On a recent episode of the cleverly titled Fash the Nation, another podcast project of the Right Stuff, they opined about Trump’s big failure in Iowa. To join the regular hosts Jazz Hands McFeels and Marcus Halberstram they invited Raiden, a Twitter “sensation” who bragged about how good he is at trolling.  He proudly declared that he keeps “hate facts” in his bookmarks so he is ready to “Red Pill” people on social media, a term used originally by the Men’s Rights crowd and means to reveal the truth(which actually means to be racist).  He went on, at length, about how great he was at harassing people on Twitter, so much that he often gets banned.  The hosts egged him on, also congratulating him for this major “achievement.”

The new Alt Right is being tactically informed by people like the Right Stuff and the Daily Shoah who think that internet trolling, using infectious memes, and arguing with people in web forums is the same thing as political organizing.  Their project relies on this since they usually do not come from a history of political engagement, but instead from the recesses of extreme ideology that remote web forums often inspire.  While this is embarrassing right off the bat, it is not without its avenues.  They have successfully disseminated things like the Cuckservative, Alt Right, and Facts Aren’t Racist hashtags, they have created a groundswell of reactionary internet support for Trump, and they are feeding the vanguard of the racist movement to commit acts of violence and eventually join the kind of political organizations that we are seeing all over Europe.

We at Anti-Fascist News have also been pretty consistently “trolled” and blogged about from the far-right, where they are just begging to get a mention.  The Daily Shoah has devoted segments of several of their shows to us, and their forum will link to us so many times that we quickly become the top Google search results(good strategy guys).  Attack the System, the website run by Keith Preston and best known for pushing National Anarchism, has run a full six articles about us, desperately trying to pull us into a debate.  We actually did counter a couple of their claims, only because they have occasionally moved their arguments into anarchist circles and so we need to develop a good rhetorical foundation to unhinge their ‘pan-secessionist” rhetoric.  Occidental Dissent, the Traditionalist Youth Network, the National Anarchist Network of Texas, Jack Donovan, and others have made us the target of their attention in recent months, hoping that they can get a word in on our conversation.  Daily we get hate comments, often with racial slurs, and usually they believe that we are going to allow their comments to be posted so that they can, again, troll.  On Twitter they will tag us so as to draw us into an “internet feud” so they can fuel their blog diarrhea, especially since their lack of relevance can stop them from having appealing content.

Our policy is to completely refuse to discuss things, allow them to link to us, or to even provide access to our social media.  We regularly block fascists if they tag us on Facebook or Twitter, which happens a couple times a week.  We will work to break the links when they link directly to our website, and we never, ever allow racist or right-wing comments to post on our website.  We aim to be a useful resource for anti-fascist and anti-racist organizing, so we prioritize the goals of organizing above all else.  Complete radio silence and removing them as regularly as you can will be the best way to regularly segregate them from important conversations.  We prefer if our boosts in traffic comes from anti-racists looking to find out what is happening inside of the racist community, not just out of a lurid curiosity, but because we need this information to inform strategy.

As long as we continue, we expect to get followed closely by these groups as they look for any avenue to get coverage.  Instead, in our discussions about them we refuse to link to them or provide them an open platform of any type.