks about is the role that women play in projecting this image of happy families, communities that are proud of their heritage that it's not so different from your community. And it's a particularly insidious aspect of the propaganda. It's certainly something I encountered and was told repeatedly in my interviews.

On what the alt-right women want

[Lokteff] mentioned to me, people moving to Washington, D.C., getting involved in government. And, speaking to scholars of right-wing extremism, they said to me this is very unusual, usually these groups ... they're very anti-government. And so I think there is definitely a cohort that sees this moment, thanks to Trump's election, as an opportunity to assert themselves on that level.

And I think there are others who want to fight a race war in a much more, I guess, literal way. This is one of the things that's going to be interesting moving forward with the alt-right, is seeing it's a motley crew of people who found each other on the internet and are really starting to, as we saw in Charlottesville, get out into the world and take action. ... And I think that we'll be seeing those fractures widen over the next couple of months and years.

On how these women view the protest in Charlottesville and President Trump's reaction

On the whole I think that they are pleased that they got this attention that they are stoking peoples' frustrations, that they are showing themselves to be a force.

The president's reaction, they're happy with I think. I asked [Lokteff] specifically, I said what do you think about Donald Trump? And she said, "Let's be honest, he's not one of our guys. We've never thought that he's one of our guys." The thing they are most interested in is promoting the white race and they see him as an opportunity someone whose coattails they can ride. The more that he does not disavow the things that they believe in, and either tacitly or directly supports them, the better.

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The Women Behind The 'Alt-Right' - NPR

The conservative publication Breitbart this weekendpushed back against being labeled "alt-right," after CNN host Don Lemon ripped the network as a "platform the alt-right."

Stephen Bannon, founding member of the board for the online media company and now former White House chief strategist, also referred to Breitbart as"the platform for the alt-right" in a July 2016 interview with Mother Jones reporter Sarah Posner.

Reporter Tony Lee on Saturday defended the publication, citing a Harvard/MIT study that found Breitbart was not alt-right, and used an alternativequote from executive chairman Bannon explaining his own beliefs, which Lee arguedhas been taken out of context.

Im an economic nationalist. I am an 'America first' guy. And I have admired nationalist movements throughout the world, have said repeatedly strong nations make great neighbors, Bannon toldThe Wall Street Journallast year, Breitbart noted.

The publication's defensive posture comes days after Bannon left his White House post and returned to lead thepublication.

The publication has cheered Bannon's return.

The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today, Breitbart's News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow said.

Breitbart gained an executive chairman with his finger on the pulse of the Trump agenda," he continued.

The president has faced intense backlash over the past week for his response to the violence that erupted in Charlottesville last weekend after a white supremacist rally. Trump held "manysides" responsible for the violence, rather than blaming the rally's organizers.

The alt-right label is often applied to white supremacist, white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups.

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Breitbart pushes back on 'alt-right' label - The Hill