
Rebranding White Nationalism: Inside Richard Spencer's Alt-Right
Richard Spencer stands before a Washington D.C. ballroom of more than 200 supporters at a 2016 conference and closes his speech with "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory," as scattered arms rise in salute. This news documentary follows Spencer, who coined the term "alt-right," as he works to repackage white nationalist ideas for a mainstream audience, trading overt slurs for terms like "identitarian" and arguing for what he calls peaceful ethnic separation. Reporters press him directly on the Nazi imagery in the room and on his vision for an all-white homeland, and the film cuts between his polished media appearances and the cruder rhetoric of his followers online. Interviews with researchers and journalists who track the movement place Spencer's rebranding effort in the context of the 2016 election, when fringe figures found new visibility. The film treats Spencer as a subject to be scrutinized rather than a cause to be championed, using his own words to show how the movement dresses old ideas in new language.