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My memories circa 2015 was that the "alt-right" was huge. But it was also a big tent. It was everyone who ever complained about RINO's in congress. It was every conservative who found themselves alienated by the GOP's inability to actually move the football in their direction, no matter how much the voter's rewarded them with extra seats and positions. It was a large group of people self identifying, and proudly supporting Trump as an outside candidate, because "alt-right" sounded cool. Like alt-rock.
Then the reveal/hit pieces went out about how Jared Taylor coined the phrase and was trying to own the movement and claim it was all about white nationalism. And it all evaporated like a fart in the wind. Nobody changed their beliefs, or support, IMHO. But when the movement was explicitly made about white nationalism, people just wandered away from the label and never came back.
Even with the Unite the Right rally, I remember seeing a lot of chatter telling people to stay away. There was the element of it being a protest to preserve history, but also the much darker side of it being about white nationalism. A lot of influential conservative accounts told people not to go because of that. There were accusations even then it was a psy-op to tar and feather all conservatives as white nationalist.
Ironic that it happened regardless.
I don't know how much of this is backed up by any record. These are my personal recollections based on people I saw on social media, and memes getting flung around.
Except that he didn't. Paul Gottfried did.
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This matches my memories closely. Absolutely infuriating how effective wignat association is at disrupting a nascent movement.
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