I never understood this. The man himself has stated that his views are far from the alt-right.

He claimed they were "far from negative label 1, far from negative label 2"

You'll have to excuse me if that feckless and limp rejection is worthless.

I also heard that EXACT same refrain from Donald Trump, funny enough, when he equivocated and supported the white supremacy movement saying that there were bad people on "both sides" after a neo-nazi murdered a peaceful protester.

I'm just so inoculated against these kinds of denials, where you say "I'm not negative label 1" then spend 1000 words basically walking back that already wimpy denial.

I live in the South, so I hear shit like "I'm not a racist or whatever, but..." so I understand that people who fit a label constantly hate being labeled that way, so they enter a cognitive dissonance where they reject the label publicly while privately supporting its ideals.

Again, he said "my views aren't far left or far right, but...." and he never called out any belief as bad. He's playing the labels game, identity politics, not substance, and IMO, there's a reason for that.

People who disagree say: "I disagree with the ideology specifically". People who agree say "I don't like your labeling and plus it's a free country I can have any opinion I want so whatever"