The ongoing alt-right ‘civil war’ is an example how how activism fails in the absence of a unifying cohesive goal and or concentrated power.
Between 2015 and 2016, thousands of anonymous posters on 4chan, Twitter, and Reddit collectively worked on the same goal – getting Trump in office. Although they were loosely organized, they were unified in trying to get Trump elected. Now that Trump won, no one knows what to do. A this pent-up enthusiasm and energy in the weeks since Trump’s victory has been released – on each other. This problem is compounded by the fact that the alt-right, although it’s under the category of ‘conservatism’, is very ideologically diverse. You have alt-White (daily stormer, the right stuff), alt-lite, alt-trad, etc. Some are Christians, some are lapsed, and others are atheists or agnostics. Some seek revolution; others seek self-improvement. Some care about the ‘JQ’…others don’t. Some lean libertarian; others are national-socialists.
A problem with activism is it attracts people who want power, who are sometimes the least qualified, and then it breaks down into a power struggle between warring factions trying to ‘own’ the alt-right, or witch-hunts against those who are not ‘alt-right enough’ resulting in holiness spirals, purity/shit tests, and virtue signaling. This is similar to the Salem Switch Trials, a historical example of an out of control holiness spiral which ended when the governor of the Massachusetts colony, Sir William Phips, upon his wife as being accused of witchcraft, ordered (upon exercising his power) an end to the trials and pardoned the accused. In the absence of some sort of concentrated power or authority, the colony fell into chaos.
Trump’s political campaign ‘worked’, despite being activism, because people were given specific tasks, everyone had the same objective (of getting Trump in office), and the hierarchy – from strategists at the top to the ‘footsoliers’ at the bottom – was inviolable, much in the same way as a large corporation.
Because NRx and the Dark Enlightenment are ideas and concepts, not a movement or political party, no one can claim ‘ownership’ it, thus avoiding the ‘power grab’ problem.
Overall, Baked Alaska came out ahead and Mike was knocked down a peg. The alt-right is not going away, and eventually the in-fighting will end as soon as they find another cause to rally behind or when the excitement dies down.