WHAT NATIONAL REVIEW IS THAT?::

The relationship between right-wing extremism and online media is at the heart of Antisocial, Andrew Marantz's new book about what he calls "the hijacking of the American conversation." A reporter for The New Yorker, Marantz began delving into two worlds in 2014 and 2015. He followed the online world of neofascists, attended events they organized, and interviewed those who were willing to talk with him. Meanwhile, he also reported on the "techno-utopians" of Silicon Valley whose companies were simultaneously undermining professional journalism and providing a platform for the circulation of conspiracy theories, disinformation, hate speech, and nihilism. The online extremists, Marantz argues, have brought about a shift in Americans' "moral vocabulary," a term he borrows from the philosopher Richard Rorty. "To change how we talk is to change who we are," Marantz writes, summing up the thesis of his book.

Antisocial weaves back and forth between the netherworld of the right and the dreamworld of the techno-utopians in the years leading up to and immediately following the 2016 U.S. election. The strongest chapters profile the demi-celebrities of the "alt-right." As a Jewish reporter from a liberal magazine, Marantz is not an obvious candidate to gain the confidence of neofascists. But he has an impressive talent for drawing them out, and his portraits attend to the complexities of their life stories and the nuances of their opinions. Marantz leaves no doubt, however, about his own view of the alt-right and the responsibilities of journalists: "The plain fact was the alt-right was a racist movement full of creeps and liars. If a newspaper's house style didn't allow its reporters to say so, at least by implication, then the house style was preventing its reporters from telling the truth."

As Marantz describes them, the white nationalists, masculinists, and other elements of the alt-right were "metamedia insurgents" interested chiefly in catalyzing conflict. "They took for granted that the old institutions ought to be burned to the ground, and they used the tools at their disposal--new media, especially social media--to light as many matches as possible." As they expanded their online presence, they tailored their memes to the medium. On Facebook, they posted "countersignal" memes "to shock normies out of their complacency." On Twitter, they trolled mainstream journalists, hoping to capture wider attention. On sites such as Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan, they felt free to be "more overtly vile" and "started calling themselves 'fashy' or 'fash-ist,'" sometimes baiting "normies" by claiming that "Hitler did nothing wrong."

The online alt-right, together with the presidential candidate they decided to champion, Donald Trump, played a key role in making white nationalist ideas part of the national conversation. Until 2016, the two major parties and national media reflected a broad consensus--at least in rhetoric, if not in actual policy--that America was a nation where immigrants were welcome and people of all races and religions were equal. When Republicans played the "race card," they did so obliquely in deference to the consensus. Under George W. Bush, the Republican establishment was still pushing immigration reform, while the party was increasingly in opposition to legislation and succeeded in blocking it.

But a few on the far right called for Republicans to go further. They assailed "the Narrative," their term for the dominant liberal ideas about racial and gender equality. Marantz highlights the role of Steve Sailer, an opinion writer who had been arguing since the early 2000s that Republicans should openly cast themselves as a white-identity party, enact pro-white policies, and take aggressive action against immigration, including the repeal of birthright citizenship. Others on the right called this the "Sailer strategy." Social media gave Sailer and like-minded heretics--"many of whom Buckley had banished to the fringes of the movement years earlier"--new ways of disseminating their views that were more powerful than what was appearing in a print magazine like National Review. [...]

The normalization of white nationalism on the right and the growth of online media helped prepare the way for Trump's election. With his disregard for the truth and incendiary use of social media both as a candidate and as president, Trump has been the pivotal and emblematic figure in this political transformation. Repeatedly over the previous decades, as far back as 1987, he failed to get any traction when he floated the idea of running for president. The mainstream news media did not take him seriously, and his views and even his party affiliation weren't clear. In 1999, he mentioned Oprah Winfrey as a possible running mate when he suggested he might run for president the next year.

In 2011, Trump again tried to stir up support for a presidential campaign, but as Marantz points out, he initially had "nothing to command people's attention--no news hook, no controversy, no meme with momentum." Then he turned to two far-right figures, Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi from World Net Daily, a right-wing online site that had played a central role in promoting the lie that Obama came from Kenya and his Hawaiian birth certificate was a forgery. Seizing on the myth about Obama's birth, Trump generated the political attention he had always craved...

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