Stop feeding the trolls, for one. The greatest response to the rally in Charlottesville would've been nothing. I would've loved to see no one show, no one stop, everyone just go about their day. These guys are angsty 14-year-olds that never grew up. They want to shock people, they want a reaction. They want to prove how much braver they are then the rest of us. They're like Bizarro Hippies -- they want to fight the Establishment, Man, especially now that it's starting to realize that maybe black people aren't so terrible after all. It's harder now to pretend that their views are in any way legitimate, and so they're lashing out like they usually do.What will we do?
I'm not sure we can completely do absolutely nothing about this. In the past, Neo-nazis used to have their own little corner or were completely hidden in the dark. Nowadays it's seems like the Internet has given them a bigger voice and better access to contact one another. If a rally happened in Charlottesville twenty years ago, who would know about it? People in the local community and from the surroundings. But is a person from California or Alaska or Montana going to come out to this event? It may take those people a while to find out about where a rally of this nature to take place and they may be too late for it. But today, you can learn about such things in less than twenty minutes if you know where to go and you can definitely plan in advance when you hear about these things for the first time on Facebook or Twitter. Also if nobody counter-protested at these rallies, wouldn't more nazis come out? If the protests were safe and there was no consequence wouldn't that enable more people to join up. I think the possibility of violence at some of these things deters some people from coming out. There are probably white nationalists out there that would want to come out and rally but can't because they're scared they would be outed to their job about their beliefs or injured or killed. How can this be fixed though? Well that's a tough question to solve. I think this is more than just wanting a reaction anymore. It's a thing that's growing. The Westboro baptist church, remember them? Why aren't they a problem in today's America? Well they never really grew. They just mostly stuck to being Fred Phelps's family members even when they got internet attention. Everyone in America knows about them but no one is looking to join them. The Alt-Right/White Nationalists want to grow though, they want more and more members. They want the rich businessmen who want the old ways, the college kid who feels like he's falling behind, the poor factory worker who has nowhere to go, the gunmen who feel like the government is going to take away their guns at anymore, the suburban fratboy, the mother who is afraid her children will pick up bad things from minorities and so much more.
I'm not sure that's wholly right. I think your description is perhaps overstating their current power. Just look at what the KKK and the related groups were getting up to in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. They were better organized and a lot more violent, even without modern technology. Membership is definitely on the uptick thanks in large part to Trump. But there's not automatically a correlation between membership and violence, or membership and influence. More to the point, though, this increase doesn't necessarily mean that I'm wrong. One of the things that seriously hurt the Klan back in the '80s was lawsuits over their use of violence. That becomes a lot harder if they're themselves the victims; this also is an easy way to engender sympathy or at least muddy the waters. Their recruitment at this point feeds on ignorance and being ostracized, so I'm not sure how shunning them is really going to help.
Not my idea, cause I've heard it propose elsewhere before, but know what would be an awesome counter protest, especially if people know an event is gonna happen months in advance? A family friendly culture fair, held somewhere else in the city/county. People can celebrate with food and art, lectures, performances, local businesses, schools, and religious communities could get involved. There could be networking opportunities and educational opportunities. People could still make a statement in their own way, but it'd be much safer and I think more productive.Stop feeding the trolls, for one.
Maybe that would work, although to me the best idea is still to do nothing.
In this case, if you're a white person, silence IS tantamount to tacit approval. I'm sorry, and folks can be upset with me all they want, but if you look at the events that happened this weekend and can't even make it to your facebook to post a "Wow, that's fucked up" status, then you've got to question yourself. I'm not saying you need to suddenly become political, but as white people we've got to denounce these people. What happens any time there's a Muslim terror incident? We look at our local mosques and expect them to come out in opposition. And they do, partially out of self-preservation and partly because they too are disgusted by the actions of a minority. Well, it's our turn to do the same, to the same kinds of people. These people do not represent us, and we need to make it crystal clear, because we expect the same out of everyone else any other time.