Thread by @hradzka

hey, who wants an actualfa thread

(not me really but here we go)

so Richard Spencer had a little rally outside the White House December 3, and it wasn't very interesting but I want to talk about it for a minute

Main reason I look at these things is to count noses; Spencer's folks numbered ~25 guys (15-25 guys is typical range I've seen in videos of actualfa groups' local gatherings)

Counter-protestors had 24 hours notice but turned out roughly double Spencer's numbers, maybe a bit more than that. Nothing exciting.

The interesting part is what it says about recent actualfa personnel shakeups -- mild by actualfa standards but fascinating if you like impending train derailments

Spencer has announced that he and Eli Mosley, until very recently head of Identity Evropa, are forming a new activism-oriented group called Operation Homeland

Mosley, present at the rally, resigned just a few months into his tenure as IE founder Nathan Damigo's handpicked successor, for reasons that are currently a little mysterious

One of Moseley's guys hinted at personality conflicts; Mosley's IE successor Patrick Creasey said in an interview that from now on IE would only do events with its own people

Sounded cryptic, but when Spencer & Mosley did their tiny rally at the White House, there were three speakers: Spencer, podcaster Mike Enoch, and Matt Heimbach.

If you don't keep up with the actualfa, I need to take a couple of minutes to explain just how this is total Bad Idea Jeans.

Heimbach runs the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP). It's part of the Nationalist Front, a coalition of a bunch of actualfa groups.

The TWP's whole thing is about trying to put a fresh, welcoming face on national socialism, basically coming off as Nazis for Bernie.

TWP eschews the swastika and the Nazi salute, and Heimbach rails against capitalism so much that until he starts talking about Jews you'd swear he's DSA.

Sounds cunning. Draw in people curious about socialism, get them involved, and before they realize what they've joined -- BOOM, they're Nazis! Sneaky stuff, right?

...except from what I can tell the TWP are *literally the only guys in the Nationalist Front who are doing this*

For example, the TWP frequently marches alongside its buddies in the National Socialist Movement, who form human swastikas and sieg heil everything that moves

This makes Matt Heimbach the single weirdest dude in the entire actualfa to me because I have no earthly idea what is going on in his head.

"So, no swastikas"
"No swastikas"
"And no--" *raises arm*
*smacks arm down*
"Right, new image"
"Yep. New image"
"...but *they're* doing it, and we're marching right next to them"
"Look, the Nationalist Front is about SOLIDARITY"

The antifa crowd countering Spencer's mini-rally seemed a bit puzzled to hear Heimbach's critique of capitalism, which I suspected was the whole idea behind bringing him on.

Actualfa famously suck at recruiting, but radicalism is fungible, so my guess was Spencer hoped some front-and-center anticapitalism might help convert some antifa types.

And that's basically what they came out with as the plan at a recent conference covered by THE NATION: convert commies, bc they're running out of libertarians.
thenation.com/article/the-ra…

But in the meantime Spencer doesn't have a movement of his own, and Mosley doesn't have Identity Evropa anymore, so they need to go somewhere else for manpower.

Heimbach's presence means they're turning to the Nationalist Front, which maxes out at ~100-120 guys for every major action and is *chock-full of garbage people.*

To get even 120 guys, the Nationalist Front has to combine groups: Heimbach's TWP, National Socialist Movement, and various Klan types or groups like Vanguard America.

If you've heard of Vanguard America, it's because of Charlottesville; the vehicular homicide guy marched with Vanguard America.

(VA claimed the Charlottesville perp had been a complete stranger who'd randomly shown up and they gave him a shirt and a shield and said, "sure, march with us")

I'm not sure which makes them look dumber: if that's their best alibi, or if that actually happened.

After Charlottesville, Vanguard America had a coup and rebranded as Patriot Front, who went on to redeem their image as -- nah, just kidding

After Spencer's speech in Gainesville, Florida, a Patriot Fronter was among the three Spencer fans arrested bc one of them fired a shot at protestors (it missed).

So the Nationalist Front's garbage people have already caused *massive* legal problems for Spencer and Mosley, whose reaction is apparently "yes, please, more of that"

Identity Evropa's decision to NOPE out of that alliance is possibly the only smart decision a white nationalist group has ever made.

My guess on Mosley's departure:

IDENTITY EVROPA. "You want to keep working with the guys who are the reason we are being sued into the ground? Eli, no"
ELI MOSLEY. "ELI YES"

Identity Evropa, for their part, seems to have elected for skills-building. Dropped a 200-foot-long banner in Atlanta. But had maybe 8-10 guys.

Remember: *actual full-on white nationalism is not a draw.* While the members they do have are very very into it, these groups are quite small.

So I'm not worried about white nationalists winning, because they won't. I am worried about the damage their garbage people will do along the way.

Most people -- political extremists included -- don't actually want to hurt other people. (A lot of white nationalist murders are by members of white nationalist criminal gangs, murdering people for criminal gang reasons rather than racist politics reasons.)

But garbage people are impulsive, do dumb things. And they fuck up. Or they get upset. And people get hurt or killed.

The best film I've ever seen about white nationalists, Henry Bean's THE BELIEVER (2001), nails one of the weirdest aspects of their dysfunctional efforts at activism:

Even racist radicals who are not themselves garbage people *have no hesitations whatsoever when it comes to trusting garbage people.*

In THE BELIEVER, racist radical Theresa Russell trusts garbage person Ryan Gosling with Important Stuff despite the fact that he's constantly instigating pointless violence and getting arrested.

In real life, after Charlottesville and Gainesville, Richard Spencer trusts the Nationalist Front to supply him with dudes who won't catastrophically fuck up and hurt people.

This is not going to go go well. /fin