The format for this article is probably not correct for smart phone reading. It needs to be seen as a large tablet or desktop presentation. The reason for this is that the imbedded videos
are only affective or transferrable on this format. What this article from the Washington Post shows is that in just one week after the horror of Charlottesville, the thugs of the alt-right have
been taken down and reduced to shambles as individuals, and the media and digital financial tools used to support them have backed away from them. These reactionary forces may be what takes the movement down several notches. Upon editorial review of this email, much is lost, so link to the actual WAPO story.
It is best if you can link to this actual Washington Post link to get it all:
The white supremacists, nationalists and far-right trolls who starred in last weekend's violent Charlottesville rallies have suffered no lack of humiliation in the days since.
Take "Millennial Matt," whose catchphrase — "Hitler did nothing wrong!" — earned him tens of thousands of fans before he went to the rally, but his Twitter account has since been deleted, his real identity publicized, and he is now begging fans for money to flee his home town because "my life is in shambles."
There are plenty of other examples, from the hot dog restaurant cook who lost his job to university students whose schools publicly renounced racism after they went to the march. There's even a Twitter feed devoted to shaming the tiki-torch-lit faces of white nationalism.
But none of the marchers soared so high or crashed so hard as Chris Cantwell, who became the ivory-skinned, gun-toting star of a documentary about Charlottesville that aired Monday on HBO — and a week later is better known as the "weeping Nazi" who got banned from OkCupid.
Act 1 — 'Heil Cantwell!'
For a few triumphant hours, Cantwell was the thick-armed embodiment of white nationalism to tens of millions of people — the star of VICE News and HBO's documentary about last weekend's rallies, which has been seen more than 30 million times.
He looked every bit the rebel leader in that footage from Friday night and Saturday, greeting other white nationalists from as far away as Canada; marching by torchlight to the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the University of Virginia campus; screaming "Jews will not replace us!"
"I carry a pistol. I go to the gym all the time," Cantwell tells the camera, muscles bulging beneath a shirt that advertises his blog, which in turn advertises Cantwell as a libertarian "fascist."
"I'm trying to make myself more capable of violence!" he says.
And there was violence. Men in Charlottesville's streets wielding Confederate flags like spears. And DeAndre Harris, a black man beaten by white men with sticks. And Heather Heyer, a white counterprotester killed when a car rammed a crowd, injuring 19 others.
Cantwell got his licks too, as seen in the documentary.
"Communists!" he yells, pouring a jug of milk over his eyes after, he says, counterprotesters hit him with tear gas. "Second time in two f—ing days!"
"They're afraid of you. You got too big," an admirer tells him.
"Heil Cantwell!" cries another.
And then the self-avowed fascist was back on his feet and leading a march shirtless, a few cans short of a six-pack gleaming in the weekend sun.
"We'll f—ing kill these people if we have to," Cantwell says.
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Days after the events in Charlottesville, several companies have withdrawn support or blocked white supremacist-affiliated groups from their services. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
Act 2 — 'Cantwell the Coward'
Cantwell's bravado only increased over the weekend, as news of the violence spread across the country.
He invited the VICE reporter to his hotel room after the marches, where he showed off his high-powered rifles and the 9mm pistol strapped to his ankle.
The fatal car strike was justified, Cantwell insisted. The protesters had been "stupid animals."
"Someone died," the reporter reminded him.
"I think a lot more people are going to die before we're done, frankly," Cantwell said.
End film. Tens of millions of people have since watched it, and Cantwell would freshen his Facebook profile with photos of himself in the thick of the violence.
But as the weekend faded, other footage began to circulate. Cantwell had apparently recorded it during the rally, in what appeared to be the privacy of a hotel room.
And the famed white separatist appeared to be at the point of tears.
"I've been told there's a warrant out for my arrest," Cantwell pleads to the camera, through sniffles and a trembling voice. "I don't know what to do!"
There were, in fact, felony warrants out for him, the Boston Globe would later report: for the use of illegal gas, and injury by chemical or explosive. (University of Virginia police didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.)
In his confessional, Cantwell told the camera he was too scared to go to the courthouse or meet police. He complained that Chelsea Manning had been threatening to "curb-stomp Nazis."
"I know we talk a lot of s— on the Internet," Cantwell said. But: "Every step of the way we've tried to do the right thing and they just won't stop. … Our enemies just will not stop."
It's unclear where the video was first posted, but copies quickly spread across YouTube — mocked on the political left and right alike.
"White Supremacist Cries After Realizing He Could Be Arrested," wrote Mother Jones.
"MUH MASTER RACE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH," a user added on 4Chan's /pol message board, which is something of a hotbed of racism itself.
And Cantwell's week would only get worse.
Act 3 — 'Straight, Man, Single'
By midweek, Cantwell's name was as well known in the mainstream media as the fringes of the Internet.
But who was he, really?
As the Boston Globe told it, Cantwell was a former comedian from Keene, N.H. Several years ago, RawStory reported with evident delight, Cantwell and two friends used to run around Keene, armed, harassing parking meter attendants in the name of freedom — which the group called "Robin Hooding."
More recently, he is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "an unapologetic fascist, who spews white nationalist propaganda with a libertarian spin on his live-streamed call-in show" and seeks a whites-only state.
Or — per an OkCupid profile leaked online — he is 6 feet tall, single, and "interested in getting married and having children" with the right woman.
"Ideally I'd like to talk on here briefly, move quickly to the phone, and then we can go out on a date and see what happens," wrote the user "ItsChris603," beneath what appears to be a gym-mirror selfie of Cantwell, which ArsTechnica reported was his account.
He described himself not as a fascist, but a podcaster "specializing in controversial political satire."
"It's great because I have a very flexible schedule," he wrote. A typical Friday night would find him not, say, screaming about Jews at a white nationalist march, but rather "doing date nights. Bowling, live shows, movies, travel, all types of things."
OkCupid, remarkably, announced in a tweet that Cantwell did have an account, and had just been banned for life.
Tinder booted him too, Cantwell confirmed in a slur-filled blog post Thursday, explaining that "these [Jews] will stop at nothing."
Likewise, his YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account have all been deleted as tech companies rush to purge extremists of all kinds from their platforms since Charlottesville.
So there it is. The man who on Monday was an HBO-famous swaggering racist had been reduced by the end of the week to broadcasting from an undisclosed location via a Tumblr account and his personal blog.
Cantwell had hired a lawyer, he wrote Thursday, and was preparing to turn himself in to police.
"Depending on who you listen to, I'm either a hero, a terrorist, or a crybaby, " he wrote, "which should tell you something about the reliability of the media."
This article has been updated since publication, and corrected to note that marchers on Friday night went to a statue of Thomas Jefferson — not the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee they had come to protect.
One person was killed and 19 were injured amid protests of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. Here's how the city became the scene of violence. (Video: Elyse Samuels, Zoeann Murphy/Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/The Washington Post)
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