The “Unite the Right” rally on Saturday morning in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the first time 27-year-old Nigel Krofta attended a white nationalist event. He’s been active in the movement online, but last weekend he stepped out from behind his keyboard and stood clutching a billy club alongside the neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Klansmen, and other so-called alt-right marchers.



That day, Krofta met James Alex Fields Jr., who allegedly drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters just a few hours later, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. After the bloodshed, a photo of the two men, published by the New York Times , found its way to Twitter, where Krofta was identified by name—along with his hometown and the contact information for his employer. He was labeled an “area Nazi” by a journalist in Charleston, South Carolina, not far from Krofta’s home in Ridgeville.

SEE ALSO: How you can take action against white supremacy after Charlottesville

On Monday, Krofta said he started to receive threats. He was also promptly fired from his job as a welder.



“My employer was being called with threats on their business and persons and they responded by discharging me,” the now-former metalworker told Mashable. “My actions and beliefs are mine and I do not want anyone to be hurt or harmed for being associated with me.”

I talked to the Ridgeville man, also a white supremacist, shown next to accused murderer James Fields at rally. https://t.co/YKv5zUWscY — Michael Majchrowicz (@mjmajchrowicz) August 14, 2017

For online activists seeking to identify the marchers at Saturday’s rally, this seems like mission accomplished: A participant faced real-world consequences, outside the confines of the white nationalist movement, where having Nazi sympathies makes you a pariah. But, while activists hope the threat of shame (and unemployment) will deter racists from joining future marches, their actions could have unintended consequences: pushing neo-Nazis out of the shadows could just force them to double down.



Krofta is one of multiple marchers outed by online activists: In California, Cole White reportedly resigned from his job at a hotdog restaurant after his bosses caught wind of his involvement in Charlottesville over the weekend. In Nevada, 20-year-old University of Nevada at Reno student Peter Cvjetanovic got so much publicity he went on a local news program to explain that he is “not the angry racist they see in that photo.” The photo to which he’s referring shows Cvjetanovic—and his Hitler-esque hairstyle—carrying a torch and screeching alongside other white nationalists the night before Saturday’s deadly rally. In Fargo, North Dakota, the shame of seeing his son marching with known bigots prompted a father to pen a lengthy op-ed for a local newspaper essentially disowning his racist son . “I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions,” he wrote.

The outing of racists has been met with fanfare. The Twitter page @YesYoureARacist, dedicated to shining a light on bigoted behavior , had 60,000 followers on Saturday morning—now, it has 400,000. Identifying racists has been the goal of civil rights organizations for years, with the idea that it will create problems for them in their personal and professional lives. As Southern Poverty Law Center researcher Ryan Lenz says in the documentary Welcome to Leith about the attempted neo-Nazi takeover of a small North Dakota town, “If you wanna be a Nazi, you can be a Nazi. But I’m gonna make sure the world knows you’re a Nazi.”



Logan Smith, who founded the YesYoureARacist feed, put it similarly: "Ever since the days of the KKK burning crosses in people's yards, they depend on people remaining silent," Smith told NPR . "And no matter the risk, I'm not going away."

White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" march toward Emancipation Park in Charlottesville Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Yet, there’s a problem. In a world where the President of the United States says there were “very fine people” on “both sides” of Saturday’s rally, people might not care whether people know they’re aligned with white supremacists, according to several demonstrators at the rally who railed against Jews, “faggots," and other groups. In fact, according to some, being exposed is only emboldening a movement they feel has essentially been endorsed by the president of the United States.

“If you wanna be a Nazi, you can be a Nazi. But I’m gonna make sure the world knows you’re a Nazi.”

“All we're doing is massively, massively growing,” David Duke, the infamous former Ku Klux Klan leader who was at the rally in Charlottesville, told Mashable. Donald Trump mentioned Duke by name during a press conference on Tuesday where he defended the “good people” on the right who demonstrated in Charlottesville. Duke made headlines during last year’s presidential election when he endorsed Trump. It took the president nearly a week to disavow the endorsement of a notorious white supremacist—who is perhaps the most well-known white supremacist of the last 30 years and whom Trump initially claimed to know nothing about.



“I’ve gotten 15 million Twitter impressions [since the rally in Charlottesville] and 90 percent have been positive,” Duke continued, adding that, “the Antifa [anti-fascist activists] might think they’re making some gains on us [by outing white nationalists] but they're not...people see through it now. They see what’s going on. They have the Internet. They saw what happened [in Charlottesville]. We weren't there for violence. We were there to make our point.”



For white nationalists, Duke's mission was accomplished. Those I spoke with expressed few regrets about what happened in Charlottesville, though many claimed to not support violence. (This claim is belied by the events, which left one woman dead and dozens wounded. The governor of Virginia described the white nationalists as more heavily armed than the police.)



Outing a guy like Duke, or Richard Spencer—the de-facto leader of the “alt-right” movement—is pointless; their names are synonymous with white supremacy and a simple Google search will reveal who they are. But for people like Nigel Krofta, who stepped into the world of white nationalism and ended up unemployed and publicly dubbed a Nazi, the consequences could be more severe.



Krofta, at least, doesn’t care. In fact, he says, it’s only strengthened his resolve. Asked if he considered the potential consequences of demonstrating with a group of white nationalists before Saturday, Krofta said, “Of course I did. However, it was a risk I was willing to take and I have no regrets.”



Krofta said his experience in Charlottesville—and the fallout from his activities—has only encouraged him to do more. He said he plans on joining a formal white nationalist group and to continue attending rallies. For the next one, he said, he and his “alt-right” cronies will be “better prepared.”



“I feel vindicated,” he said. “[Getting exposed] strengthened my resolve.” He added, “I have my own plans...I hope I do inspire more to be more active.”

White nationalist demonstrators surrounded by counter demonstrators in Charlottesville. Image: AP/REX/Shutterstock

The gloating and positive spin on what happened in Charlottesville is not unexpected, says Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, who tracks white nationalist groups like the “alt-right” and the National Socialist Movement, the country’s primary neo-Nazi organization.



“Duke, Spencer and others will surely try to leverage this moment to double-down on their fantasies of creating a white civil rights movement,” Segal said. He added, “Generally, the people who show up to rallies have already taken the leap [into unabashed white nationalism]...there are some unintended consequences to [publicly name them] that can backfire. White supremacists generally don’t miss an opportunity to portray themselves as the victims.”



That’s exactly what happened. People like Duke and Spencer have spent the last few days playing the victim on social media and beyond. President Trump appears to be paying attention to the plight of the poor white nationalists, as evidenced by that insane press conference on Tuesday, in which Trump repeatedly emphasized that both sides had done wrong.



Krofta also doesn’t have much faith in the identification tactics of the “alt-right’s” opposition in terms of keeping people from upcoming rallies. While he concedes that people may be “afraid to show [once they] realize that all it takes is one photo to ruin their life,” he’s quick to add that he doesn’t fall into that camp. “My life has not been ruined,” he said.



Efforts to identify participants could still deter some. On Aug. 19, a group of “free speech activists” with tentacles in the “alt-right” sphere are planning a rally in Boston. After the chaos in Virginia, speakers began to pull out of the event in fear of being publicly linked to the “alt-right.” The group has publicly disavowed the rally in Charlottesville and insists that their organization is in no way affiliated with people like Duke or Spencer. But the rally is still a target for Antifa activists, who believe it’s an extension of what happened in Charlottesville.



"Yes, there is concern of doxxing and spreading of false information about people to cost them their careers," an unidentified administrator of the group’s Facebook page said. “In fact, one of our members lost his job due to this defamation already.” The rally in Boston is scheduled to go forth as of this writing, despite rumors that it had been canceled.



For Krofta, his new-found infamy has only pushed him further into the world of white nationalism. As for his new buddy, alleged killer James Fields Jr., Krofta said he doesn’t think his actions were premeditated. But he declined to condemn the alleged murder. Rather, Krofta excused it.



“I think people have to understand that the protesters had every street blocked and we were surrounded,” he said. “They also had the parking garage blocked and surrounded. [He] was most likely looking for a way out of there.”



He added, “[Fields] did not have any plans to [slam his car through a crowd of people] to my knowledge...that is a very expensive car.”