You wanted to be seen. You were.
You wanted to be seen. You were.

The Alt-Right Wanted People to Hear Their Message

Opinion

So, you’re an alt-right weasel internet troll, and you’ve been shouting (online, in all-caps) for years about how people just needed to hear your message. You and your buddies have spent years thinking that white America was going to jump on your hate-train. You just had to get the message out. Your manipulative leaders said the same, but they knew that they needed to repackage their hatred to make it more acceptable, which is why they chose to call themselves “alt-right” and not a more honest term, such as “neo-Nazi” or “white supremacist” or “wannabe Klansman”.

Trump came along and pandered to, you while surfing your wave or racism and hate to The White House. That emboldened you, and your movement has been gunning for a fight ever since. You’ve been descending on cities in mass to have “free speech” rallies, armed with bats and knives and guns. You have intentionally targeted notoriously liberal cities, like Berkley, where you knew you would get a fight. You took those fights, played victim like the most cowardly wife-beater, and made the fight you picked look like liberals were violent and stomping on your rights. But you really didn’t get the attention you wanted.

You finally had your day in Charlottesville. You caught the nation’s attention. You showed us who you are. One of your own murdered a woman, and the rest of you made excuses. You terrified and attacked non-violent protesters, including clergy and venerable civil-rights activists.

Your leaders and Trump making excuses for you. You whined and played victim once again, for another fight that you picked. As usual, you claimed non-violence despite the videos of you attacking people unprovoked and shouting that you were “ready to kill them”. As usual, you claimed you are not neo-Nazis after shouting “Jews will not replace us”.

This time, it went far enough. You got the attention you wanted. The world saw clearly who you are: violent, clueless, hateful, racist, fascist, deceptive, petty, and murderous. And they saw you for the cowards you are when held accountable for your deeds or challenged by people with moral strength. They saw you pull off your racist T-shirts to hide from retribution. They saw you crying on the internet because you may go to jail. And you spent years calling us liberals “snowflakes”.

The fallout has been a massive mobilization of anti-racists sentiment. Your web sites are losing their hosts. Facebook is banning your hate speech. PayPal and Apple are refusing to process payments for you. In the days after, in many cities, more people marched in opposition to you – in each city -- than you could muster for “the biggest white power rally in two decades”. Trump may stick by you, but even super-conservative Republicans are speaking out against you. AirBnB has banned you. Spotify has banned you. Your crying poster-boy has lost his OkCupid account. You supposedly went to save a Confederate statue, and now Confederate statues are going down all over the country.

You wanted the world to see you. They did. They just realized how disgusting you are. Maybe it is time that you and your remaining supporters realized it too.