Competing Alt-Right ‘Free Speech’ Rallies Reveal Infighting Over White Nationalism
Exodus from racist-heavy speakers’ lineup for Lincoln Memorial rally Sunday fuels a rival alt-right protest at the White House, and the two sides engage in social media warfare over it.
Tim ‘Baked Alaska’ Gionet posted a meme aimed at the ‘alt light’ rally.
Although the alt-right presents itself as a new kind of white male nationalism rewired for the 21st century, it is proving in practice to have many of the same qualities as its old 20th-century forebears: Riddled with infighting and internecine quarrels, the product of a movement whose sociopathic agenda attracts similar personalities, ego-driven and contentious.
The infighting, which first erupted last week between far-right Oath Keepers and white nationalist alt-righters, deepened this week when two factions — outright white nationalists and committed racists on one hand, and alt-righters (dismissed as the “alt-light”) who disavow them and their politics while embracing the movement agenda — squared off on social media over a series of “free speech” events aimed at provoking left-wing counter-protests and, potentially violence.
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