CMV: r/AltRight is a disgusting Facist Movement.

This New Yorker article does a pretty good job of explaining why gamergaters and white supremacists have found themselves sharing a basket, so to speak:

The alt-right is united less by ideology than by sensibility; a hallmark of that sensibility is a careful attunement to social norms, and a perverse delight in desecrating them. This is easy to do on the Internet, where anyone can say anything. Mike Cernovich, whom I profiled last month, became a prominent vessel of pro-Trump populism by saying unconscionable things on Twitter. “This election was a contest between P.C. culture and free-speech culture,” he told me the day after Trump’s victory. “Most people know what it’s like for some smug, élite asshole to tell them, ‘You can’t say that, it’s racist, it’s bad.’ Well, a vote for Trump meant, ‘Fuck you, you don’t get to tell me what to say.’”

Right. Because voting for a man who has pledged to "open up our libel laws" to make it easier to sue newspapers is clearly the most effective way to send that message.

But I digress. The point is that the gamergater's standard response to charges of sexism and misogyny has been to declare himself an embattled champion of "free speech" and dismiss all criticism as a dishonest attempt to silence him. You can pretty much easily see how having a strategy like that in common might make for an easy and natural alliance between bigots of all stripes.

/r/changemyview Thread Parent