Mighell: Don’t Confuse “Alt-Right” with Conservatism

This idolatry of racial origin as definitive of a person’s worth runs directly counter to the foundational principles of the American Right.

It goes without saying that what occurred in Charlottesville involved both a literal and figurative “parade of horribles.” A collection of hate-filled individuals turned an otherwise peaceful college town into their personal parade ground in a sickening display of violence and, for lack of a better word, hatred. Many were assaulted and at least one killed as the marchers’ intentions shifted from assembly to riot.

The organizers of this violent event seem to be operating under the unfortunate delusion that they are part of “the right.” Their choice to name their Charlottesville demonstration “Unite the Right” and their insistence on using the term “alt-right” to describe themselves is further evidence of this belief.

I would like to disabuse these self-described “deplorables” of this false notion. The agitators in Charlottesville were not members of any recognizable right-wing movement. In fact, their purposes and methods contradict those practiced by the American right.

The ideology of white supremacy is racism, plain and simple. Its evangelists preach that human beings should be segregated because they have different skin colors or their ancestors come from different places. To a white supremacist, racial ancestry gives each person an indelible identity that defines the relative value of each human life.

This idolatry of origin as somehow definitive of a person’s worth runs directly counter to the foundational principles of the right, animated by the spirit of conservatism. Russell Kirk famously defined conservatives as “those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.”