FACES OF THE ALT-RIGHT

by Andy Nowicki

What you see above is apparently the cover of a new pamphlet put out by the Southern Poverty Law Center, highlighting several ostensible Alt-Right luminaries of darkness.

I say "apparently" because I haven't actually seen this document in actual meatspace, though I do have its authenticity on good word. I say "ostensible" because I find myself to be one of the 13 men (far right, second from top, just below my partner in thoughtcrime Colin Liddell) to have his ugly mug selected by the SPLC leadership as a prominent eeevvilllll raaaacist.

I hardly feel deserving of this encomium, but will humbly accept it. If the SPLC features you as a boo-and-hiss-worthy person, you must be doing something right. I note that I have seemingly been on their radar screen for some time. After all, two years ago they did their damndest to get me fired by calling my workmates and "doxing" me as a writer/editor for a deeply problematic publication known as Alternative Right.

I knew the risks of flouting the smelly little orthodoxies of the day since I started openly flouting them under my own name, eschewing pseudonyms, several years ago. The same, I'm sure, can be said for most of the others who grace this cover. I have differences with many of these guys-- and some of these differences are major ones-- but I still find it a bit of a fluke to be counted among them, because they've all done more for the cause (however each views that supposed "cause") than I have. 

What is more, there are plenty of others whose faces should occupy this space, who have gone inexplicably ignored by the hardworking and well-paid propagandists of Southern Poverty-ville. (No Ann Coulter? No Gregory Hood? No Greg Johnson? Etc.) Subscribers to SPLC are forced to endure my unsightly nostrils instead. Such a travesty.

Still, whatever we may think of the others or their particular political perspectives, they have all made their mark in the Alt-Right world (however that world may be defined). Hell, one of them (Steve Bannon, far left, second from top) is now the President-elect's chief strategist! As for the rest, they are nearly all effective writers or noteworthy activists (or in one case, were such: Andrew Breitbart, far left, second from bottom, RIP). 

And yet there is one striking anomaly in the bunch, even more strikingly anomalous than yours truly. To my immediate left, you might recognize the dour countenance and bowl-cut hairdo of a fellow who looks familiar, though at first glance you may not be sure from where.

Then you remember: it's Dylann Roof, the young man who is accused of shooting up a Charleston church on June 19, 2015, allegedly murdering nine people.

Roof, of course, had no known connection to the Alt-Right. He was reportedly an unemployed, weed-smokin' sad sack with little connection to anyone or anything. But to good folks at SPLC-- the same ones who tried to destroy my livelihood, God bless 'em!-- Roof is one of us (whoever "we" can be said to be). 

And what's more, I find myself in most interesting proximity to this particular daily shooter. 

Now, much like people ruefully comment that such an such a person is so conservative that he's "slightly to the right of Attila the Hun," so I can now observe myself to be "slightly to the right of Dylann the Roof." 

Thanks much for this distinction, SPLC-ers! 

And SPLiC y'all, too. SPLiC y'all very much.

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Andy Nowicki, assistant editor of Alternative Right, is the author of eight books, including Under the Nihil, The Columbine Pilgrim, Considering Suicide, and Beauty and the Least. He occasionally updates his blog when the spirit moves him to do so. Visit his Soundcloud page.