{"id":121292,"date":"2018-03-30T10:54:11","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T18:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=121292"},"modified":"2018-03-30T10:54:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T18:54:11","slug":"less-than-a-year-after-charlottesville-the-alt-right-is-self-destructing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=121292","title":{"rendered":"‘Less Than a Year After Charlottesville, the Alt-Right Is Self-Destructing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Beast<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Earlier in March\u2014after Bristow quit the movement, but before Spencer canceled his college tour\u2014Heimbach and the TWP acted as a security force for Spencer outside a speech to a handful of people at Michigan State University. They scrapped with counterprotesters, resulting in at least a dozen arrests\u2014including that of Greg Conte, director of operations for an alt-right group, HuffPost reported.<\/p>\n

The physical brawl turned into a Twitter feud between Spencer and Patrick Casey, the executive director of white supremacist group Identity Evropa. Identity Evropa participated in the violent clashes at Charlottesville. But after the deadly rally, and two leadership changes (leader Nathan Damigo quit after Charlottesville, and his successor Eli Mosely quit to join a Spencer-affiliated group before it was revealed that Mosely lied about serving in the Iraq War) Identity Evropa promoted Casey to its head and attempted to rebrand itself as clean-cut.<\/p>\n

On Twitter, two days after the TWP got in a brawl while acting as Spencer\u2019s security force, Identity Evropa claimed to be \u201cexplicitly non-violent\u201d and \u201cpeacefully effecting cultural change.\u201d In a press-friendly, but largely meaningless semantic ploy, the group denied being a white supremacist organization.<\/p>\n

Spencer interpreted the tweet as an attack. In a tweet of his own, Spencer said he was \u201cbaffled and shocked at the behavior\u201d of Casey, and accused him of expelling Identity Evropa members who had supported Spencer during the brawl outside Michigan State University.<\/p>\n

The spat was the latest over the alt-right\u2019s \u201coptics,\u201d a divisive subject among the movement. The Unite the Right rally was so toxic for the alt-right\u2019s image that some members started arguing that in-person protests were bad publicity for the cause.<\/p>\n

Currently \u201cthe biggest divide is between people who believe in online activism versus real-world activism.\u201d Beirich said. After Charlottesville, Daily Stormer founder \u201cAndrew Anglin, for example, posted things criticizing in-real-life protests\u2026 When PayPal and Facebook started banning accounts, he was pointing out that \u2018these aren\u2019t good things for us, taking to the streets isn\u2019t necessarily positive, the optics were bad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daily Beast: Earlier in March\u2014after Bristow quit the movement, but before Spencer canceled his college tour\u2014Heimbach and the TWP acted as a security force for Spencer outside a speech to a handful of people at Michigan State University. They scrapped … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t