Antisocial, p.30
Antisocial, page 30
Murphy raised his eyebrows. “Looks like we’ve found their rally,” he said.
There was no stage, no lectern, just a granite landing with two loudspeakers and a handheld microphone. The alt-right leaders stood in a small semicircle, vaping and checking their phones, before stepping forward, one by one, to speak. On the stairs behind them stood a row of young men holding flags: the American flag, the Confederate flag, the teal-and-white flag of an American white-nationalist organization called Identity Evropa. “America was founded by white people,” Nathan Damigo, the founder of Identity Evropa, had said during his speech. “It was founded for white people. America was not founded to be a multiracial, multicultural society.”
The penultimate speaker was the founder of The Right Stuff, Mike Enoch—tall and stout, with a grim, downturned mouth. “Let’s be honest,” Enoch said. “What’s really facing our country today is systematic elimination of white people—the displacement and genocide of the white race.”
A tourist, riding by on a rented bike, shouted, “Where’s your common sense at, though?”
* * *
—
Having spent so much time straining to hear dog whistles, I was surprised by how surprising it was to be face-to-face with the dog itself. Yet again, I felt forced into the role of the pearl-clutching traditionalist. The white nationalists had chosen this location on purpose: holding their march on the National Mall, where Martin Luther King had spoken fifty-four years earlier, was part of the troll. All day long, Richard Spencer had been live-tweeting the event with the hashtag #IHaveAMeme. The whole point was to upset the normies.
Well, they got me. I was upset. I just didn’t know what to do with that feeling.
I got back to the alt-light rally shortly after it ended. A vaporwave instrumental was playing on someone’s Bluetooth stereo. Posobiec and Mike Flynn Jr., who had been sitting on the portable stage, had to get down to let the rental company cart it away.
Jane Ruby led the way to a rooftop bar, and about a dozen Deplorables sat at a banquette with a view of the Washington Monument, discussing their branding strategy. “The alt-right keeps labeling us alt-light, but I don’t think we should give in to that,” Loomer said.
“Yeah, you don’t want to define yourself as the absence of something,” Cernovich said. “Although there is precedent for it—7UP, the uncola. So it has worked at least once.”
“I think New Right is the best of the ones I’ve heard so far,” Chamberlain said.
Cernovich nodded. “New Right is my favorite,” he said.
The sun shifted so that it hit the back of Chamberlain’s neck. “I should move before I burn up,” he said, adding, “How could white supremacy be true if I can’t even sit in the sun for five minutes?”
The group ended up, inevitably, in the lobby of the Trump Hotel. Corey Stewart, a revanchist Republican and an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Virginia, sat on a divan explaining why Confederate monuments must be preserved. Stewart—a son of Duluth, Minnesota, who now lived in a restored plantation house in Virginia—had clearly made the calculation that the best way to advance his political career in Trump’s America was to pander to racists, more or less openly. It was the Southern Strategy: Post-Subtlety Edition. Earlier that day, he had spoken at the alt-light rally, proclaiming, “We need to stand up to the politically correct madness that is destroying our history.” I asked him how far he was willing to extend that sentiment. Why, for example, had he chosen to join the alt-light speakers in front of the White House instead of the alt-right history buffs denouncing Jewish influence from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? Didn’t they, too, claim to be custodians of the Founders’ legacy?
“I don’t like getting into all that,” Stewart replied. “I don’t choose sides. I just know there’s a kind of energy on the New Right, or alternative right, or whatever you want to call it, and I’m trying to plug into that.”
In 2018, Stewart ran for U.S. Senate from Virginia, beating two challengers to secure the Republican nomination. He lost the general election, but he won a majority of the white vote.
* * *
• • •
“It looks like those alt-right guys you saw in D.C. are planning another rally,” my wife told me over dinner a few nights later. “In Charlottesville, Virginia. I just saw something on Facebook about it.”
“They’re always planning another rally,” I said. They’d already been to Charlottesville once before, in May. A few dozen of them had stood around a statue of Robert E. Lee, carrying Tiki torches, without attracting much interest. Before that, it was Pikeville, Kentucky. “It’s just gonna be some sad, LARP-y dudes doing Nazi salutes,” I said. “I’d rather not take the bait.”
“Up to you,” she said. “Seems like this one’s gonna be a big deal.”
“I don’t want to blow them out of proportion,” I said. “They’re on the margins, which is where they belong.” In a narrow sense, I was right. In a broader, more important sense, I was wrong.
INTERLUDE
The Past Is Absolute
August 12, 2017, 1:40 P.M.
Charlottesville, Virginia
www.periscope.tv/FaithGoldy [inactive]
#Charlottesville DOUBLE STANDARD: antifa allowed to march!!!
Wearing a black baseball cap and carrying a selfie stick, Faith Goldy joins a crowd of counterprotesters as they march through downtown Charlottesville. It’s a warm, sunny day. The mood is jubilant. The crowd is diverse in every way: black, white; old, young; crust-punk, normie. For some reason, a few of the counterprotesters are dressed as clowns. Some carry Antifa flags, some carry American flags; one sign reads END WHITE SUPREMACY, another sign reads LOVE REIGNS. Goldy speaks into her phone, narrating the scene.
Goldy: There’s a full-on demonstration now going on in the streets. Hundreds and hundreds of Antifa . . . There’s freedom of assembly for one group, but not another.
A white-supremacist rally had been scheduled to take place a mile away, near a statue of Robert E. Lee, but it ended before it began. Protesters and counterprotesters clashed with growing ferocity; the governor declared a state of emergency, and the crowd was ordered to disperse. Now the racists are in retreat and the counterprotesters are triumphant. A chant goes up: “Black lives matter! Black lives matter!”
Goldy: Imagine. There’s no permit for this, guys. They’re declaring this a victory.
Onlookers lean out of redbrick buildings, cheering on the marchers as they pass. The crowd chants: “Whose streets? Our streets!”
Goldy: These are your streets. Unbelievable. OK, I’m a little bit trapped in here. One second, let me get out to the periphery.
A middle-aged African American woman in a Black Lives Matter T-shirt approaches Goldy and confronts her: “Are you with the alt-right? If you’re with the alt-right, get away from here!”
Goldy: I’m just looking to learn about inclusion and diversity. I’m here to learn about multiculturalism, and I’m here to learn about how diverse groups lead to very high-trust societies.
The woman has stopped listening, but Goldy wasn’t really talking to her anyway. She glances at the camera, raising her eyebrows sarcastically toward her fans. Then she presses a button, flipping the camera from selfie mode to forward-facing mode.
Goldy: All right, there you go. It’s the full-on demonstra—oh, shit! Oh shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Visceral screams. Crunching metal, thumping sounds, shattering glass. Piles of mangled bodies. “Go go go go!” “Don’t trample people—” “What the fuck?” “Move!” A gray Dodge squeals into reverse. The camera tilts and bobs up toward the sky.
Goldy: I’m gonna find a safe space, guys. Let me find a safe space.
She ducks into an alcove and turns the camera back toward herself—short of breath, covering her mouth with one hand, eyes wide with fear.
Goldy: A lot of people got hit. A lot of people got hit. That does not look good.
She walks back to the street corner and surveys the damage. People standing around dazed, people running in all directions, people screaming for medics. American carnage. Commenters keep typing the license plate of the gray Dodge, hoping that Goldy will see it and report it to the police: GVF 1111. On the ground near Goldy’s feet, a woman is bleeding.
Goldy: She’s badly hurt. . . . We need medics here right away! . . . There’s someone who looks like they’re in very bad shape over there.
Nearby, two more women lie on the sidewalk, unmoving. Counterprotesters kneel around them, applying pressure to open wounds, waiting for an ambulance to make its way through the crowd. Goldy speaks to one of the injured women, or tries to.
Goldy: You’re gonna be OK, ma’am. You’re gonna be OK.
Within the hour, the woman, Heather Heyer, will be confirmed dead.
Interview with Faith Goldy
I was there as a reporter for the Rebel, and I was also streaming on my own Periscope, tweeting on my own feed. It’s always sort of intertwined.
My first thought, honestly, was that it was a drum, someone leading a drum line. So I turned, and my camera naturally followed my eyes, and the next thing I saw was the car attack—the, or, the car crash—and I went, Holy hell, this was not what I was expecting to cover. Immediately, after that moment, the city became a very charged environment.
Night falls, and I’m a single white woman on my own—no camera crew, no entourage. I’m six feet tall. I stick out. I don’t know who recognizes me in this town, or who has it in for me. A lot of the alt-right guys—Spencer, Enoch—those guys had targets on their backs, too, but there’s a lot of them, and there’s only one so-called Nazi Barbie. So I stuck to places where I felt safe.
A lot of the spaces—sure, you’d describe them as alt-right spaces. Some of the doors you’d knock on, they wouldn’t let you in unless you said the Fourteen Words. I don’t consider myself alt-right. I think that term has become toxic. But I get where those guys are coming from, I understand what they’re trying to do. And they know me, and I felt that they would protect me.
I walked into one of these—safe houses, I guess you’d call them. There were a bunch of guys there, and they were recording a podcast. I guess in retrospect it was a Nazi podcast or whatever—something called the Krypto Report. They invite me on, and, on the spot, I go, “Yep, sure, of course.” Why not? What’s wrong with having a conversation?
The Krypto Report, a podcast by the Daily Stormer
Episode XXII: The Charlottesville Putsch
August 12, 2017
Recorded after the rally, at “a super-secret after-party,” in front of a live audience
Robert Warren Ray, a neo-Nazi who goes by the pseudonym Azzmador, is the host of the podcast. Scraggly gray beard, rattail, East Texas drawl.
Ray: Now, we have a guest that’s probably going to surprise everyone—that this guest is coming on an alt-right podcast—but we are certainly thrilled to have her. Right here we have Faith Goldy of Rebel Media.
Goldy: Thanks for having me on. I’m thrilled.
Goldy doesn’t declare allegiance to the neo-Nazis, but she doesn’t try to establish much distance, either.
Goldy: You guys came, you had your permits, and you showed up in hordes, and I salute you all for doing just that. Not a Roman salute, guys, sorry.
“Roman salute” is alt-right slang for a Hitler salute. The crowd laughs at Goldy’s inside joke, and Goldy laughs along with them.
Goldy: What you have is a bunch of young white men who have been completely drenched in nonwhite identity politics. And anytime that their own race has been brought up, they’re told, “It’s your fault, you’re culpable, and you basically amount to zero.” . . . And when you tell them that, on top of everything, now that they’ve got this revelation, this sort of enlightenment, this renaissance that is occurring, that they can’t speak—well, guess what happens, historically, when you shut people’s mouths? They start to resort to fists.
Ray: We can either lay down and allow ourselves to basically be stomped to death by the Orwellian boot standing on your face forever, or we can stand up and oppose it.
Ray goes on a short rant: the violence in Charlottesville was instigated by the left, but the mainstream media will never report it that way. As Ray has explained in many other podcasts and other blog posts, there’s a simple reason for this: the Jews control the media, and they don’t want the masses thinking for themselves.
Goldy: Context is irrelevant in today’s media, right? All that matters is narrative. We know that the cultural Marxists own the media, we know that they own academia, et cetera, and they’re pushing a particular narrative. . . . I do not think it is outside of the realm of what’s possible that within the next five or ten years, probably closer to five, we will have alt-right men and women running for political office.
The audience erupts in raucous applause.
Later that week, after this podcast episode is released, the Rebel fires Faith Goldy. Her fans are outraged—they don’t agree with the Nazis’ arguments, necessarily, but they believe in free speech. A comment on YouTube: “Will Rebel Media be changing their name to Conformists Media?”
www.reddit.com/r/physical_removal [inactive]
The #1 place to go on the internet to discuss Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s idea of “physical removal.”
Other recommended subreddits: r/Anarcho_Capitalism, r/The_Donald, r/Nationalism, r/Guns
Moderators: u/Pinochet-Heli-Tours, u/CapitalJusticeWarrior, u/WhiteSissMail, u/ChrisCantwell
Accessed on August 13, 2017
The background image on the home page is a drawing of a fleet of helicopters riding into the sunset. This is an alt-right meme, a reference to the rumor that Augusto Pinochet used to kill Communists, homosexuals, and other subversives by throwing them out of helicopters. From the About Us page:
This subreddit is for people who wish to preserve and defend the concepts of free markets, private property, free speech, meritocracy, liberty, and freedom. Those who wish to see the death of any of these ideals qualify to get a helicopter ride as they are a danger to individuals, society, and western culture at large.
The page is full of memes about the Charlottesville march. There are many jubilant jokes about the gray Dodge with the license plate GVF 1111, the car that killed Heather Heyer. The most upvoted post on the page, with dozens of karma points, is called “What happened today with the dead antifa was ethical.” From the post:
Details still remain to be known, as well as motives, but we have at least one dead antifa and 19 others injured. This is a good thing. They are mockeries of life and need to fucking go.
The Daily Shoah 179: Episode #GVF1111
The death panel do a special Charlottesville After Action Report!
Podcast recorded on August 13, 2017
Cohosts: Mike Enoch, Sven, Alex McNabb, Jayoh, Richard Spencer, Eli Mosley
Opening sequence: a mash-up of 1980s synth music and an old recording of George W. Bush: “If you don’t like what we tell you to believe in, we’ll kill you.”
Sven: The big C’ville thing finally happened. . . . Lotta action out there, brought to you by Dodge.
Heather Heyer was a real person, but already her death has become a meme. The cohosts segue to one of their favorite talking points: that Antifa protesters may feel like rebels standing up to the Man, but they’re actually just unwitting pawns of the establishment.
Mike Enoch: A lot of our guys were interested in the radical left in their youth, myself included.
Sven: Sure. It’s exciting, it’s fun.
Mike Enoch: I’m not embarrassed to say that, because it’s a common story amongst alt-righters.
Sven: Well, yeah. Who doesn’t want to be the cool guy fighting the power?
Mike Enoch: And then you realize you’re not the cool guy fighting the power. And you’re like, Eh, I’m not interested anymore.
A red pill is a dose of truth; a black pill is a reason to succumb to nihilistic depression; a white pill is a reason to be optimistic. The cohosts explain that, before yesterday’s rally, the governor of Virginia declared a state of emergency, ordering law-enforcement officers to forcibly prevent the alt-right from speaking.
Mike Enoch: Now, that’s a black pill and a white pill. A black pill because it shows you what we’re up against, and a white pill because it shows you that they fear us.
Eli Mosley, the president of Identity Evropa, claims that any alt-right violence was perpetrated in self-defense. The media is reporting that the driver of the Dodge was named James Alex Fields, and that Fields was a member of an alt-right group. But that’s fine, the cohosts insist, because the evidence isn’t in yet. Maybe his car was being attacked by an Antifa mob. Maybe he panicked and his foot slipped onto the gas pedal. That’s for a jury to decide.
