That poster is incredible. Ticks all the boxes - confederate monuments and flag, nazi imagery and font, pepes.

I don't think the old-school KKK dudes and legit Neo-Confederates are all that much into this internet pepe alt-right ****. Like remember that YouTube of that guy with pepe meme posters getting harassed by rednecks?

Also not particular to the poster specifically, but the all-star panel of racists show the blurred lines between kayfabe and cosplay and identity. Note how many of these guys are promoting themselves with their troll persona names like Baked Alaska, Johnny Monoxide and Augustus Invictus. There's a cottage industry of historians and scholars quietly debating this on Twitter over the past ~year or two or whatever: just how much of our current political zeitgeist maps onto fascist movements in the past. One point of some historians is that the fascist youth movements of the 1930s/40s in Spain, in Germany, in Italy - they took their roles and themselves very, very seriously, and the modern alt-right exists in an opaque space between comedy troupe and genuine fascist youth movement. Which is ahistorical, not typical.

Like I take these guys 'seriously' as meaningfully representing a genuine political sentiment but their continued embrace of troll personas in public show them akin to pornstars, the idea that some of these guys still plan to drop the schtick and recede back into normality at some point. Fascist youth movement of the past took seriously the idea of organizing and movement building. They were proud to be part of the movement, wanted their families to know they were ascendant in the movement. Events like this UNITE THE RIGHT thing were part of it. So that's a signal contra to what I'm arguing. But that these guys seem like they're still embracing troll identities and half of the neo-confederates are Pepe show this is something akin to David Bowie embracing fascist chic, as much art and performance as it is political movement.

Most obvious difference seems to be that the youth fascist groups of the 30s had serious issues to ***** about like unemployment and worker's rights instead of Confederate flags and Trigglypuff.

I believe Augustus Invictus is actually that guy's legal name.

Not a bad move, really. He doesn't have to worry about his real name getting doxxed and he can change it back like Chad Ochocinco when he's done with his trolling act and starts applying for real jobs.

ALSO, he ran for a Florida Senate seat in Gainesville.

One counter-argument is that the continued troll pose is ultimately strategic; that it's a very serious political movement quietly avoiding some measure of scrutiny with Pepe and performance art.

Still think it's something different from past fascist movements. The Nazis were genuinely fueled by a vibrant youth subculture that took themselves and their roles seriously, imitated the party leadership and desperately wanted to be respected by the real Nazis. Trump remains fueled mostly by the old and what exists of the Trump Youth seems perpetually locked in these troll campaigns and not really evolving beyond them yet.

The alt-right definitely had a split a while back. Guys like Spencer and Baked Alaska decided to go full open racist, whereas Cernovich and Milo are trying to cross-over into the realm of legitimacy.

Not sure how much I agree, especially about Milo, but in any case: in the game of norms and threats and whose worldview is winning, if reformed alt-right types pivot from PizzaGate and Confederate apology to boilerplate right-winger paranoia and distancing themselves from openly virulent racism, then it's a signal that legitimacy and respectability will remain with at the very least with lip service to racial, religious, and gender egalitarianism.

Now this isn't pleading that like 2015 America was ideal, but the big 'risk' is that the Trumpening of America and the alt-right posture portended the normalization of Richard Spencer type racism and having it joins the ranks of respectable outlooks. THAT'S when **** gets bad.

If alt-right types casually slip into bedrock inane talk radio right-wingerism then we obviously still have big problem on our hands but it's at least an old problem, and suggests at least SOME durability for liberal cosmopolitan values that you have to moderate yourself to be a long-term force in media and right-wing agitation.

I mean when a league average right-winger media type does the whole "I'm not a racist, now here's my racist hot take" schtick, at least they are acknowledging a minimalist consensus that being racist is bad. There's value in that. We move into the danger zone when it's like "I'm a proud racist, here's my racist hot take" and that exists as broadly acceptable.

Exactly. If you want to make the big time, you have to tone down the rhetoric. Milo and Cernovich are trying to go mainstream. Spencer is happy to be a big fish in a small pond, and apparently so is Baked Alaska (remember The Jewish Question fiasco?). https://www.mediaite.com/online/alt-...p-deploraball/

It seems pretty obvious that once they hit a certain level of internet fame, they have a choice to make. A red pill/blue pill if you will.

The Nazi movements they had their own social welfare programs and socialization programs that drew people into the organization. Same with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They have their own version of the Boy Scout program, after school tutoring, summer camps, community centers, etc. The alt right, at least implicitly, take for granted the hegemony of liberalism in the cultural sphere.

Right. Good point. It's a different way to say what I'm trying to say: these guys aren't trying very hard at movement building beyond trolling and jokes. They aren't doing the things historical fascist or ethnonationalist movements did to really change the political culture and environment and turn rabble rousing into a meaningful revolution.

So I do think we should take the alt-right seriously -- I think it's giving them far too much space to operate by considering them simply jokers/trolls instead of a genuinely dangerous if disorganized nascent political movement.

But they aren't really taking it seriously themselves. Leaders with names like Baked Alaska relying on Pepe to communicate with people and not really engaging with the community and solving deeper ideological and political needs is demonstrative of a movement that isn't evolving beyond performance art.

I mean the best I can see about the alt-right's ideology is something like:

- race, gender, maybe even like religious beliefs or motivated violence in religion are biological, not social constructs
- modernity has replaced harsh biological truths (black Presidents are inferior, female game journalists are inferior, whatever) with social artifice ('PC-culture')
- their main ideological goal is to mock/deride and destroy that social artifice

...and there are no goals beyond that. It's a pretty limited political project. Which I think is why that poster strikes people as odd. Here they are engaged in SOMETHING approximating a mass-mobilization type of activity -- holding a rally -- and the stars are Pepe and dudes using their internet pseudonyms. Obviously I grant there are surely some hardcore white supremacists like your Steve Bannons who have world-altering visions beyond but it seems like the question hasn't even occurred to most of the alt-right what the next step is after this. Hence Pepe and Confederates for years on end and not much else. In past historical fascist movements, there was a stark vibrancy to the goals and paths to get there, like huehue points out. The alt-right seemingly just wants to tell liberals and PC-culture to **** off and get back to jerking off to anime.

It disarms any criticism. They used a cartoon therefore a serious response is absurd. The desire is to collect the benefits of pushing an ideology forward without the inconvenience of defending it.

Right. I get the counter argument, and it's compelling.

However, I still think past fascist movements took very seriously the goal of pushing the ideology forward with huge amounts of practical organization and political activism and advocacy and these guys just spend all day making memes for Facebook about a very narrow set of interests and with little coordination with an established political organization that seeks power. Obviously the Bannon/Trump/Republican nexus caveats apply here, clearly there is SOME of that. But it's pretty inchoate right now imo, and these guys just seem really wedded to Pepe and their internet personas and not pivoting to genuine political movement building.

Counter-to-the-counter: Facebook memes are the new forms of very serious political activism and Pepe is something like their Mein Kampf

I've had the same thought. My whole family is Catholic and they all voted TRUMP. I guess they think they are part of the white people club, and I suppose they are today, but I've always figured once these ****ers get done with the Muslims and Hispanics then Catholics will be next.

People in general are not politically active and mobilized the way they were in prior generations; the alt-right is probably a reflection of this.

Wake me up when they do something other than berate people on twitter and make youtoobz. I believe pretty strongly that these people have exactly zero actual motivation and/or courage.

It strikes me odd because of the open use of Nazi imagery, especially in combination with the militaristic theme.

It's not just that though. The use of a joke cartoon figure like Pepe is unusual historically. I think DVaut's posting on it has been accurate. The movement really springs from the 4chan style trolling culture, which is basically nihilist, the message is that empathy is stupid, emotions are stupid, caring about stuff is stupid and to be mocked. That's why Milo the big ol' queer is a hero of the movement: because lol caring about people's sexuality. Also lol caring about racism, sexism, or the welfare of others.

The advantage of this is that it's big tent, and that's really why it's an idea whose time has come: a lot of traditional Republicans have drifted towards a "**** liberals" policy platform, which meshes perfectly with the 4channers. The downside is a lack of any coherence in the movement. We saw that with Trump, where different groups of Trumpkins had wildly different ideas on what Trump would do once in power. The movement is yet to accomplish anything or even to come up with coherent ideas of what to do. They are still dangerous because they are capable of just being destructive; they're liable to "skinny repeal" the whole Federal Government if they can.

This administration is off the rails and Maddow still feels there is a need for 10 min yawnfest A blocks.

Sure, I agree that the trolling/just joking! aspect is a new and interesting angle. My point is that berating each other on Twitter and making yootoobes and failing to organize in constructive ways is something young people on both sides of the political spectrum are doing. Like, remember when "slacktivism" was a thing people were talking about. We've really lost the activist culture that prior generations had, although with Trump that may change. Seems like especially back in the 1900s-40s people were much more into rabble rousing and throwing general strikes and bombs

While I broadly agree with this I guess, I don't think that's what is either unusual or dysfunctional about the movement. Young people on the Left had no difficulty turning Bernie into a real, coherent movement that had actual political aims and inspired political passion. The alt-right could start having big weekly rallies and throwing bombs and they'd still be incapable of achieving anything except destroying stuff, because when you boil them down to things they all agree on, it's pretty much what DVaut said:

I think it's slightly broader than that; it's the general idea that fluffy girly things like feelings and concern for others are ******ed and that the world should be run based on Pure Reason. The quote above is a special case of this. (Also, the most urgent problems to be tackled by the application of Pure Reason always turn out to be stuff like whether it's OK for businesses to refuse service to minorities).

This is the same song that has been sung by internet libertarians for years, what has weaponized it I think is the confluence with the general "**** liberals" attitude taking over the GOP. Libertarians used to be a nerdy, almost effete movement; remember the rEVOLution? That **** wouldn't fly these days. While we used to have "Liberals are ruining America" and "The world should be run by the application of Pure Reason" we now have "Liberals are ruining America because they are the enemy of Pure Reason". What exactly Pure Reason will lead to is a project for later; Alex Wice thinks it means legalizing drugs and auditing the Fed, the fascist brigade thinks it means a war of civilizations with Islam. That doesn't matter right now because for the moment they all agree that liberals and their girly feelings and emotions are what is ruining America.

Well they do vote though.