Issues common to these groups accorded with ideas of purity, an interest in survivalism, and a deep distrust of the government.

Crunchy , coined as a pop-culture reference to granola, has come to refer to a wide variety of cultural practices, including avoiding additives and food dyes, declining or spacing out childhood vaccinations beyond what pediatricians recommend, and more extreme actions in pursuit of health, independence, and purity. Back-to-the-land living and... See more

n Twitter and TikTok over the past few weeks, scores of users have become alarmed about the uncomfortable coziness between the natural-food-and-body community and white-power and militant-right online spaces—the “crunchy-to-alt-right pipeline.”

These bits of crunchiness included organic farming, a macrobiotic diet, neo-paganism, anti-fluoridation, and traditional midwifery. All of these are often thought of as leftist or “hippie” issues, but they appeared regularly in the robust outpouring of women’s publications in the white-power movement

Beginning in the ’70s, the alternative-lifestyle publication Mother Earth News ran articles on organic gardening and other issues championed by the left. Though the publication itself was not an organ of the white power movement, and indeed often espoused leftist positions, in at least one high-profile case, white power activists used its... See more

But the crunchy-to-alt-right-pipeline conversation gives us a chance to see something crucial that is often lost in depictions of right-wing formations. The white-power movement is not just men marching in the street. It’s also women sharing cultural materials through social networks. Women, and the cultural materials upon which they exert their... See more