Ever since Donald J. Trump was elected president last month, public discussion about the small, fringe movement known as the alt-right has exploded. Its members support a wide range of extremist views, including those that are anti-Semitic, white supremacist, and misogynist, and they supported Mr. Trump enthusiastically.
The handful of academics who study the alt-right are being tapped time and time again to explain where the movement came from and what it means as anxiety builds about the alt-right, which counts white supremacists like Richard B. Spencer among its standard-bearers.
People drawn to the alt-right have for years operated anonymously in obscure corners of the internet. But when Mr. Trump became the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, the movement “was able to really troll its way into mainstream conversation,” says George Hawley, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.
It gained significant attention in August, when Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, denounced Mr. Trump for having ties to the extreme movement, and when Stephen K. Bannon, a former executive of Breitbart News, was tapped to run Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Bannon has called Breitbart “the platform for the alt-right,” though he denies that the website is in any way associated with the movement.
