Where did this term "Alt Right" come from?

Good question, and I'll let others answer since I don't know the exact beginnings of it.

In November 2008, Paul Gottfried addressed the H. L. Mencken Club about what he called "the alternative right". In 2009, two more posts at Taki's Magazine, by Patrick J. Ford and Jack Hunter, further discussed the alternative right. The term, however, is most commonly attributed to Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and founder of Alternative Right.

Many people (I include myself) think that "alt-right" is really just a cowardly cop out to avoid saying "fascism" (really). This process of using neutral words for bad things is called "normalization".

This following article confirms it.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Alt-Right-fascist

Some history on fascism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

It's PC for Racist.

Now it's the alternate right. Soon we'll all be used to it and it will be the mainstream right.

Yeah, it's just another dodge... like "I'm not a racist! I'm a White Nationalist!"

It's freakin' scary how close to the surface this ugliness is. When Obama got elected in 2008 I thought it was because racism was on it's way out. I guess it was because the "alt-right" was disillusioned and didn't vote.
I see the resistance to anything Obama and I realized that it has nothing to do with being conservative or any other political view. It's a deep-seated hatred of the man; the black man.

Most of us minorities knew that racial bigotry has not disappeared just because Obama was elected our President twice - especially in the Southern States.
White supremacists don't like the idea that the once white majority is now losing ground and power. We have more minorities in government today, but the white supremacists have grown by 54% since 2000. That won't matter in the long run, because many whites are also liberals who are not racial bigots.

That's not to say we must lose sight of what's happened in the last election when a textbook racial bigot like Trump got elected as our president. He has a history of racial bigotry that included not renting his apartments to blacks, and paying for a full page ad in the New York Times to execute five innocent blacks.

A zebra doesn't lose their stripes just because they move from the wilds to a zoo.

Well said my friend

This argument being made by contrex is actually a strengthening of an increasingly bold fascist wave sweeping through America--the reason many of us spoke out against political correctness when it began rearing its head in earnest about twenty years ago.

People with quite different political perspectives--but who don't fall in line with the establishment democrats and the mainstream media who is a card-carrying member and proponent of that party--are being attacked in the media as nazis, evil. The term 'alt right' was created, co-opted and is now being morphed into straight 'Nazi' to marginalized people who disagree with the media/Establishment Dem party.

The media and the Democrat party were just slapped back during the election, and those powers are scrambling back in a desperate bid to grab power before the people's vote throws them on the ashheap of history.

The Right in this country has always denoted religious people who have conservative views. Alternative right began as a moniker to categorize people with anti-left views whose politics had no basis in religion.

They're anti-left for other reasons. They are politically incorrect because they refuse to submit to the verbal marching orders of a small-minded group of corrupt politicians and assorted goofballs who use PC to distract from what the **** they are actually doing.

Anyway, I thought I'd take advantage of the ability to express an opposing opinion while that ability still exists.

Information: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-conservatives-guide-to-the-alt-right/

Lash's reply neatly encapsulates a deplorable and very widespread trend, namely, calling people you don't agree with politically "Nazi" or "fascist". He (or she) seeks to defend the alt-right against such smears by calling the smearers "fascist"!

When I say that the alt-right movement can be compared in many ways to fascism (and not Nazism - there is a difference). I mean fascism in the classic sense of the political movements in Europe in the 20th century, primarily in Italy under Mussolini, but also in Portugal (Salazar) and Spain (Franco).

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism. Each interpretation of fascism is distinct, leaving many definitions too wide or narrow.

One common definition of the term focuses on three concepts: the fascist negations of anti-liberalism, anti-communism and anti-conservatism; nationalist authoritarian goals of creating a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture; and a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth and charismatic leadership. According to many scholars, fascism—especially once in power—has historically attacked communism, conservatism and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far right.

Roger Griffin (The Nature of Fascism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991) describes fascism as "a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism". Griffin describes the ideology as having three core components: "(i) the rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism and (iii) the myth of decadence". Fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism and promising radical politics to rescue the nation from decadence.

Robert Paxton (The Anatomy Of Fascism) (New York, Knopf, 2004) (PDF here: https://libcom.org/files/Robert%20O.%20Paxton-The%20Anatomy%20of%20Fascism%20%20-Knopf%20%282004%29.pdf) says that fascism is "a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Alt-Righters tend to be unified in their opposition to both illegal and in many cases legal immigration (which sets them apart from most conservatives). Many are hostile to liberal democracy in its current form, champion isolationism, oppose free trade and as a whole are guided by a philosophy of a rigidly defined Race Realism that is opposed to miscegenation.

Many Alt-Righters are White Nationalists and believe in a shared European identity that needs to be cultivated through education, political activism and ultimately the physical separation of race groups. Ingroup preference, it is argued, is followed by all ‘races’ therefore it should not be wrong if whites act accordingly.

The movement is very much driven by the philosophy of decline (as are some Conservatives) but their race based ‘solution’ to this realization sets them apart from mainstream conservative support. For Alt-Righters the rot has set in and Western Civilization as it stands is heading toward an abyss driven by incompetent politicians, social justice warriors political correctness and toxic liberalism.

Alt-Righters largely detest mainstream conservatives who they see as sell outs to a liberal establishment and thereby worthy of the crude epitaph cuckservative (a derivative of cuckold and conservative).

Leading voices in the Alt-Right include Jared Taylor (of American Renaissance and Richard Spencer (a promoter of the Identitarian Movement) however Alt-Righters are largely decentralized and exert most of their footprint through the internet which has proved to be fertile ground for many of its ‘techsavy’ ground troops.

It is incorrect to label Alt-Righters as Neo-Nazis, while some certainly align with this mindset the framework is broad enough that it includes Libertarians, traditionalists, paleo-conservatives and a host of other peripheral positions. It is not a Christian specific grouping and seems from what I have observed to contain many atheists, agnostic theists and European pagans. (Many Nazis worshipped Wotan!) The commonality being an affection for European civilization rather than a metaphysical belief system. Oddly enough many Alt-Righters are fairly liberal on social issues such as gay rights and abortion.

Alt Righters are very much opposed to Islam however many are not fans of Judaism and in particular the Jewish impact on Western Civilization either. In the mind of many Alt Righters the Jewish elites have supported a policy of liberalism in order to water down establishment based anti-Semitism (a thesis advanced by the controversial academic Kevin MacDonald). The Jew is seen as the internationalist whose ultimate impact on European Civilization is negative (borrowing from Henry Ford). This opinion however is not shared by all Alt-Righters.

Since it exists on the periphery the Alt-Right (just like the leftist radicalisms) has attracted more than its fair share of wackos, conspiracy nuts, hate mongers and marginal voices however it has several reflective thinkers who are well versed in philosophy, critical thinking and reasoned argument. Taylor comes across as such an individual as does the rising YouTube star Millennial Woes.

Alt-Righters tend to support Trump although some have probably come to their positions from various source backgrounds (not necessarily Republican). Most are Millennials or Gen Xers but don’t necessarily hold to the same positions of nostalgia that defines Paleo-Conservatives such as Pat Buchanan.

While news outlet Breitbart does at times articulate the Alt-Right position on some issues - particularly illegal immigration and Islamism - it is not seen as an Alt-Right publication by adherents to the movement.

Genetics plays a key role in Alt Right philosophy which views almost all issues through the prism of race as a hereditary construct.

While some Alt-Righters are white supremacists many are not preferring to couch their white Nationalism in the same veneer as any other type of nationalism viz. Asian, Black, Italian, Thai etc - That is the focus should be more about the in-group than the other.

Many Alt-Righters are anti-capitalist and most are opposed to free trade. In this respect they again differ from Conservatives. In fact on economic issues some of the anti-capitalism drivers are not too distinct from that of the Radical Left.

The Alt-Right is not (yet) a significant force in and of itself and would probably vanish into the political ether if it were not for the pro-Dem media and indeed the Clinton’s campaign to exaggerate their association with Trump.

You say they should be called fascists. Ceili says they should be called Nazis. Hillary Clinton called them deplorables. It didn't work out for her.

I think people like you should stop the movement to find an epithet for them, so you can then claim that they don't deserve to speak with your 'normalization' rhetoric. You and your approved group are no better or more worthy of the right to speak.

Seems to me, after this election, the losing side might want to hear what the winning side has to say.

I did like the article, and will be following the links. It seemed to be an even-handed piece.

Seems so silly to regard alt right movements as new Nazis as well as all people who are trying to preserve their identity. No one calls to kill or humiliate. They only call for being smart while applying all these "refugee welcome", "political correctness" and etc