Less than a year after Charlottesville, the alt-right is self-destructing

Earlier in March—after Bristow quit the movement, but before Spencer canceled his college tour—Heimbach and the TWP acted as a security force for Spencer outside a speech to a handful of people at Michigan State University. They scrapped with counterprotesters, resulting in at least a dozen arrests—including that of Greg Conte, director of operations for an alt-right group, HuffPost reported.

The physical brawl turned into a Twitter feud between Spencer and Patrick Casey, the executive director of white supremacist group Identity Evropa. Identity Evropa participated in the violent clashes at Charlottesville. But after the deadly rally, and two leadership changes (leader Nathan Damigo quit after Charlottesville, and his successor Eli Mosely quit to join a Spencer-affiliated group before it was revealed that Mosely lied about serving in the Iraq War) Identity Evropa promoted Casey to its head and attempted to rebrand itself as clean-cut.

On Twitter, two days after the TWP got in a brawl while acting as Spencer’s security force, Identity Evropa claimed to be “explicitly non-violent” and “peacefully effecting cultural change.” In a press-friendly, but largely meaningless semantic ploy, the group denied being a white supremacist organization.