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Talked to a guy recently who had known the Weather Underground back in the day. He made a very interesting analogy: Charlottesville was the alt-right's equivalent of Weather's "Days of Rage" protest, an episode of dumb street violence that discredited the people who did it.
With hindsight, the Days of Rage protest was the beginning of a long inexorable downward slide for Weather's relevance, and I predict that Charlottesville will prove to be the alt-right's high-water mark as well.
But although Weather slid into irrelevance, the broader left movement of which they were an extremist fringe managed to change American culture and institutions deeply and permanently.
Will something similar happen with the alt-right? I doubt it.
Will something similar happen with the alt-right? I doubt it.
YouTube videos and online alt-right crap and the Trump movement in general will radicalize a fair number of young assholes (like the Covington kids). But ultimately they won't have anything close to the numbers needed to change American culture.
And U.S. institutions aren't going to become fascist either. Not without a lot more popular support than these jerks will be able to muster.
Charlottesville will come to be seen the moment (as Hunter S. Thompson might have written) that the alt-right's wave finally broke and rolled back.
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