The radio feature from the series “Zündfunk Generator” deals with new and old strategies of (extreme) right-wing groups (“Alt-Right”) in the USA – in the context of popular culture, pop music and (political) provocation.
There are more than fifty years between an early anthem of left-wing youth movements, “The Kids are Alright” by ” The Who” from 1965 and the critical song “The Kids are Alt Right” by the band “Bad Religion” released in 2018. In which (not only) the political attitude of the “kids” seems to have changed.
The journalist and author Klaus Walter uses these two songs as starting points – and looks for (pop-)cultural connecting pieces and examples of the creeping exchange/transition between the political categories “left” and “right”, talks about punk icons like John Lydon, the former singer of the band “Sex Pistols”, who today offensively personifies the white, U.S. angry citizen.
It is about the Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Donald Trump and activists of the new pop right like Gavin McInnes or Milo Yiannopoulos. And about possible connections between transgression (“disinhibition/border-crossing”) in art and politics as well as the trajectories of the (supposed) “left-liberal mainstream”.
One of the contributors is the US author Angela Nagle, who in her book “Die digitale Gegenrevolution. Online Cultural Struggles of the New Right from 4chan and Tumblr to the Alt-Right and Trump,” she examines and contextualizes the media strategies of these right-wing actors.