I first noticed this in Charlottesville. The REAL story was a typical college town story: young imported students alter the local politics, and then leave after a few years. There were 1100 normal local townsfolk who were pissed off that these students were tearing down the monuments that have been there forever. Nobody got to vote, no reasonable debate on the topic. So 1100 people showed up to let their voices be heard. The media focused on the 20 tiki-torch idiots, and that was that: either you were against colonialism and racism and every other ism, or you were a white-supremacist. No inbetween, no debate allowed.

It was the same with the term "alt-Right". As I recall after the Pulse nightclub there were a ton of gays who realized the Left threw them under the bus. Alt-right meant you were someone who historically would not have been politically right; this is best displayed with #walkaway. But then the media assigned that term to people like Richard Spencer (and honestly I can't think of anyone else, these guys are so few and far between). "Alt-Right" lost all media momentum... wouldn't want to be part of that scary group!

The Left is very good at weaponizing language.