Racist 'alt-right' movement reeling after string of setbacks

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Michael Kunzelman and Dylan Lovan, Associated Press
Updated 5:29 pm, Tuesday, May 15, 2018

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Led from a courtroom in handcuffs Tuesday, one of the nation's most recognizable white nationalists will have 38 days behind bars to ponder the dizzying demise of the group he led before his arrest exposed a bizarre sex scandal.

Matthew Heimbach's jail sentence for a probation violation is just the latest setback for the "alt-right" fringe movement that appears to be reeling after becoming emboldened and energized by Donald Trump's presidential campaign and election.

Richard Spencer, who coined the term "alt-right" to describe a loosely connected band of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists, suspended a college tour after violent clashes overshadowed one of his campus speeches in March. He and other leading alt-right figures are fighting lawsuits without help from lawyers. Many also are struggling to raise money or spread their messages after losing access to mainstream internet platforms. A few have even dropped out of the movement altogether.

And then there's Heimbach, whose Traditionalist Worker Party was rocked by his arrest in March on charges he assaulted his wife's stepfather, David Matthew Parrott, who also was the group's spokesman. The men had argued over Heimbach's alleged affair with Parrott's wife, according to court documents. The alleged assault was a violation of Heimbach's probation for a case in which he was accused of physically harassing a protester at a 2016 Trump campaign rally in Kentucky.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/education/article/Racist-alt-right-movement-reeling-after-string-12916985.php

[bearsfootball516]

1. I'm hesitant to believe they're actually on the decline until Trump is out of office

[riversedge]

3. Agree. #🌊🌊🌊 #FlipItBlue #BlueWave2018 #neveragain #VotethemOUT #gunreformnow

[Hortensis]

7. Well, our justice system and laws still stand,

even though the packing of courts with knuckledragging, business- and God-serving conservatives continues. (Hillary was supposed to fill all those vacancies that awaited the next president. Sigh.)

I live in the deep south these days and was sure from the beginning that their imagining that their day had come to lead an army of people like them was completely delusional. They're not welcome here either. And also that this would happen to those who broke the law. No big stretch of faith there.

Besides the criminals, others have publicly branded themselves and in some cases have changed their lives permanently. Employers don't hire hatemongering troublemakers knowingly, colleges don't admit them, nice people don't invite them over or go out with them, and families can be particularly hurtful.

You have to be right that the most intransigent are not at all ready to scurry back into their shadows, but many others must already regret exposing themselves.

[heaven05]

2. as long as their

enabler leader is in the office of potus, they won't decline. Hell, there are a lot of them crawling out from under rocks and living in toilets because of trump and sessions giving them the green light to OPENLY hate ALL non-white. Don't get me wrong, I hope this movement is "reeling". I just don't give that statement much credence with 66 million of trump voters out in our society spreading hate along with their media arm, fox news.

[TexasProgresive]

4. Heimbach had and affair with his mother-in-law let's make him president.

For those who don't get my stupid sense of humor

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. A Parrott was the spokesman. Any fiction author writing that would have been rejected.

Don't have to make this stuff up. It writes itself.

[BobTheSubgenius]

6. YOu don't have to scratch very deep to find some really putrid ooze, do you?

They may be hateful on the surface, but the deeper truth is probably much worse.

[Aristus]

8. Matthew Heimbach was the subject of a recent book on the alt-right movement.

He wanted to put a friendly, personable, non-threatening face on the white supremacy movement.

Looks like he put a creepy, pervy, skeevy face on it instead...

[murielm99]

9. He resembles some sort of

malevolent rodent. I don't have to know who he is to say that.