I hear what you are saying but you can't take Richard Spencer out of the equation when he's claiming he coined the term "Alt-Right", is a know white nationalist, and has said himself that he uses the term to define his views because of the negative connotation associated with white nationalism.
So essentially it's not just the MSM high-jacking the term and making it fit their narrative it's actual white nationalists/supremacists identifying as alt-right and making it publicly known what they are about. IMO the MSM has downplayed the significance of white nationalism/supremacy associated with alt-right groups/thinking.
Didn't we just go through all of this with the Tea Party?
Yes, it's true richard spencer apparently coined the term years ago, but he was a nobody, and frankly, he still is a nobody but a lot of media sources are hyping him up because he's an opportunist attention whore.
And no, not all white nationalists/supremacists use that term. It's a very recent construction. And to say the MSM has downplayed it is absurd. Virtually every mention of the term by CNN, NBC, even hillary rodham clinton involves associated the alt right with white nationalism.
To them, the alt right was their way of lumping ****** (specifically pol) reddit and just about anyone right wing into a giant honey pot. To me Spencer is an opportunist and a useful idiot who is capitalized on the popularity to do the whole college speaking engagement thing. Listening to him talk, he has some salient points about race relations and society in general, but he goes full retard with thinking a nation is only united purely by its ethnic/racial identity.
He sounds like a psuedo-intellectual FBI agent to me.
And the Tea party was another movement that was hijacked and destroyed just the same. It's a way of forcing people to buy into the two-party system.
It scares anyone off that doesn't agree with the establishment, and it gets identity politics weirdos on the left to call anyone associated with it a racist or some other ad hominem