Thread by @hradzka

sudden realization: there is an ADL or SPLC intern whose job is just keeping track of which white nationalists guest on which other white nationalists' podcasts

Jesus, that poor bastard

Oh hey that joke sounds like as good an excuse as any for an actualfa update

For new readers: "actualfa" is the term I use to distinguish people who get called fascist but are not from those who are actually uh

Haven't done one of these in a while because let's face it, most of 'em aren't doing anything too interesting, but the big trend appears to be consolidation and reorganization

For example: TRS (The Right Stuff) has way downsized its hosted podcast count from over 40 to like 15 or so; white nationalist podcaster Christopher Cantwell says he has heard but cannot confirm a rumor that this is bc they're keeping tighter reins post Alex Jones deplatforming

TRS also got rid of their open forum a while back which makes me sad because that place was full of the most amazing exchanges I have ever seen on the interwebs

no lie, it was like the webcomic Our Valued Customers only everybody was a white nationalist

The League of the South, as I previously noted, has pulled out of the Nationalist Front, which is an umbrella group that was an attempt to unify their movement but just turned out to be a particularly incompetent, impulsive, & violent bunch of assholes

So what's going on? Well, a few things, but my take is that these guys are reorganizing because they've been watching Identity Evropa

If you don't know Identity Evropa, they're a group modeled on European group Génération Identitaire; their current leader Patrick Casey is involved with the Hard Right outlet Red Ice TV (meaning he's got relationships with European Hard Righties, who are not abject incompetents)

After Charlottesville Identity Evropa decided to not do anything with people who weren't in their group, and when people broke that rule they ejected them, and lo and behold they've stayed pretty much out of trouble but it took the other guys about a year to notice.

Identity Evropa is focusing on growth and has settled into a pattern of 1) leafleting, 2) small flash events, 3) large flash events, which are mostly big banner drops; they've done number 3 recently in NYC and Cincinnati, and for these they can put together about 60 dudes.

60 dudes is also what IE turned out for a flash demonstration when they had a big meeting for the whole organization. Casey claimed 200 members for that meeting at the time, and in a Reddit AMA he claimed 700 members total.

(I would take those figures with considerable salt.)

Putting together 60 dudes takes multiple I.E. chapters. If you look at pics of their chapters doing service weekends (going out to clean up trash, etc.), you see two dudes, three dudes, six dudes. This is just because the ideology is not a draw.

If you're concerned about white nationalism, not as an ideology for impulsive garbage people or because of fearmongering SPLC fundraising, but as an actual movement in America, the best yardstick you can measure by right now is probably the growth of Identity Evropa.

Identity Evropa is still small, but they're working and they're trying to learn. Now other orgs are trying to learn at least some lessons from them.

(Including one reported offshoot of the defunct TWP, which is copying IE's leaflet strategy but with a rural spin.)

Note too that Identity Evropa has yet to really take a turn in the ADL/SPLC barrel.

Christopher Cantwell has said that he's going to try to go around the country to maybe lay groundwork for an organization of his own, and the Daily Stormer Book Clubs are still out there but I haven't looked in on 'em in a while

anyway, this has been your actualfa update