>The alt-right appears to be falling apart. The Traditionalist Workers party disintegrated this week after a lurid interpersonal drama among its leadership. Richard Spencer says his alt-right rallies aren’t “fun” any more, and is rethinking his college tour in the aftermath of his fizzer of an event in East Lansing, Michigan, two weeks ago.
>It’s a good time to offer an observation: on the terms it set itself, antifascist organizing in the United States has worked.
>Consider the failure of Spencer’s long-planned address at Michigan State University. Though it was spring break, students and organized antifascist groups showed up to protest, and Spencer gave his pitch for a white ethnostate to an almost empty auditorium. He issued 150 tickets, but only managed to get 20 people along. Spencer himself blamed the protesters for the event’s failure, just as he is blaming them for his movement’s declining ability to muster any numbers in public.
>And that non-event was not an outlier. The same weekend, a planned alt-right conference in Detroit fell apart after venues pulled out under public pressure and one of the organizers, lawyer Kyle Bristow, announced he was leaving the movement. Various “March 4 Trump” events around the country, featuring alt-right contingents, were also small, and met with significant counterprotests.
>Other events in the latter half of last year were also poorly executed and sparsely attended. On a recent podcast, Spencer said the movement was “in a dark place”. And it has been put there by those determined to oppose it.
>Throughout 2017 and into 2018, antifascists have consistently showed up to, and disrupted, public far-right gatherings. After I saw its numbers peak at Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer, the openly white supremacist and fascist segment of the far right has been consistently opposed and usually outnumbered by counterprotesters at events around the country.
