Pepe the Tadpole: Retreat to the Cyber-Pond

The water’s still warm.

Richard Spencer, head of NPI, at the Ronald Reagan Office Building speaking to supporters.

During the week, the Ronald Reagan Office Building, an imposing edifice just blocks from the White House, headquarters the International Trade Center. On weekends, it opens its doors to private events.

On a dreary Saturday in November 2016, the building’s lofty interior was venue for a conference organized by the National Policy Institute (NPI), an “organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world.”

In the 10 years since its inception, the conference never got much attention. But this year something was different. Hundreds of eager attendees were filing into the building and a crowd of jeering protesters congregated outside the event’s entrance. Even a handful of journalists were present.

The conference began with a succession of speakers who discussed ‘identity’ and ‘cultural heritage’ in relatively presentable terms. The keynote speaker for the evening was Richard Spencer the President of the NPI and one of the few identifiable leaders of the burgeoning ‘alt-right’ movement.

With slicked hair and a smart three-piece wool suit, Spencer rose to the podium before the mostly white, mostly male crowd to deliver his speech. “America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer declared. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

He continued his polemic, invoking terms like ‘Lügenpresse,’ (which roughly translates to ‘fake news),’ a word once used by the Nazis to attack their opponents in the press. Spencer’s remarks were met with enthusiastic cheers and applause. When Spencer cried “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” some attendees responded with straight-armed salutes.

Spencer’s speech at the NPI conference took place just weeks after Trump took office. His campaign was criticized for its brash cultural insensitivity, and the oxygen it gave a fringe political movement calling itself “the alt-right.”. The movement, comprised of white supremacists, online ‘trolls,’ conspiracy theorists, Silicon Valley neo-reactionaries and gleeful opportunists, were unified by their belief that diversity and inclusiveness did not, in fact, represent progress.

Rather, social progress was a zero-sum game, and the advancement of women and minority groups meant the regression of those who used to be in power. They stood united in opposition to everything then-candidate Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration represented: globalist, technocratic liberal elitism.

Spencer‘s speech — viewed online over 50 million times — in combination with mounting support for the alt-right movement, set the stage for further escalation. On August 11, 2017, hundreds of protesters assembled in Charlottesville, Virginia for the “Unite the Right” rally. Participants from all over the country gathered to protest the removal of a prominent statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. After the rally was forcibly disbanded, a man affiliated with the rally drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. The collision injured 19 people and fatally wounded Heather D. Heyer.

The murder of Heather Heyer and the ensuing violence of the riots changed the public’s perception of the alt right. Up to this point, the alt right’s tactful employment of veiled irony and humor had always enabled a simple defense: “We are just joking.” But the violence in Charlottesville repudiated the claim that the doctrine of the alt-right was ultimately insincere and just for the ‘lulz.’

The violence in Charlottesville eradicated any mainstream good-will that may have existed. The racist images of the rally saturated major network news channels. It was no longer possible to conceal their darker, material intents.

Vincent Law, a prominent figure within the alt-right noted: “the political climate has changed since Charlottesville. There’s been a crackdown. Who knows what comes next. As a movement, the alt-right has to face the reality that the State is hostile to us.”

In the aftermath of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally, the alt-right was faced with the problem of where they would be able to draw their support and recruit a following. Lucky for them, there was an exit strategy: a retreat back to the waters of online anonymity. Where they lurk today.