Christopher Cantwell: Men’s Rights Activist turned neo-Nazi. (Pic: Modified screenshot from Vice News documentary)
By David Futrelle
I was up all night writing this one, which I think pulls together some of the points I’ve been making a bit less explicitly on the blog of late.
Here’s what we journalists like to call the nut graf:
There are good reasons why men’s-rights activism has served for so many as a gateway drug to the alt-right: Both movements appeal to men with fantasies of violent, sometimes apocalyptic redemption — and, like [Christopher] Cantwell, a tendency to express these fantasies in bombastic prose. And both movements are based on a bizarro-world ideology in which those with the most power in contemporary society are the true victims of oppression.
In other words, if you can convince yourself that men are the primary victims of sexism, it’s not hard to convince yourself that whites are the primary victims of racism.
In addition to Mr. Cantwell, a number of other We Hunted the Mammoth favorites make appearances in the piece.
Let me know what you think!