USA Today reports in “Video: White nationalists celebrate Trump’s victory at conference” that “Members of the D.C. Antifascist Coalition protested the conference and an anti-Semitic dinner hosted at Maggiano’s on Saturday.”

LACY MacAULEY,
lacymacauley[at]gmail.com, @lacymacauley
MacAuley is a Washington-D.C.-based media activist and a member of the D.C. Antifascist Coalition. She just wrote the piece “What Next? White Supremacists in Suits and Ties in Washington,” which states: “I was outside the building with a crowd of about 500 protesters. Our chants included, ‘Racists eating creme brûlée? You’re still the KKK.’ … It was a diverse group of people from many backgrounds, identities, and ideologies. We held a dance protest on the sidewalk outside the restaurant hosting their meet-and-greet on Friday, after about 30 people protested inside the restaurant. We also occupied the street in an energized, spontaneous march outside of their conference on Saturday. …

“I had started organizing the weekend’s protests months ago with a small group of committed antifascists. None of us thought then that we would be facing a Trump presidency. None of us thought then that a person who was so openly racist and sexist could be elected. None of us would have expected that Steve Bannon, who has said that his website Breitbart has been a platform for the Alt Right, could wind up a close advisor to president.”The conference was organized by the blandly-named ‘National Policy Institute,’ a white supremacist organization. …

“The philosophy that the National Policy Institute promotes sounds to me like the worldview of an antisocial, insecure hermit. Spencer, who coined the term Alt Right, promotes separating people based upon their identity, as if he were sorting laundry. The worldview he articulates is one of genetic determinism. It is a view that says that people who identify as white have genes that are somehow better than those of people of color. Using previously-debunked science on IQ test results and racial identity, books promoted on the institute’s site claim that white people are more intelligent than people of color. An article by Spencer on his own site depicts white culture as embattled, and says that ‘white culture’ should have ‘the right to maintain its traditions, culture, and heritage.’ And, in his own words, Spencer proposes doing all of this by force.”

Background: “Video: With Nazi Salutes, White Nationalists ‘Hail Trump’ at D.C. Conference.”