William Conley began his research to fulfill a requirement for a departmental Honors thesis. To flesh out what he described as a “somewhat bookish, thesis,” William also conducted a public opinion survey. Throughout the process, he came to enjoy exploring his topic in detail, discovering something thrilling about discovering trends in history that could potentially explain current events. After graduation, William plans to pursue a graduate degree at UC Irvine and continue working toward developing a career in academia.

This paper examines the origins of the “Alternative Right” or “Alt-Right” movement in the United States through an analysis of the American conservative movement and the broader American Right of the twentieth century. I find that the initial call for the creation of an “alternative Right” in 2008 was the result of ongoing conflicts within American conservatism. These conflicts themselves have origins in the postwar “fusionist” transformation of the conservative movement, which injected Cold War interventionism into the previously isolationist American “Old Right.” This allowed the rise of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, which implanted stronger internationalist tendencies into a previously more isolationist Right. In response, the so-called “paleoconservative” faction was formed, articulating an ideology more closely resembling the interwar Old Right. Viewed as having peaked with the 1992 presidential campaign of Patrick Buchanan, the paleoconservative philosopher Paul Gottfried would in 2008 call for a “post-paleo movement,” later rebranded as an “alternative Right.” Although the more recent “Alt-Right” term has become associated with more than mere opposition to neoconservatism, this paper hopes to show that the act of its proposal can be seen as an attempt to create a successor movement to paleoconservatism, and by proxy, the American Old Right.

Davin Phoneix School of Social Sciences

William’s project provides a comprehensive and sobering window into the origins and defining features of the alt right. His analysis of this movement proves quite timely and relevant. He shares insights that advance our understanding of how hostile ideological movements proliferate in the current era. Undergraduate research is invaluable for revealing for students how they can be not simply recipients of knowledge, but creators of knowledge in their own right. That is an empowering process. And, the knowledge that is created by undergraduate researchers very often has clear potential to contribute to the public good. It’s knowledge with real, practical value.