Everybody knows the short version: President-elect Donald Trump has during his campaign managed to garner, through his persuasive charisma and unapologetically aggressive vocabulary, the enthusiastic support of a mishmash collection of the conservatives. These include “white nationalists,” conspiracy theorists and some fringe factions with racist and various other extremist persuasions, a general group nicknamed the “alternative right”, but also described by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as a “basket of deplorables,” a term they heartily embraced.
Shortly after Trump’s election win some of these alt-right groups have gathered together to celebrate the victory by chanting “Heil Trump!” while flashing the infamous Nazi Salute. It seemed as if this confederation would see Trump through at least his first four-year term. Mere days before his inauguration however, these various components of the alt-right have shown signs of falling out with Trump and with each other.
Start of disillusionment?
It’s notable that the first visible signs of this fissure in the loose conservative confederacy were noticed in the organization of Deplora-Ball, a general alt-right party that would celebrate Trump’s inauguration on January 20 named after Clinton’s nigh-immortalized remark.
One of the main figures involved is National Policy institute head Richard Spencer, who led the “Heil Trump” event that evoked images of Nazi Germany among those wary of a Trump administration. While Spencer did congratulate the billionaire and former “The Apprentice” host for his victory, he also hinted then about how the alt-right ideals should develop independently of Trump and not be tied to him alone, lest he prove to be less than dedicated to carrying them out to the letter.
This time he’s not even bothering to be discrete. Spencer has started to air concerns on his NPI white nationalist think-tank that cast doubt on whether or not Trump will not get cold feet or do a turnabout regarding pushing through the alt-right priorities on topics like immigration, or perhaps he’ll just be distracted by constant word wars on Twitter.
Spencer himself is an advocate for a “bloodless ethnic cleansing” that involves convincing all non-Caucasian Americans to emigrate from the US.
To each their own
While alt-righters have drifted away from solid Trump support, they too have also begun to be at loggerheads with one another. Deplora-Ball organizer and white-identity crusader Mike Cernovich has produced a list of those not to be invited to the celebration who might engage in “incendiary actions”, drawing much ire from alt-right voices on social media. Some of the names included vicious anti-Semitic alt-righter known only as Tim Treadstone. But still on for the Deplora-Ball are such alt-right “pillars” as Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopolous, banned on Twitter for verbally attacking “Ghostbusters” star Leslie Jones, and InfoWars’ Alex Jones, who insists that the bloody Sandy Hook shooting was a staged hoax.
