It all started with that fateful punch in early 2017. Suddenly, Richard Spencer became famous for being a racist and a Nazi. At first, he was merely the butt of a joke and a meme on Leftbook. Then he started showing up in the news more and more, representing the alt-right, a term he actually coined. His star rose as Milo Yiannopoulos’s took a sudden, fatal nosedive (which I will get to in a moment). Clearly, part of Spencer’s newfound fame was luck and good timing, but I want to examine the other factors at play, because, at face value, I find both of these two figures very strange choices as representatives of this particular movement. Upon further inspection, however, they really do make perfect sense. Continue reading “Why Richard Spencer Supplanted Milo Yiannopoulos as the Figurehead of the Alt-Right” →