‘Alt-Right’ Celebrates After Richard Spencer Speech

Richard Spencer Image by Getty Images

By Sam Kestenbaum April 19, 2017

The “alt-right” is celebrating the ruling of a judge to allow Richard Spencer the right to speak at a university and their recent clashes with antifascist protests as victories for their movement — and as the “deligitimization” of their opponents.

“The Alt-Right came together to work like a well-oiled war machine,” a Wednesday post on AltRight.com read. “We have now proven first at Berkeley and now at Auburn that we cannot be stopped, cannot be silenced and are a force to be reckoned with.”

“We just achieved a great victory,” said white nationalist Spencer in a YouTube video before his appearance, speaking about the judge’s ruling. “It was certainly a great victory for the alt-right.”

“Alt-right” supporters rallied around Spencer ahead of his talk, which was also livestreamed online — and looked forward to the possibility of confronting antifascists, or “antifa,” demonstrators, as they had days ago in Berkeley.

“Please come prepared … take some pointers from what the boys did in Berkeley,” said an “alt-right” vlogger known as Continental Concious. “They did a fantastic job. If we could have another victory in Auburn right after Berkeley then that’s going to delegitimize antifa.”

“Antifa scum waited to jump a goy after everyone else was inside,” white nationalist blogger Hunter Wallace wrote on Twitter, sharing a video of a clash at Auburn.

Goy is a perjorative for non-Jew that has a pejorative connotation. The “alt-right” has appropriated the word and uses it to describe themselves.

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

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

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