While there are ongoing efforts to revise the Confederate States of America story from one of slavery to one of state’s rights, secession from the Union was because of slavery. At the time of succession, the leaders explicitly said this was their primary motivation. This is not to deny there were other motivations, such as concerns about state’s rights and economic factors. The Confederacy’s moral and economic foundation was slavery. This is a rejection of the principle that all men are created equal, a rejection of the notion of liberty, and an abandonment of the idea that the legitimacy of government rests on the consent of the governed. In short, the Confederacy was an explicit rejection of the professed values of the United States. Other than white supremacy.

While the Confederacy lost and the union was reformed, its values survived and are now manifested by the alt-right and increasingly the right. This is shown by their defense of Confederate monuments, their use of Confederate flags, and their racism. They are aware of the moral foundations of their movement.

While the value system of the Confederacy embraced white supremacy and accepted slavery as a moral good, it did not accept genocide. That is, the Confederacy advocated enslaving blacks rather than exterminating them. Extermination was something the Nazis eventually embraced.

The Nazis took over the German state and plunged the world into war. Like the Confederate states, the Nazis embraced the idea of white supremacy and rejected equality and liberty. The Nazis also made extensive use of slave labor. Unlike the Confederate states, the Nazis engaged in a systematic effort to exterminate those they regarded as inferior. This does mark a moral distinction between the Confederate States of America and Nazi Germany. This is a distinction between degrees of evil.

While the Nazis were once regarded by most Americans as a paradigm of evil, many in the alt-right embrace their values and some do so explicitly and openly, identifying as neo-Nazis. Some claim they do not want to exterminate what they say are other races but want to have racially pure states. For example, some on antisemites on the right support Israel because they see it as a Jewish state; a place where all the Jews should be. In their ideal world, each state would be racially pure. This is why the alt-right is sometimes also known as the white nationalists. The desire to have pure states can be seen as morally better than the desire to exterminate, but this is a distinction in evils rather than one between good and bad.

Based on the above, the modern alt-right (and increasingly the American right) is the inheritor of the Confederate States of America and Nazi Germany. While this might seem a matter of mere historic interest, it has important implications. One is that it provides grounds that the members of the alt-right should be regarded as on par with members or supporters of ISIS or other enemy foreign terrorist groups. This is in contrast with seeing the alt-right as being entirely domestic.

Those who join or support Isis (and other such groups) are seen as different from domestic hate groups. This is because ISIS (and other such groups) are foreign and conflict with the United States. This applies even when the ISIS supporter is an American who lives in America. This perceived difference has numerous consequences, including legal ones. It also has consequences for free speech. While advocating the goals and values of ISIS in the United States would be a threat and could result in criminal charges, the alt-right is protected by the right to free speech. This is illustrated by the fact that the alt-right can get permits to march in the United States, while ISIS supporters and similar groups cannot. One can imagine the response if ISIS or Hamas supporters applied for permit or engaged in a march.

While some hate groups are truly domestic in that they are not associated with foreign organizations at war with the United States, the alt-right cannot make this claim. At least they cannot to the degree they are connected to the Confederate States of America and the Nazis. Both are foreign powers who were at war with the United States. As such, the alt-right should be seen as on par with other groups that affiliate themselves with foreign groups engaged in war with the United States.

An obvious reply is that the Confederacy and the Nazis were defeated and no longer exist. On the one hand, this is true. The Confederacy was destroyed, and the states rejoined the United States. The Nazis were defeated and while Germany still exists, it is not controlled by the Nazis. At least not yet. On the other hand, the Confederacy and the Nazis do persist in the form of groups that preserve their values and ideology here in the United States. To use the obvious analogy, the defeat of ISIS and its territorial losses did not end the group. It will persist as long as it has supporters, and the United States has not switched to a policy of tolerating ISIS members and supporters simply because ISIS no longer has territory.

 The same holds true for those supporting or claiming membership in the Confederacy or the Nazis. They are supporters of foreign powers that are enemies of the United States and are thus on par with ISIS supporters and members in that they are agents of the enemy. This is not to say that the alt-right is morally equivalent to ISIS in terms of its actions. Overall, ISIS is worse. But what matters in this context, is the expression of allegiance to the values and goals of a foreign enemy—something ISIS supporters and alt-right members who embrace the Confederacy or Nazis have in common.