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 The Extreme Alt Right Worldview

in the news: A month after USA FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that domestic violent extremists--most notably white supremacists are "the most persistent lethal threat facing America," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reached a similar conclusion in its annual report released in mid October. An October 17 article in The Economist entitled "Far Right Extremism: Making the World Glow" reports, "The threat from right wing terror groups is more serious than for decades." The second half of its title derives from a comment made by Adam Fox, one of the plotters in the foiled effort to kidnap and execute Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, refers to the glow from bombing and setting fires. According to FBI personnel who had infiltrated the group, Mr. Fox had proposed leading 200 men to storm the state capital in Michigan. Meanwhile the threat posed by right wing extremist driven conspiracy theories--such as the Q Anon craziness--continued to make news as the USA election approached. Writing in the October 19th issue of Time, Sacha Baron Cohen argued (and titled his contribution), "We can still save democracy from conspiracies." Along with his work in the entertainment industry, Baron Cohen is part of a group called "Stop Hate for Profit."

commentary and analysis (by Stephen P. Cook, founder and manager, project Worldview, www.projectworldview.org):  Our extensive (version 4.2) expansion of the project Worldview worldview theme structure--now involving 104 worldview themes paired to make 52 choices--has just been joined by a newly released "Choices We Make: Worldview Analysis for One Person" program. This computer program is designed for one person to use in comparing his or her worldview with twelve different generic categories of worldviews--all of them based on the choices made when presented a deck of 52 Choices We Make playing cards (or booklet) with different worldview theme choices on each side (in each frame).   Using a Pearson correlation coefficient based algorithm, it computes a % correlation between an individual's worldview and each of those twelve generic ones, and also checks this person's worldview for internal inconsistencies.  

Amongst those twelve generic worldviews are ones with names like  "Humanist Progressive" and "USA Conservative" which have existed in previous versions of this program. A newly added one is our focus here: "Extreme Alt Right." Among the twenty worldview themes employed in this generic effort at characterizing the worldviews of the diverse people (which includes more than its share of zealots!) who comprise this group are these eleven ones: 

 #2A   The True Believer       #4 Spreading Disinformation / Tactical Deception         #16A Culture of Fear          

#17A  Bitterness & Vengeance                       #29B Taking Charge==> Violence          #36A Cynicism                    

             #36B  Conspiracies                               #37A   Proud Identification & Tribalism                                    

#39B  Blaming / Scapegoating              #46B Military Backers                   #204A Freedom From Limits      

The complete characterization (in terms of choices made) of all twelve generic worldviews including "Extreme Alt Right" can be found here.   Not unexpectedly given the wide scope covered by some of the theme descriptions and what humans profess to value, contradictions typically exist between some of the themes in these characterizations. For the worldview being analyzed, the above mentioned computer program quantifies its consistency with a % consistency value, and helps the individual understand where the inconsistencies arise. For the twelve generic worldviews themselves, the internal consistencies for  range from 35 % to 100%. It turns out the "Extreme Alt Right" has the lowest internal consistency at 35%.