The alt-right is drunk on bad readings of Nietzsche. The Nazis were too.

Why is it that the alt- and the old- right can't read Nietzsche properly? Is it intellectual laziness, deliberate malevolence?

"The alt-right renounces Christianity but insists on defending Christendom against nonwhites. But that’s not Nietzsche; that’s just racism. And the half-baked defense of “Christendom” is an attempt to paper over that fact... Racists find affirmation in Nietzsche’s preference for “Aryan humanity,” a phrase he uses in several books, but that term doesn’t mean what racists think it means. “Aryan humanity” is always contrasted with Christian morality in Nietzsche’s works; it’s a reference to pre-Christian Paganism. Second, in Nietzsche’s time, “Aryan” was not a racially pure concept; it also included Indo-Iranian peoples....

So there’s no way to square Nietzsche’s philosophy with the racial politics of the alt-right, just as it wasn’t fair to charge Nietzsche with inspiring Nazism. But both of these movements found just enough ambiguity in his thought to justify their hate."

(via vox)

Introductory BBC documentary to Nietzsche's life and thought.