Once unleashed in Washington, they harbored dreams of taking over the Republican Party and pushing American popular culture sharply rightward. And at a moment when it seemed that anything was possible in American politics, it looked like this group of fringe web firebrands just might be able to harness the right’s anti-establishment energy into a muscular and profitable movement.
No longer. Halfway into Trump’s term, the president has settled into power, remaking the office in his own attention-sucking style and pushing the national conversation in directions it hasn’t taken in generations. But his most flamboyant supporters, who once planned to overrun Washington, find themselves in retreat. Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart tech editor and right-wing campus provocateur, has lost his book deal, the sponsorship of his billionaire patrons and most of his staff. Charles Johnson, the online alt-right activist who alarmed the public by attending this year’s State of the Union address as a guest of freshman Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, has quit social media. Lucian Wintrich, the inaugural White House correspondent for the Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump outlet with a penchant for publishing fake news and conspiracy theories, has been dumped by the site and returned to New York. The white nationalist Richard Spencer, organizer of 2017’s alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has given up his residence in Alexandria, Virginia, and is living on a family property in Montana, where he is plotting a move to an undisclosed location.
As for Cernovich—a right-wing men’s empowerment blogger who saw Trump as the counterweight to political correctness and establishment conservatism—he’s become disillusioned with politics and increasingly critical of the president.
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