Introducing the ‘alt-left’: The GOP’s response to its alt-right problem

"The term isn't brand new, but it has just now gradually worked its way into the mainstream. It started with alt-right websites like World Net Daily and has graduated to the airwaves of Fox News and Sean Hannity, who has been using it for a couple of weeks now. And Trump, who has distanced himself from the alt-right term, may have played a major role in pushing it into the conservative lexicon.

“Nobody even knows what [alt-right] is,” Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper in August when asked about Bannon's comments tying Breitbart to the alt-right. “This is a term that was just given that — frankly, there's no alt-right or alt-left. All I'm embracing is common sense.”

Previously, the term had appeared intermittently on sites like WND and CNS News and even in a syndicated column in Canadian newspapers hitting the media's coverage of Trump. But Trump's mention seemed to bring it to the attention of more mainstream conservatives.

The same night Trump used it, Lou Dobbs dropped a reference on his Fox Business Network show. A couple days later, the Washington Times' Kerry Riddell appeared on Fox News's “Media Buzz” and took issue with the media trying to label Trump's supporters as bigoted and racist: “If they're going to do that, do it with her or do it with her alt-left supporters.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/meet-the-alt-left-the-gops-response-to-its-alt-right-problem/?utm_term=.5261efeba6b7