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By Chris Teale (Photo/Chris Teale)

Last week, a new website dedicated to the self-proclaimed alt-right launched, with its operations based on King Street in the heart of Old Town.

A post on the website, AltRight.com, said it looks to bring together the best writ- ers and analysts from around the world of the alt-right. Nonprofit civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center describes the alt- right as white supremacy rebranded for the digital age.

The alt-rights core concept is that white people and their influence are being undermined by mass immigration and multiculturalism. It is primarily Internet-based, and has undertones of racism and anti-Semitism.

It is a new name for a really old idea, said Ryan Lenz, online editor of the SPLCs Hatewatch blog. Basically, the white supremacist movement has gone through a couple of iterations, or at least name changes, in order to make itself more politically palatable and approachable, especially as it makes an effort to push into the mainstream.

The AltRight.com website lists three members of its leadership team: Daniel Friberg, Jason Jorjani and Richard Spencer. The trio did not respond to requests for comment.

Spencer gained notoriety last November when at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank that Spencer chairs, video captured by The Atlantic shows him shouting Hail Trump! during his speech, and being greeted with Nazi salutes by some attendees.

In a November interview with NPR, Spencer said the election of President Donald Trump would help the alt-right movement continue to grow. Trump has disavowed the movement and its support.

What I would ultimately want is this ideal of a safe space effectively for Europeans, he told NPR. This is a big empire that would accept all Europeans. It would be a place for Germans. It would be a place for Slavs. It would be a place for Celts. It would be a place for white Americans and so on.

And in an interview with The Atlantic earlier this month, Spencer said the new headquarters in Alexandria will serve as more than an office for his new project. He said the space confirmed to be at the intersection of King and North Patrick streets by multiple business owners and residents will include areas for video making and functions on the outdoor patio.

Lenz said the location of the new headquarters, just outside Washington, D.C., is significant as it shows that the movement believes it will be able to have greater influence on mainstream politics.

I think its important that [residents] know exactly what is taking place in their neighborhood, and that is an organized effort to bring racist ideas into the mainstream of the American political system, he said. The fact that Richard Spencer has chosen, or feels that its necessary, or for that matter politically palatable, for him to set up shop so close to the nations capital means that he feels that he has a good chance to influence the machinery of politics with these ideas.

City spokesman Craig Fifer pointed to city councils statement on inclusiveness, issued November 19, as evidence that there is no room for hate or intolerance in Alexandria. He said councilors have continually reaffirmed that diversity is key to the community.

Our city declares itself to be a hate-free zone, the statement reads. We are an accepting and embracing community where we treat each other with human dignity and respect. There is no place for intolerance in our community. This is a core value of our city.

Meanwhile, the reaction from local residents and businesses to their new neighbor has been strong. Numerous small businesses and residents in Old Town and Del Ray have put up posters or lawn signs emphasizing the citys inclusiveness. One popular poster reads that there is No vacancy for hate and uses the Twitter hashtag #InclusiveALX.

I generally dont hang posters as a small business owner, as everyones money is great, said Susan Scheffler, co-owner of eatery Nickells and Scheffler. I dont like to take stands politically. But this one was worth it. I think people are interested in showing solidarity.

Our town is so open and thoughtful and wanting visitors from every aspect of our world and all cultures, every background to come in and explore and enjoy our city, said Kelly Ferenc, owner of womens clothing store Bishop Boutique. I thought it was a wonderful way to have our voices heard, and its powerful, especially when you walk down King Street and the side streets where you get to see the posters in the windows. I hope it serves its purpose.

In addition, a flyer was distributed in Old Town urging people to raise their concerns with City Manager Mark Jinks. Fifer said the city has received a fair number of emails, phone calls and social media posts, all opposed to the new tenant as far as I know.

But officials stressed that all speech is protected under the First Amendment, even that which people find disagreeable. Fifer said that it is the city governments responsibility to be fair when it enforces the law.

The city has no authority to regulate residential or commercial property owners or tenants who follow the law while purchasing or leasing space, he said. But while we uphold the First Amendment right to free speech, we will not permit harassment or hate crimes in our city.

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the Virginia ACLU, said at a January 16 town hall hosted in Arlington by U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-8) that freedom of speech works both ways.

Our best solution is more speech, Gastanaga said. If that means standing on the public sidewalk and protesting what they emote, thats what we should do.

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The 'alt-right' arrives in Alexandria - Alexandria Times

Richard Spencer was recently punched on camera: I cant do these things alone any more. Photograph: Spencer Selvidge/Reuters

The on-camera punching of Richard Spencer in DC last weekend launched a thousand memes. It also crystallized a moment of difficulty for the far-right movement whose name Spencer coined the alt-right.

It was a literal and figurative punch in the face, Spencer told the Guardian in a telephone conversation, adding that it would change his approach to public appearances. I didnt think of myself as someone who needs bodyguards, but I clearly do. Particularly at events an inauguration or an election. I just cant do these things alone any more. It wasnt like that six months ago, and it certainly wasnt like that five years ago.

Suddenly the far right is a target, and this is constraining the freedom of action that its leaders, like Spencer, once enjoyed.

In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, the movement has risen from relative obscurity to become a household political name. There has been voluminous coverage of Spencers views on race and white identity, which have been widely described as fascism.

This new prominence has led anti-fascist groups to focus on the movements leaders. Local activists targeted Spencers former base in Montana and in recent weeks, other prominent far-right bloggers, podcasters and YouTube personalities have been subject to doxxings: their real identities were revealed, with real-world consequences.

Just over a week ago, Mike Enoch, host of the podcast The Daily Shoah (whose title is a pun on the Holocaust) and operator of the website The Right Stuff, was revealed to be a New York-based tech worker named Mike Peinovich. The Right Stuff and its stable of podcasts were a major hub for promoting and popularising antisemitism and white supremacist theories of race. But the doxxing also revealed that Peinovichs wife was of a Jewish background.

I didnt think of myself as someone who needs bodyguards, but I clearly do

For segments of the movement, this counted as a scandal, despite the support Peinovich received from Spencer and others. Subsequently, one of his colleagues at The Right Stuff announced in a podcast that Peinovich had separated from his wife, and reportedly he has also lost what he described as his normie job.

Peinovich was the latest in a string of doxxings involving others connected with the website. Another YouTuber, Millennial Woes, was unmasked as 34-year-old Colin Robertson, which reportedly led him to flee his native Scotland.

Spencer confirmed that these tactics have had an effect. The doxxing is absolutely terrible and it does scare off a lot of people. I hate to say this but doxxing is a weapon, and it is a way of attacking people, and it often works.

These attacks occurred amid continuing infighting between the alt-light rightwing populists led by figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos and the mens rights blogger Mike Cernovich who have backed away from the white supremacy of the hard core, including Spencer.

Last weekend, Spencer was refused entry to the Deploraball, an event organised by Cernovich, entrepreneur Jeff Giesea and others in Washington DC. The Deploraball had been a source of conflict after Cernovich barred the far-right Twitter influencer Baked Alaska from the event after reports of his history of antisemitic remarks.

Talking with the Guardian via email, Cernovich explicitly distanced himself from the movement, saying I am not alt-right. Its fake news to say otherwise. On Spencers exclusion from the event, he said: The alt-right wants to be invited to my parties; I dont go to theirs. That says it all.

Indeed, since Trump disavowed Spencers infamous conference which culminated in fascist salutes, figures like Cernovich and Giesea have tried to channel the energy of Trumps online supporters into mounting a nationalist, populist challenge to the Republican party establishment.

Cernovich told the Guardian that the Deploraball was a statement of intent, describing it as a party to reward those who made Trumps election possible. It was also saber rattling If the GOP opposes Trump, well vote them out of Congress. We have the will to win and we do not like the globalist wing. We are too big to ignore.

Asked about these ructions, Spencer said: Theres always infighting in movements. You get bad apples in movements and all they do is infight. I just take steps to avoid it, stay above it, and not get pulled into it.

Matthew N Lyons, a longtime scholar of the far right and author of a forthcoming book on the alt-right, agrees that the movement is facing a difficult moment.

I hate to say this but doxxing is a weapon, and it is a way of attacking people, and it often works

Theres been real disagreement between the alt-right and some of its sympathisers. The brouhaha over fascist salutes at the NPI conference was an example of that. Some people were critical of Spencer for making the alt-right look bad, especially figures on the alt-light, he said. The disagreements over tactics and ideology is to some extent coming more out into the open. Its likely those tensions will continue.

But Lyons said the fact that they were on the back foot was largely a testament to the effectiveness of anti-fascist tactics. He said doxxing does certainly constrain their freedom of action in the sense that it makes them more cautious. Mike Peinovich did not want his name to be made public because of work and personal considerations. Thats clearly an example where doxxing weakened the movement.

But is violence a legitimate tactic? The far right have, again and again, shown that they are quite ready to use violence, and more likely to use it against those who they see as vulnerable. If they see that people are prepared to defend themselves, in many cases they back off.

Lyons, who describes himself as an anti-fascist, sees no reason for complacency. I dont want to glorify force, but I think it is appropriate to organize to defend communities under attack.

He also warns against placing too much stock in Trumps disavowals. Whether or not they stay on good terms with Trump, they can still have an influence on the administration, because they have shown that they communicate effectively with a significant part of Trumps base.

Richard Spencer is also well aware of this. Last week he launched a new, collaborative website, altright.com, which is intended as a more populist, big tent channel for the movements ideas than previous, more esoteric sites. It is run out of premises in Washington DC which are shared with Arktos, a far-right publisher.

Ultimately, it will be a Breitbart-style site with a lot of different voices and a lot of people, he said. The aim is to bring more people into the movement, and to create a network on the far right.

Everyone in the leadership of altright.com is open and you cant stalk them. I can totally understand why people dont use their real name or face because they want to protect their family and their career and their livelihood.

He paused, and then added: Were not going to become a mainstream movement unless we show our face.

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The weakening of the 'alt-right': how infighting and doxxing are taking a toll - The Guardian

During a live-streamed protest performance organized by actor Shia LaBeouf members of the alt-right bombarded the camera, praising Donald Trump and delivering coded messages to fellow members of their white nationalist movement.

LaBeouf, who was born to a Jewish mother and a Christian father, calls his participatory performance piece, He will not divide us, a mantra which he and others chant repeatedly on screen and in reference to Trumps polarizing rhetoric. The performance is housed at a museum in Queens, New York.

But, over the course of three days, 4chan users took advantage of the platform to spread their own, somewhat cryptic, political messages using coded alt-right references and insider language which would be meaningless to an outsider.

4chan is one of a handful of online platforms where the somewhat amorphous alt-right movement developed.

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For example, a young duo walked up to the camera and held a piece of paper, on which it was written: #Pepe

Pepe the Frog is a cartoon icon of the alt-right and the Anti-Defamation League has added his likeness to its database of hate symbols.

Another man, his face concealed, spelled out the word KEK in red tape on a wall nearby the camera.

Kek is another frog figure associated with the alt-right, seen as something of an ancient Egyptian relation to Pepe who has divine powers.

Other young men played music on stereos, choosing a 1986 disco song, Shadilay, sung by the Italian band named P.E.P.E. Remarkably, the original single design for Shadilay features an illustration of a green frog holding a magic wand. This coincidence has made the song into an unofficial theme song for Pepe.

LaBeouf and others congregated at the site sometimes seem unaware of the alt-right messages, as they are so obscure.

But one man also approached the camera and recited the opening words of a white supremacist slogan known as Fourteen words. In this case, LaBeouf interceded and shouted the man off camera. But not before the disrupter was able to slip in another frog-reference to the camera, shouting Praise Kek!

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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WATCH: 'Alt-Right' Disrupts Seemingly Clueless Shia LaBeouf's Live Broadcast - Forward

It was a scene ripe for violence last Friday night in Red Square on the University of Washington campus in Seattle: Several hundred fans of the racist "Alt-Right"figure Milo Yiannopoulos outside the hall where he was to speak, waiting to be let in, confronted by a much larger crowd of counter-protesters, chanting anti-Trump and anti-fascist slogans, including an organized pack of masked, black-clad anarchists.

Eventually, violence did strike.An antifascist protester was shot during one of the many small melees that broke out during the evening. Police said a 34-year-old man was seriously wounded by the gunfire and was in critical condition at a local hospital after undergoing surgery.

A man earlier identified as a person of interest in the case described by the Seattle Times as an Asian man in a black leather coat with a maroon shirt underneath turned himself in to police laterand was arrested along with a man who accompanied him to the station. Both were later released without charges.

Afterwards, Yiannopoulos and Breitbart News, where he is a celebrity editor, attempted to cast his supporters as the martyrlike victims in the shooting. However, Hatewatchs eyewitness version of events is precisely the reverse: The shooter was a Trump-supporting man who had been acting as a provocateur in the crowd all night, while the victim was an anti-fascist liberal who had been acting as a peacekeeper in the moments before he was shot.

Yiannopolous event invites chaos, violence.

The chaos outside Kane Hall was directed at Yiannopoulos the Breitbart tech editor and Alt-Right provocateur who endedhis nationwide Dangerous Faggot speaking tour inSeattle and his admirers who lined up outside to hear him, manybedecked in red Donald Trump Make America Great Again.

Yiannopoulos'talk at the invitation of the schools College Republicans chapter had created a controversy beforehand, with many critics questioning the universitys decision to permit hate speech on campus. UW officials were firm in their decision, defending it as a First Amendment matter.

Would-be attendees lined up to wait for the doors to the event to open, an even larger crowd of about a thousand counter-protesters showed up to greet them. The shouts, chants, and angry behavior clearly discomfited manyTrump fans, but early on, they responded by singing the National Anthem and chanting Trump! Trump! Trump! and USA! USA! USA!

When the doors to the event opened, the counter-protesters quickly moved to block any further entrance to the event. Press reports indicated that several hundred managed to make it in the Times estimatedabout half of the auditoriums lower bowl, which holds some 530 seats, was full. However, the remaining crowd with tickets to the event remained stuck outside.

Eventually, the verbal exchanges that began taking place in increasingly denser conditions became physical shoves, and then punches. One young Trump supporter made the mistake of directly approaching a phalanx of masked anarchist Black Bloc protesters and was punched in the mouth and hit in the face with a blue paint ball. He was later rescued by his father.

More Trump supporters began showing their anger and frustration at being unable to get inside many of them remaining in a long, exposed line by shoving their tormentors and flipping them off as they chanted. Eventually, one of them unfurled a banner featuringPepe the Frog an Alt-Right mascotwidely understood as a symbol of hate. They began chanting, Pepe! Pepe! Pepe!

The eventual shooting victim is seen peacefully interceding in a near-melee moments before he is shot.

Around that scene, a handful of melees began breaking out. A Hatewatchreporter was assaulted from behind by a black-clad anarchist who kicked his recording device away, while angry anti-fascists began tussling with Alt-Rightfans in the area. It was amid that chaos that one of the Trump fans pulled a gun and shotone of the anti-fascists a tall man with a black leather jacket who had been acting to intercede as a peacekeeper with a single shot that manypeople in the vicinity did not even hear.

Upon being told that a protester had been shot, the Times reported, Yiannopoulos briefly stopped his talk to confirm the news, and then continued, telling the crowd: If we dont continue, they have won.

If I stopped my event now, we are sending a clear message that they can stop our events by killing people. I am not prepared to do that," Yiannopoulos said.

His mostly youthful audience eagerly congratulate themselves.

Outside, the shooting galvanized the protesters, who increased their ferocity. Most of the remaining Yiannopoulos fans began clearing out. The protest crowd outside remained for most of the talk and lingered well afterward, so police wound up escorting most of the audience outside via a tunnel that exited through a nearby parking garage.

According to the Times, the man accused of the shooting told police that he fired the gun in self-defense and claimed that the man he shot was a white supremacist. However, friends of the victim (who remains officially unidentified) contest that characterization, saying he was a liberal anti-fascist sympathizer.

In the video recorded by Hatewatch in the moments before the shooting, the shooting victim can be seen interceding in a dispute by placing his body as a buffer between opposing factions in the crowd. (8:16-8:24 in the above video.)

Yiannopoulos pronouncement at the speech clearly attempted to cast the Alt-Rightas victims of the shooting. Breitbart News, where Yiannopoulos is the tech editor and chief provocateur, reported the shooting as having been perpetrated by the anti-fascist protesters. That was clearly not the case.

One of Milos young fans, bedecked in furs and sunglasses, afterward gave an interview posted by Yiannopoulos conveying that similarly confused mischaracterization of the events outside.

He decided to let the show go on despite somebody being shot, and compared it almost to a spoiled child, showing them whats OK. Pretty much saying its OK to kill people, if you are willing. ...because that would shut down our events," the fan said. "I mean, it was amazing, because it was almost like a movie, everyone stood up and clapped in accordance. It was really exciting to see that. Its one of the best things of Milos Ive ever heard, actually.

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Alt-Right Event in Seattle Devolves Into Chaos and Violence Outside, Truth-Twisting Inside - Southern Poverty Law Center

One of the most dizzying effects of the current culture war is the way language is quickly co-opted and subverted toward directly opposed purposes. Witness, for example, the fate of fake news. In the days following the election there was a rightful investigation into the ways Facebooks algorithms created self-reinforcing echo chambers of fictional stories passed around as news. The furor over this, though, was quickly claimed by the Trump administration, which repurposed the term fake news to describe any factual reporting that was inconvenient for them.

This is an old trend online: The same has been done repeatedly over the years, as alt-right trolls repurpose the language of progressivestrigger warning, safe space, and so ontoward their misogynistic, white-nationalist ends. Just last week, while still nursing his grievous head injury, alt-right frontispiece Richard Spencer used the phrase triggered to troll Aziz Ansari, after which he spent the remainder of the evening getting dunked on by everybody with a Twitter account. Its hard to troll while the whole world is still cackling at you for getting sucker-punched.

Anyway, this new Chrome extension flips that exact language back around again, rendering the internet into a safe space for MAGA kids. Called Alt-Space, it scans pages for terms that might trigger a troll into shitpostingLGBTQA, social justice, reproductive rights, climate change, etc.and issues a warning after the page is loaded, allowing the sensitive troll to decide whether or not to engage with the questionable content. Choose to proceed on and read the page, or click go elsewhere to be well, sent elsewhere. (Its a Rick Astley video.)

It is not the most trenchant piece of cultural critique, and its hard to say how many times you can reclaim a terms meaning before youve watered it down to nothing. On the other hand, we do need these terms to mean something. A delineation like fake news was once useful to identify a category of deliberate misinformation, but when applied to CNN or The New York Times it turns into a maddening exercise in semantics. At this point it feels almost trite to talk about, but if that term is gone, how else will we describe alternative facts?

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Screenshot: Alt-Space - A.V. Club