Hillary Clinton made a huge mistake when she decided to bring the Alt Right into the national conversation. This amorphous group of Nazi memesters, internet trolls, and wannabe Twitter celebs should have just been allowed to remain an echo chamber of ironic/heartfelt/jokey racism — or whatever they would call it.
It would have been much more convenient for those of us who spend a lot of time on the internet.
Thanks for the free PR Hillary. The #AltRight will long remember the day you helped make us into the real right.
— Timothy Bryce (@LordoftheEdge) August 25, 2016
But now the Alt Right has been uttered three times by the de facto head of the Democratic Party — and, like Beetlejuice, it appears in the material world. A previously virtual, ethereal set of ideas now has the notoriety to become part of the national conversation and the subject of think pieces written by people who still think 4chan is the lone hacker boss of Anonymous.
The media’s inability to adequately define the Alt Right has resulted in its definition expanding. Gamergate and Ghostbusters haters are now deemed Alt Right. These groups do contain a minority of Alt Righters, and a dark 4chan raid element that led to some online harassment, but mainly consist of people from across the political spectrum. By widening the label of Alt Right, the media will only allow the movement to grow.
The attention has also caused some white supremacists to adopt the Alt Right label to gain legitimacy and relevancy. After all Alt Right, is young hip, tech savvy, and the potential future of the Republican Party, much to the chagrin of the establishment.
There’s even an Alt Right press conference, for god’s sake, at the National Press Club this Friday. The Alt Right’s got a snappy new logo, and white supremacists will be answering press questions in the flesh.
Alt-right press conference in DC on Friday… Check out that branding pic.twitter.com/77o4mMkIRV
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) September 7, 2016
The lesson to be learned from all this is the old internet adage: Don’t feed the trolls. When you engage trolls and give them the attention they crave, they will only get more bold. Many elements of the alt right were born out of 4chan raid culture. Time and again someone would fall victim to a 4chan board (/b/ or /pol/), its members would harass the target by sending death threats and leaking personal information, and finally the “hilarity” of the victim’s response would be the gauge of whether or not the harassment would continue.
Bring this concept to the 2016 election and Hillary committed the cardinal sin. Instead of one “lolcow,” as their called, dancing for the trolls, it’s the mainstream media playing into their game. Each provocation will be reported on and branded an “Alt Right attack,” giving them the attention they crave. Before they were a group of Pepe frogs and waifu-owning anonymous anime avatars that were given occasional lip service by Breitbart. Now, like it or not, the group is fast becoming a household name, and the left’s go-to boogeyman. The harassment of Jewish journalists will no doubt get bolder and more widespread, and Leslie Jones will not be the last celebrity to get hounded off Twitter.
If only we could go back to the good old days of making offhanded comments about Nazi frogs instead of 1,200 word think pieces boosting their egos. But it’s way too late for that. The press conference is only the beginning. Look forward to the rallies.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks
