[NoGravitas]

Yeah, look on the Far Left (/r/TheFarLeftSide/). Reddit's radical leftist contingent spent a tremendous amount of time protecting the hammer and sickle, Comrade Party Parrot, and BLM from brigading by the far right. In fact, I'd argue that one of the reasons there wasn't more ugly trolling and hate speech is that the alt-right were mainly wasting their time trying to deface the FarLeftSide rather than producing anything of their own.

[Grue3]

I don't see how hammer and sickle, a symbol used by multiple governments to oppress and murder millions of people, is in any way more appropriate than any far right symbol.

[vidarh]

As someone far left, I sort of agree. The hammer and sickle was conceived for the Soviet Union, and the Bolsheviks took power in a coup against the socialist provisional government that actually had popular support. It's a symbol of a movement that grabbed power in a coup and then went on to outlaw, persecute and kill socialists and communists with equal fervour as they killed reactionary supporters of the Czar (who had been deposed months before their coup).

At the same time it is in an odd position because it was also very early on, before it was widely known what was happening with the Soviet government, adopted by anti-authoritarian socialist and communist groups, some of whose members risked their life against Stalin, and it was later knowingly adopted by groups opposed to the Soviet regime, such as e.g. the Trotskyist 4th International, as well.

This makes it quite different to symbols that are singularly attached to totalitarian governments and movements, in that it also has nearly as long history of use by their opponents.

Personally I think it's unhelpful to use it, but I also understand those who use it as an attempt to "reclaim" socialist imagery that has been relentlessly abused.

[lacampbell]

I too am always baffled about how much more accepted communist imagery is than Nazi imagery. Mao and Stalins death counts far outstrip Hitlers. Also anyone advocating nazism in public would be rightly shouted down but you get heavily upvoted posts here advocating all sorts of nonsense proven to kill millions.

[vidarh]

I have never seen anyone here advocating "all sorts of nonsense proven to kill millions" without getting shouted down for it. I would love to see examples (well, not love, but you get the point).

I have seen people here advocating anti-authoritarian socialist ideologies of the types that would get you executed by regimes like those of Mao and Stalin.

[Grue3]

There are plenty of actual, unironic Stalinists and Maoists on Reddit.

[vidarh]

I don't doubt it, but the claim I responded to was that we get "heavily upvoted posts here advocating all sorts of nonsense proven to kill millions". Key word being here.

[giggles_giggles]

Everybody read Elie Weisel's Night in school but almost nobody's heard of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, for one thing..

[hueving]

>ugly trolling and hate speech is that the alt-right

Or your preconceived notions of conservative people are wrong.

[metamet]

Have you seen any of the alt-right communities? The alt-right is not your traditional conservative.

It's not a preconceived notion that /r/the_donald is filled to the brim with hate speech and trolls. You simply have to go there and look for yourself.

[wutbrodo]

I think the term "alt-right" at this point is just a catch-all derogatory for shitty people who happen to be a certain type of nationalist rightist, in much the same way that "SJW" refers to shitty people who happen to be associated with the social justice movement.

Before the election, there was a narrower meaning, but as soon as the Clinton campaign mentioned it and the media picked it up, any hope of the term having any concrete meaning was lost forever. (This isn't helped by the fact that people love using it to attack arbitrary conservatives, in much the same way that SJW is sometimes used to attack anyone who expresses views supportive of social justice without behaving badly).

EDIT: I don't let myself get worked up about downvotes in political conversations, but this one has me pretty curious. My comment wasn't even remotely offensive to any part of the political spectrum.

[H4CK3RM4N]

The best description I've seen of the alt-right is /pol/ as an ideology.