Portside

ROP organizers have shown great courage, educating about - and standing up to - right-wing militia groups in rural Oregon. This post suggests important actions that the rest of us can take.

Next month's election is important. But the core supporters of Donald Trump are not going to move to Canada -- or Russia -- if their candidate loses. Those who crave the simplistic, authoritarian solutions offered by dangerous populists around the world are not going to retreat into political apathy simply because of the scorn heaped upon them by the mainstream.

This election is a choice between two movements. Movements like Black Lives Matter, Climate Justice, low-wage workers, and immigrant rights. Or Neo-Nazis, the Klan, and the Alt-Right backed by a Trump administration.

The Alternative Right is a term coined in 2008 by Richard Bertrand Spencer. Spencer describes Alt-Right adherents as younger people, often recent college graduates, who recognize the “uselessness of mainstream conservatism” in what he describes as a “hyper-racialized” world. So it’s no surprise that the movement in 2015 and 2016 concentrated on opposing immigration and the resettlement of Syrian refugees in America.