Similarly, the oldest hate site, Stormfront, gained nearly 30,000 new registered users in the first eight months of 2017, bringing its total to over 326,000. By the eve of the Charlottesville rally in August 2017, that number had reached nearly 750,000. In the summer of 2016, Daily Stormer averaged about 140,000 unique page views a month. Rabidly racist and antisemitic web forums like Andrew Anglin’s Daily Stormer drew huge numbers up until the Charlottesville rally, when the finally outraged tech world began to take down their platforms. And white nationalism - now rebranded as the “alt-right” - crept further into the mainstream than it had in decades.Īlleged alt-right killer Sean Christopher Urbanski Image and style became nearly as important as the message. Now it was young men wearing “fashy” haircuts, khakis and polo shirts. No longer was it just a movement made up of old men wearing Klan robes or swastika armbands. In 2017, being a white nationalist suddenly seemed hip. It was so popular that even antigovernment militias, which usually shun hate group events, got into the act. Most notable was the deadly “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville on August 12. In the United States, Trump’s win catapulted these young men from their keyboards into the streets, where they marched and rallied from coast to coast. They injected new life into an international movement that previously seemed stagnant and unappealing to angry internet warriors. The Young and the RestlessĪs white nationalism mushroomed in Europe, the excitement resulted in the recruitment of more and more young people - not just millennials but also the even-younger Generation Z. And racists were reminded in January that they still have a sympathetic ear in the White House when Trump referred to Haiti and African countries as “shitholes.” Whatever the tactical losses the hate movement is suffering because of Charlottesville, the longer-term trend - in particular due to America’s changing demographics and Trump fanning xenophobic flames - will continue to fuel a white nationalist backlash in the coming years. A post-Charlottesville Washington Post/ABC News survey found that 9 percent of Americans - about 22 million people - thought it was fine to hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views. The blowback from Charlottesville may have hit the white nationalist movement hard, but though they may be losing battles, they are having much more success in the war of ideas.
Together, these moves greatly reduced the ability of extremists to spread demonizing propaganda to mainstream audiences and raise operating funds - at least for the time being. Tech companies pulled PayPal accounts, took down websites and banned Twitter and Facebook accounts. Perhaps worse for hate groups, their all-important online presence came under attack. Not only was an anti-racist protester killed by a white supremacist who rammed his car into a crowd, the movement as a whole was rebuked by public figures across the political spectrum and denounced in a unanimous, joint resolution by Congress. The multiday Charlottesville rally in mid-August, the largest by the radical right in a decade, ended in violence and disaster. He instituted numerous anti-immigrant policies, such as allowing the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to expire, an act that threw the future of nearly 800,000 immigrants in limbo.īut the year did not continue on a high note for the white nationalist movement. He ordered a ban on Muslims from overseas, for example, and barred transgender people from serving in our military. Trump moved quickly to enact policies sought by these groups and their allies. Hate group leaders like Tony Perkins of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council and Brigitte Gabriel of the anti-Muslim ACT for America were given the president’s ear. As key advisers, he hired extremists such as Steve Bannon - who boasted of transforming his website Breitbart News into “the platform for the alt-right” - and Sebastian Gorka, an infamous Muslim basher who, on the eve of Charlottesville, claimed that white supremacists are not “the problem” when it comes to terrorism. In fact, he invited their white nationalism and bigotry into the White House.
0 kommentar(er)
