By David Futrelle
Facing an energized antifascist movement and internal enmities, the Alt-Right is imploding, with its leaders giving up or fighting one another, while followers grow ever more disillusioned by the day.
But the Alt-Right is far from over, and continues its encroachment into the mainstream media; Tucker Carlson’s nightly show on Fox News has been getting ever more explicitly white supremacist. So we can’t let up yet.
Here’s a collection of recent articles to help make sense of the mess, including a selection of my own posts dealing with some of the juicy details of the collapse. Feel free to suggest more articles in the comments.
Less Than a Year After Charlottesville, the Alt-Right Is Self-Destructing (Daily Beast)
The Fascist Right Is Bloodied and Soiled (Splinter)
With their leadership knocked out, young white supremacists face a directionless future (ThinkProgress)
Satanism Drama Is Tearing Apart the Murderous Neo-Nazi Group Atomwaffen (Daily Beast)
Is Antifa Counterproductive? White Nationalist Richard Spencer Would Beg to Differ. (The Intercept)
In wake of Richard Spencer’s Michigan rally, the racist rights divisions over optics come to a head (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Neo-Nazi Group Implodes Over Love Triangle Turned Trailer Brawl (Daily Beast)
The Alt-Right Is Collapsing, but Powerful Conservatives Are Mainstreaming Its Ideas (Salon/Alternet)
Is the Alt-Right Dying? White Supremacist Leaders Report Infighting and Defection (Newsweek)
Why Is the Alt-Right Falling Apart? (Newsweek)
The alt-right is in decline. Has antifascist activism worked? (The Guardian)
The Hate Report: The alt-right is a mess (Reveal)
How Antifa Broke The Alt-Right (The Banter)
‘This is all we’ve got’: Young white supremacists are down to their last fundraising platform (ThinkProgress)
ALT FIGHT: Jason Jorjani Fancied Himself an Intellectual Leader of a White Supremacist Movement — Then It Came Crashing Down (The Intercept)
And here are a few of my posts on the subject:
Alt-Right erupts after crying Nazi Christopher Cantwell admits he’s a federal informant
MEME WAR: MGTOWs vs Nazis in The Battle of the (White) Babies!
For ongoing coverage of the alt-right and antifa/anarchist/lefty activism, check out It’s Going Down and Unicorn Riot.
Unrelated to the subject at hand, but I hope the ice golfer’s friends were quick in fishing him out. Falling through thick ice like that is pretty rapidly fatal if the water isn’t shallow :-/
Far right is on the downswing in France. But the reason for its rise are still here, so it’s not like we are out of the marsh quite yet.
Not that there is a credible political party that would actually attack the root of the problem.
@ wwth, ohlmann
Indeed! If the cause is social justice, then requests for intersectionality should bring everyone TO the cause… and lack of intersectionality IS the root of the problem…. IMHO, anyway
(link is CNN piece on black Parkland students)
E.T.A. my biggest fear with the student anti-gun violence movement is that it’s going to become a white liberals movement focusing on mass shootings, and black victims of gun violence — a huge number, who currently have little or no voice — are going to be erased
Zaunfink
Because if you are a company that makes / sells a line of products – say, several styles of chocolate bunnies at Easter – calling EVERY bunny in your line of products an “Easter Bunny” is so not confusing for the stockers & sales people.
Or in the 2 month season, from Thanksgiving to New Years Day, that includes 5 major holidays, a store should have its staff installing & removing separate signs for each holiday instead of putting up a generic “Happy Holidays!” sign.
Besides having an enormous persecution complex (because “Happy Holidays!” is so much worse than the rack or the Iron Maiden, if you really think about it), these people can’t reason their way through any issue.
@Weird (and tired of trumplings) Eddie
Yeah our media views white kids as more photogenic then black kids so its good they have momentum but some mic passing really needs to happen,
I have also read there is some ableism creeping into the movement can anyone confirm?
The Parkland students have been actively working to avoid that, connecting with PoC anti-gun violence groups across the country, inviting them to speak at events, and the like. Not just because they believe in intersectionality as a principle (although it seems from all indications that they do), but because allies are good to have and being able to mobilize more people helps the cause.
Oregon moves to make it harder for domestic abusers to have or obtain guns:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/30/one-no-brainer-way-to-bring-gun-deaths-down-close-the-boyfriend-loophole/
@ Surplus;
thanx for that info!
from the article:
hmmm… makes ya wonder if there’s a connection….
@TreePerson
There’s ableism in basically every movement always, but in the gun regulation movement it’s always been very strong. Specifically the push to not allow people with mental health issues to own guns and framing murderers and other violent criminals as “crazy”.
@Zaunfink: the AFD is at least still getting fairly marginalized, and so are it’s ideas. Not so in Scandinavia, especially Denmark, where what you’re describing as fringe-y behaviour has been marginalized, by everyone from the Social Democrats to the Liberals…
We’ve got a Minister of Integration who is openly and proudly divisive against any non-white immigrants or asylum-seekers, mainly muslims but not exclusively so, who’s championing Apartheid-style laws which would impose stricter mandatory sentences for criminal activity if you reside in specific neighbourhoods, which just so happen to be the ones singled out in the STATE DEFINED GHETTO-LIST… I can’t believe how this is coming from the self-professed liberals.
But glad to see that the state-side street-organisation of the militant right is somewhat curbed. No time to rest on the laurels, though, you’ve still got your militias and whatnots, and the nazis are unlikely to completely change their tune.
Also, wether you know it or not, this struggle has been ongoing worldwide since before the Second World War, and there has been countless defeats for the militant reactionaries, but they tend to resurface, which is why vigilance must be maintained.
OT: if you liked Ren & Stimpy, you probably need to read this Buzzfeed article, which documents how he abused underage girls under cover of “mentorship”. And here’s the too-familiar part of the story: his behaviour was, apparently, common knowledge in the industry, and everyone let him get away with it.
@Moggie
Yeah, it was well known and people were warned about him, according to an animator I know – she’s been wrestling with the whole thing the last couple days. Guilt mostly, for not speaking.
Yet no one who had enough clout to speak out without committing professional suicide did so. The couple that tried – well, they’ve not worked since. Kricfalusi didn’t do a thing in retaliation for them speaking – his fanbois handled the career killing.
That happens all the damned time – wake the fuck up, people! A person who creates something you like isn’t a fucking god.
(I hated Ren and Stimpy, for the record. 😛 )
@Moggie and Shadowplay
Sadly, the disillusionment of nostalgia gets in the way of everything. Fanboys obsessed with their “childhood” often times can’t see anything beyond that and take all form of criticism as if it were the equivalent of killing their family pet.
Of course, you could literally say that about most of the loonies we talk about on this site to begin with; they’re obsessed with a past that never happened and whatever did actually happen was actually pretty shitty.
Also, I sometimes forget that Ren & Stimpy even existed. Which really should tell you a lot about it’s overall quality.
@Friendly Neighbourhood Dragon Arthur,
“loonies” is not a cool word to use to describe these jerks! It makes fun of people with mental illnesses or conditions, none of which qualify them for joining the Garbage Brigade.
I’m sure it was just a slip, and that’s okay, too! Other words are available:
shitgibbons
butt weasels
Captains of Industry
jerks
turds
Lots more. Make up your own!
(/s)… hell, we got a president like that….
(also, note the lower case “p”…)
I absolutely love Ren & Stimpy so I’m pretty disappointed to hear this. Not surprised though. I don’t think any news like this can surprise me anymore, sadly.
@Dragon
Really don’t get that. “Killed my childhood” (or the worse “raped my childhood”) – see it all the damned time and I always think, “If your childhood was that damned fragile that it can be destroyed by something happening years later, why do you want to preserve it?”
Sounds like a pretty shitty childhood to me.
Gah, missed the edit window for a VERY needed clarification:
should be
Sorry for any hurt my poor phrasing caused.
That “Sieg Fail” meme is the best thing I’ve seen in a while. Thanks. XD
Scribbly Swastikas = Kampfing on acid
Happy Easter, everyone.
@bekabot: Completely forgotten about Government Cheese, class act.
And while hilarious, nazi incompetence is not enough, opposition on all fronts and by any means nescessary
IT-Crowd samples and lines about nazi-punching, what’s not to love?
Wow, it’s almost like a movement built on contrarian right-wing trolling and malicious attacks and nothing else can’t hold together as a cohesive force. Who woulda thunk it?
As I am extremely fond of noting–and yes, that is self-mocking–the imagery these imbeciles are fond of may be that of the Third Reich, but the alt-right most resembles the far right of the French Third Republic, with its internal squabbles, ludicrous ideas, and tendency to fall in love with “national saviors” with feet of clay. (Look up Georges Ernest Boulanger, for example.) And just like their forebears, even as they imagine themselves the inevitable victors and in touch with the common man, they are instead a self-absorbed community out of touch with everything that isn’t them.
Which is not to say they aren’t a threat, but… well, we aren’t Weimar, thank god. Even if Il Puce is in charge at the moment…
I haven’t watched it myself, but a friend who has the misfortune of going to a gym that tends to have Fox News on related to me that Tucker Carlson was also having “men are the real oppressed minority” segments as well.
As for that rather horrible video (I assume the camera person helped get him out of that?), it should be noted that I would never walk on frozen-over water that was still that dark. I’ve spent my time on Lake Mendota (in Madison Wisconsin) in the winter, but going out there when the ice is still smooth and dark–not going to happen.