Alt-right politics inverted sixties counterculture by recasting progressive institutions as oppressive

Evidence

The rise of such conspiracy theories illustrated the counter-counterculture’s weaponization of sixties-style defiance, but with its progressive ethos inverted. Where liberals had once championed antiestablishment rebellion, the alt-right recast progressive institutions as oppressive forces. The Black liberal president became “the Man,” feminists were labeled “bullies,” and affirmative action was derided as “reverse racism.” Many white men began to frame themselves as an oppressed group, with 55 percent of white Americans in 2017 claiming “discrimination against white people” was a problem—even though fewer than 20 percent reported direct experiences of it. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 451

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Marx’s broader counter-counterculture argument about appropriation of countercultural defiance; also echoes how the reader’s framing of omnivore monoculture concerns the collapse of subcultural signals. — connects to: Well-funded right-wing groups borrowed leftist protest aesthetics for funded political goals — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 553; Sixties egalitarian communes seeded postmodern authoritarian fundamentalisms — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 543; Right-wing survivalists inherited the sixties’ apocalyptic vision and language — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 998 (+2 more)