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Pepe, a symbol used by the alt right, in character as Donald Trump. Photograph: Twitter

Earlier this month, hundreds of alt-right protesters occupied the rotunda at Boston Common in the name of free speech. The protest included far-right grouplets old and new from the Oath Keepers to the Proud Boys. But there were no swastikas or shaved heads in sight.

Instead, the protest imagery was dominated by ostensibly comedic images, mostly cribbed from forums and social media. It looked a little like an animated version of a favorite alt-right message board, 4chan.

At least one attendee was dressed as the cartoon frog Pepe (a character co-opted by the movement against the wishes of its creator). Others carried the flag of Kekistan, the imaginary country created 4chan members. Kyle Chapman, the man who became the based stick man meme after attacking anti-fascists armed with a gas mask and a Captain America shield, also addressed the crowd. The same crowd later confronted a counter anti-fascist protest in the street.

Until recently, it would have been hard to imagine the combination of street violence meeting internet memes. But experts say that the alt-right have stormed mainstream consciousness by weaponizing irony, and by using humour and ambiguity as tactics to wrong-foot their opponents.

Last week, the Data & Society Institute released a report on the online disinformation and manipulation that is increasingly shaping US politics. The report focused on the way in which far-right actors spread white supremacist thought, Islamophobia, and misogyny through irony and knowledge of internet culture.

One the reports authors, Dr Alice Marwick, says that fascist tropes first merged with irony in the murkier corners of the internet before being adopted by the alt-right as a tool. For the new far-right movement, irony has a strategic function. It allows people to disclaim a real commitment to far-right ideas while still espousing them.

Marwick says that from the early 2000s, on message boards like 4chan, calculatedly offensive language and imagery have been used to provoke strong reactions in outsiders. Calling all users fags, or creating memes using gross racial stereotypes, serves a gate-keeping function, in that it keeps people out of these spaces, many of which are very easy to access.

Irony has a strategic function. It allows people to disclaim commitment to far-right ideas while still espousing them

Violating the standards of political correctness and the rules of polite interactions also functions as an act of rebellion in spaces drenched in adolescent masculinity.

This was played up by Milo Yiannopoulos in an infamous Breitbart explainer last year, in which he insisted that the alt-right movements circulation of antisemitic imagery was really nothing more than transgressive fun.

Are they actually bigots? Yiannopoulos asked rhetorically. No more than death metal devotees in the 1980s were actually satanists. For them, its simply a means to fluster their grandparents.

What Yiannopoulos left out, according to Marwick, is that these spaces increasingly became attractive to sincere white supremacists. They offered them venues for recruitment, and new methods for popularising their ideas.

In other words, troll culture became a way for fascism to hide in plain sight.

Marwick points to another guide to the alt-right, published last on Andrew Anglins prominent Nazi site, the Daily Stormer, which credited troll culture with bringing about non-ironic Nazism masquerading as ironic Nazism:

Irony allows people to strategically distance themselves from the very real commitment to white supremacist values that many of these forums have.

It also allows individuals to push boundaries in public, and to back away when they meet resistance. When Richard Spencer led a fascist salute to Donald Trump at his National Policy Insitute conference in the wake of Trumps win, he said it was done in a spirit of irony and exuberance.

A compounding difficulty for opponents of the alt-right is that online, its always been difficult to tell the difference between sincerity and satire.

Ryan Milner teaches Communication at the College of Charleston, and is the co-author of a new book called The Ambivalent Internet. The book ponders the implications of Poes law, an internet adage that points to the difficulties of online communication and of distinguishing extremist views from parodies.

Unless you have an obvious marker of another persons intent, you cant really gauge their intent. They could be messing around. They could be deadly serious. They could be a mix of both, Milner says.

But ironic, playful content can have effects in real life. Milner offers the example of Edgar Welch, who turned up at Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington DC with a gun after imbibing too deeply of the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory. The theory was ginned up by forum trolls and amplified by fringe rightwing media. It asserted, on the basis of some of John Podestas leaked emails, that the restaurant was the hub of an elite pedophile ring.

Fascism is more or less a social taboo. Humour is one of the ways that they can put forward their positions

Last December, Welch drove to Washington from North Carolina with three firearms. When he arrived, he texted a friend: Raiding a pedo ring, possible sacrificing the lives of a few for the lives of many. He fired shots inside the restaurant, but fortunately was arrested without harming anyone.

A lot of the people propagating the Pizzagate conspiracy were doing it winkingly. But in the moment that somebody walked into that shop with a gun, then that playful buzzing participation around that conspiracy turned into real consequences, Milner says.

More generally, every ironic repetition of far-right ideals contributes to a climate in which racism, misogyny, or Islamophobia is normalised.

Every time you see a viral video of somebody shouting down a person of Muslim descent in a supermarket line, what youre seeing are the effects of an environment where its increasingly normal, increasingly accepted and expected to speak in this register, whether or not that started out as a joke, Milner says.

Author Alexander Reid Ross agrees that irony has been deployed by the far right in chipping away at whatever prohibitions have existed around publicly adopting far-right politics. His book, Against the Fascist Creep, published late last year, explores the long history of fascists attempting to mainstream their ideas, or even sell them to the left.

Fascism is more or less a social taboo. Its unacceptable in modern society, Ross says. Humour or irony is one of the ways that they can put forward their affective positions without having to fall back on any affirmative ideological positions.

He adds: Theyre putting forward the anger, the sense of betrayal, the need for revenge, the resentment, the violence. Theyre putting forward the male fantasies, the desire for a national community and a sense of unity and a rejection of Muslims. Theyre doing all of that, but theyre not stating it.

The best response is to stubbornly take the alt-right at their word. Angela Nagles book about the alt-right, Kill All Normies, will be released next month. She says that for the alt-right, online irony is a mechanism for undermining the confidence of their critics.

The thing that people have to realize is that it isnt that complicated. We know what they believe in, and if you say that youre alt-right, presumably you believe in those things too.

Rather than getting lost in the weeds of a fast-moving internet culture, we should be bearing down hard on those core beliefs.

Journalists should be saying, I dont want to talk about Pepe memes and hand signs. Tell me what are the limits of what youre prepared to do. We should force them to talk about what they really stand for, Nagle says.

In future, the best step may be to meet irony with sincerity.

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Hiding in plain sight: how the 'alt-right' is weaponizing irony to spread fascism - The Guardian

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During a conversation with the Washington Posts Karen Tumulty, he cited the participation and the support of the alt-right media, naming guys like Sean Hannity and disgusting Newt Gingrich for helping spread fake news to hurt Democrats. He specifically criticized Hannity and Gingrich for asking questions about DNC staffer Seth Richs murder and whether or not it had a connection with Wikileaks.

Podesta explained that it was one more example of how the Russians were very active in propagating and distributing fake news, working with these alt-right sites in conjunction with them. He also cited an echo system created by the Russians that raised the social media profile of articles that were damaging to Democrats.

He pointed out that legitimate sites like the Washington Post and the New York Times suffered, as other alt-right websites got more traction during the election.

Podesta blamed websites in the United States for publishing emails from Emmanuel Macron during the French presidential election to influence the outcome.

The first reports of them came from U.S. alt-right sites back into France, he said. This is a global phenomena.

He praised the French media for helping censor the information to stop it from damaging Macrons campaign.

I think unfortunately for us, but maybe fortunately for the world, I think the French press was more sensitive to it, he said, praising them for helping Macron win by a landslide after censoring their reporting on the hacked emails.

He suggested that the American media should have done the same things with his leaked emails.

I didnt feel like that really happened last fall the mainstream U.S. press was much more interested in the gossip, he said.

Podesta warned the media about Russias efforts to use the emails to hurt Democrats, pointedly directing them to be more responsible. He suggested that the media should have helped the Clinton campaign fuel the Russian angle, instead of reporting on his emails.

I think if you contextualize it if you say that The Russians are coming, and The Russians are here that can give people a sense of that they need to be more careful in the way they assess what theyre hearing and what theyre seeing and whats being peddled, he said.

He described the period of leaks as the Soviet days and griped that the low burn of email stories helped revive questions about Clintons own private emails.

We hadnt put it to bed completely, he admitted.

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John Podesta: 'Alt-Right' Media Like Sean Hannity Colluding with Russia - Breitbart News

Mashable

Alt-right trolls are attacking Ariana Grande over 'anti-Americanism' Mashable Grande's words were often used by the alt-right to accuse her of anti-Americanism. In 2015, the pop star was caught on camera while reacting to a new tray of doughnuts in a shop. She jokingly said "I hate America, I hate Americans" to a friend. Grande ...

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Alt-right trolls are attacking Ariana Grande over 'anti-Americanism' - Mashable

Richard Collins III

THE UNIVERSITY of Maryland (UMD) College Park campus, the scene of increasing racist activity over the past year, has just witnessed a lynching.

Richard Collins III, a 23-year-old Black man and graduating senior from Bowie State University, was stabbed to death on the UMD campus on May 20 in an unprovoked attack by Sean Christopher Urbanski, a white UMD student.

Collins was standing at a campus shuttle bus stop waiting for an Uber with his friends around 3 a.m. when Urbanski approached them. Urbanski demanded that Collins "Step left, step left if you know what's best for you." Collins said "No," and then Urbanski stabbed him. Collins was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Collins would have graduated on May 23 from Bowie State University, a historically Black college, where he had just completed the Army ROTC program. But instead of watching him graduate, more than 300 of Collins' friends and classmates mourned and remembered him at a vigil on Monday evening.

Phylecia Fabulas first met Collins just over two years ago, during the Baltimore uprising in April 2015 after the police murder of Freddie Gray. Fabulas said:

It was my freshman year, and me and two other friends decided to go into the city, just because we wanted to see and be in the heart of what the people in Baltimore were feeling.

[Collins] introduced himself to me. I told him that I was nervous about going into the city because people were saying, "Don't go in." My mom was texting me, saying, "Make sure you stay out of Baltimore." Everyone was like: make sure you're safe, stay at Bowie.

And he said: We're going to get there and we're going to get back. He said: I promise you that. And we went there and we got back. It was in that moment that I knew something was very special about him. It was that he was fearless. In every interaction I've had with him, I've never believed that he had any ounce of fear in his heart.

The racism that took Freddie Gray's life in April 2015 took Richard Collins' in May 2017.

While Gray died at the hands of racist cops protected by a racist injustice system, Collins was killed by the racist climate that has given confidence to white supremacist vigilantes, both as individuals and as part of groups.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IN THE immediate aftermath of Collins' murder, University of Maryland Police Department Chief David Mitchell claimed there was no indication that race played a role.

This quickly changed when students and the press went through Urbanski's Facebook page and discovered that he belonged to a group called "Alt-Reich: Nation." The page, which has since been taken down, was full of xenophobic, sexist and racist content and seems to indicate that this attack was racially motivated.

This murder is the culmination of a racist atmosphere on campus that began rising in response to Donald Trump's racist presidential campaign and has only gotten worse since the election.

Beginning in spring 2016, the "Terps for Trump" student group chalked campus sidewalks calling for the deportation of undocumented immigrants, the construction of a border wall and various coded racist statements.

After the election, during finals week of the fall 2016 semester, flyers from a white supremacist group called American Vanguard were wheat-pasted on campus, calling for white people to "protect their heritage" and depicting the World Trade Center with the tagline "Imagine a Muslim-Free America." Leaders of the American Vanguard later claimed that two of its student members at UMD had put up the posters.

Campus activists, including members of the UMD Socialists, responded with their own posters that read, in part, "American Vanguard is a white supremacist hate group. We don't tolerate racism on our campus. We don't tolerate hate speech on our campus. We don't tolerate hate groups on our campus. Racists are not welcome here."

In a statement, the UMD Socialists wrote, "We stand in solidarity with communities of color on this campus and want to make it crystal clear that we will not stand by and allow white supremacists to recruit and spread their bile on our campus."

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DURING THE early months of the Trump administration, hundreds of thousands of people attended rallies against hate and for immigrant rights, including at U.S. airports after Trump tried to impose his ban on Muslims.

However, the white supremacist right, emboldened by Trump's words and actions, has become more visible, especially targeting U.S. campuses, where undocumented immigrant students have been fighting for the right to education over the past few years.

This spring, white supremacist flyers were found from American Vanguard and Identity Evropa not less than three times on UMD's campus. Chalkings were found outside of the Stamp Student Union on the morning of "Social Justice Day" calling for the deportation of DREAMers--undocumented students at the university under the Maryland DREAM Act.

In a disgusting incident recalling America's racist past, a noose was found in the kitchen of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity house on April 27. Some members of the fraternity catering staff targeted by this hateful act are people of color.

The university's response has been thoroughly inadequate. For example, details of the noose incident weren't revealed to the campus community until days later. After the chalkings and racist flyers, the university called these incidents "free speech" and talked about how it "valued diversity," while taking no meaningful action to prevent future occurrences.

As a result, racists now feel emboldened to be openly bigoted and hateful and to attack people because of their race without fear of meaningful consequences. The university's Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct, which is responsible for investigating incidents of racial bias and sexual assault, has been consistently understaffed and underfunded.

Investigations into incidents of sexual assault and civil rights violations have taken more than six months to complete in many cases--despite the fact that Title IX recommends such investigations take 60 days.

Sexual assaults are vastly underreported, and in many cases, the office has been condescending and patronizing to victims.

UMD students are so desperate for some positive action to be taken that they voted to self-impose a mandatory student fee on top of the already high tuition to increase funding and staffing at the Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct. The university is currently under investigation for violations of Title IX.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

OTHER CAMPUSES in the D.C. area have also witnessed increased racist activity. African American students attending American University (AU) are being harassed by racist bigots. In September 2016, Black students reported that bananas were left outside or thrown through their dorm room doors.

As Ma'at Sargeant, an AU sophomore and president of the Black Student Alliance, told the Washington Post:

In the real world, this would be a hate crime and an assault. This kind of thing has been happening at AU for years. Last year, people wrote the n-word on Black students' doors and put up Trump stickers on the doors of Hispanic students. This is not just a one-time thing.

The AU administration doesn't seem to be dealing with campus racism any more effectively than UMD.

On May 1, Black AU students were confronted by bananas hung on poles with nooses. The words "AKA free" were written on some of the bananas. "AKA" are the initials of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which is home to AU's newly elected Student Government Association President Taylor Dumpson, the first Black woman to be elected to the position. Her term of office began May 1.

It's clear that students at UMD, AU and other campuses can't expect racial justice from university administrators. As Zakariya Uddin, a member of UMD Socialists, said,

I found out Richard's murder was a hate crime before I knew that he was the victim. I didn't know Richard well, I had only met him a few times, but he was best friends with a close friend of mine. This heinous event was infuriatingly tragic to begin with, but knowing Richard was the one murdered made it all the more real.

The administration's abysmal response is to be expected, as evidenced by its continual acceptance of racial hatred in the past. Nonetheless, it was all too disheartening, especially as a person of color myself.

Students at UMD are organizing a response to Collins' lynching and against the spread of racism on campus for the coming days, despite the fact that classes have just ended, and most students have returned home.

While plans aren't yet firm, those who want to fight racism at UMD should contact the UMD Socialists. It's time for more visible anti-racist presence at UMD if we are going to push the racists back into the shadows and prevent another lynching.

"The administration's behavior shows that we can't depend on them or other state institutions to take appropriate action," Uddin said, "We as students are forced to take action to repress a culture of white supremacy."

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This student was murdered by the alt-right - Socialist Worker Online

Trump's overtures to the Sunni Muslim world and worshiping at the Western Wall, in a gesture to Jews irks white nationalists and the far-right in American politics

U.S. President Donald Trumps trip to the Middle East starting Saturday scored him points in the mainstream media, but profoundly peeved his earliest supporters, the so-called alt-right, who had arguably propelled him into the presidency.

That images of Trump sword-dancing with Saudis, in a gesture to the Sunni Muslim world, and worshiping at the Western Wall, in a gesture to Jews, should irk the far-right in American politics is no surprise.

Cucks be like, WTF, we love Trump now! tweeted Richard Spencer, alt-right leader and white nationalist on Tuesday, demonstrating his frustration at the satisfaction he suspects liberals will feel at the sight of Trump visiting the Wall (cuck derives from cuckold).

Spencer also retweeted a tweet from the Boatsinker, which captioned Trumps visit to the Western Wall as, Wrong wall, retard - referring to a core issue of the alt-rights support for Trump: his pledge to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ann Coulter, who had recently criticized Trump for not sticking to his hardline immigration record, tweeted, Wailing Wall the usual photo op, but Trump should visit Israel's BORDER wall. Force the press to report that it's up and it works.

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Former KKK leader and Louisiana politician David Duke captioned the photo of Trump at the Western Wall, in real time on Monday: Rise of the good Goy.

Mike Cernovich, the so-called voice of the alt-right (who Donald Trump Jr. recently said deserves a Pulitzer), criticized Trumps trip, killing two birds with one tweet: Saudi funded ISIS takes credit for #Manchester. But we need to take out Assad and Iran, because Russia, Cernovich tweeted Tuesday, in that second bit referring to Trumps strong rhetoric against Assad and Iran while in Israel.

Cernovich later ripped Trump for agreeing to sell $110 billion worth of weapons to the Saudis, tweeting, Saudi Arabia remains the world's top exporter of terrorism. If you think an arms deal will make me stop saying truth, sorry for you.

#JaredsIdea

Actually, the alt-right and Trump have been on the outs for some time now. The slide was set off by the rising influence of Trumps Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka at the expense of Steve Bannon, the alt-rights perceived guy in the White House.

But, it was Trumps Tomahawk missile airstrike on Syria in early April that prompted the first real onslaught of heavy criticism from alt-right leaders, accusing Kushner and Ivanka of pushing Trump to war.

Just before the American airstrike on Syria two months ago, Trumps old friend Roger Stone, a conspiracy theory aficionado, remarked that the various accusations surrounding Trump all boils down to whether or not we want to go to war over Syria." Meaning, that Trumps enemies want him out office so they can start a war, and his supporters think he will protect them from a war-hungry establishment. Fast-forward to now: Stone tweeted that Trumps Saudi visit made him want to puke, adding #JaredsIdea.

Trip Brennan in Newsweek explains that alt-right leaders, from Mike Enoch (founder of the white nationalist website The Right Stuff and co-host of the Daily Shoah podcast) to Richard Spencer to Kevin MacDonald (former psychology professor and white nationalist) all root their political views in an anti-war stance, that is in turn based on the belief that Jews had coerced neoconservatives into recent wars. I have been anti-war my whole political life. Its the thing that got me interested in politics, when the Iraq War was starting, the opposition to George W. Bushs war, Enoch told Newsweek.

Anti-war to pro-war transformation

The alt-right and non-establishment fell for Trump during the campaign, when he attacked George W. Bushs foreign policy, calling the war in Iraq the worst decision ever and accusing the former U.S. president of lying.

During the 2016 election, Cernovich tweeted this poll, Which candidate for President has sold weapons and arms to Saudi Arabia, where gays are executed? #AltRight. For which 94% of his Twitter followers responded Sick Hillary and only 4% responded Donald Trump.

All of which make Trumps massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia and his address to the Muslim world so difficult for alt-right leaders to swallow.

Meanwhile, in the mainstream, CBS Bob Schieffer praised Trumps speech in Riyadh, saying he sounded presidential, while other commentators wrote Trump sounded exactly like George W Bush.

Elliot Abrams, one of the founders of neoconservatism who served under presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and who was denied a job in the Trump White House by Bannon, praised Trumps speech: I think he comes out looking better not only as presidential, but as reaching out to Muslim leaders from around the world. Its enough to make an alt-right leader cry.

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After Israel, Saudi Arabia Trips, the Alt-right Is Ready to Dump Trump - Haaretz