The alt-right doesn't care about the Constitution.

• Author: Ehrett, John

An emergent bloc of Republican voters, with unprecedented access to the new president's administration, openly despises our founding document's historic ideals. If left to fester, this poison will destroy the conservative movement

What does the alt-right believe about the Constitution?

Though plenty of ink has already been spilled about the controversial movement, steeped in xenophobia and racism, that zealously backed Donald Trump's campaign, this question has gone virtually unexplored.

In part, this is due to the difficulty of defining exactly what the alt-right stands for beyond explicit white supremacy. Some prominent "intellectuals" of the alt-right include Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and proponent of "peaceful ethnic cleansing"; Kevin MacDonald, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, known for his characterization of Judaism as a "group evolutionary strategy" deployed to out-compete other social groups for scarce resources; and Jared Taylor, a writer who argued in 2005 that black people cannot sustain Western civilization. Today's alt-right is an internet-adept melange of these white-identity activists alongside politically nihilistic pot stirrers.

While many differences exist within alt-right circles--for instance, some members are overtly anti-Semitic, some not--the alt-right rank and file seems to broadly embrace two general positions, both of which were once politically toxic: opposition to globalist economic policies, and opposition to multiculturalism. Neither of these positions is explicitly "constitutional" in character, and, indeed, talk of "restoring constitutional values" is nearly nonexistent in alt-right online forums. An amorphous idea of national identity--one that seems to have nothing to do with the Constitution--undergirds the alt-right's affinity for Trumpist politics.

In fact, some prominent members of the alt-right go beyond neglect for the Constitution into outright hostility. Here is the influential alt-right blogger Theodore Robert Beale, writing on his website in June 2016:

I think the old conservatives would do well to call themselves Constitutionalists, because it is obvious that the current batch don't give a damn about it. And neither do we of the #AltRight, because it is obvious that the Constitution has not only failed, completely, by its own stated purpose, but is today being used as a means of hand-cuffing the Right. This undercurrent is not confined to obscure Twitter subcultures: a striking aspect of the broader Trump movement was a disregard for constitutional values. Trump may have declared, in an effort to win over otherwise skeptical conservative voters, that his Supreme Court appointments will be "constitutional conservatives," but many more of his fiery and unpredictable comments hint at constitutional violations on a massive scale.

Many factors, ranging from widespread economic frustration to Hillary...