Nov 20, 20162 min read

Scenes From Inside and Outside the Alt-Right's First Major Post-Election Gathering

This weekend, the National Policy Institute (NPI)—a think tank lead by "alt-right" whisperer Richard Spencer—held a downtown-D.C. gathering of white nationalists, "Trumpservatives," and the attendant press and protesters these groups attract. (Also there: reality-TV star turned Twitter-based Third-Reich sympathizer Tila Tequila.) I'm planning a longer, more thoughtful post about these events soon, but for now… well, you know what they say about pictures and words. So behold: scenes from the Pennsylvania Avenue NW powwow—right between the White House and the new Trump hotel!—as fragments of the left and right attempt to deal with Donald Trump's unexpected election as president of the United States.

For the most part, everything down peacefully, though a fight did break out at one point between a woman from NPI and her videographer—who had entered the activist fray to conduct video interviews—and some protesters. According to witnesses, the skirmish began when protesters took the camera guy's phone, prompting him to lunge at one of them and put the man in chokehold, after which other protesters stepped in. The fight was broken up by police.

Fight breaks out outside National Policy Institute after neo-Nazi who was recording lunges at protester #StopNPI pic.twitter.com/h1GdqNOCye

— Alexander Rubinstein (@AlexR_DC) November 19, 2016

Here are few more shots of the scene outside the NPI gathering…

Elizabeth Nolan Brown

"Antifa" activists, who helped organize the protest, came decked out with bandanas, masks, and flags.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Spotted: "Nazi Wonks Fuck Off" … "It's Not Alt-Right It's White Supremacy" … "Love Trumps Hate" …

"Listen to Erykah Badu"

Elizabeth Nolan Brown

He says if Trump Hotel isn't "burned to the ground" after 4 years, "everything we've said about opposing fascism is a lie." #StopNPI pic.twitter.com/kujyFEhlgw

— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) November 19, 2016

Inside the conference, NPI President and Radix journal editor Richard Spencer lead a post-lunch press conference on what's next for the alt-right, joined by VDARE founder Peter Brimelow, retired evolutionary psychology professor Kevin MacDonald, writer Jason Jorjano, and American Renaissance magazine editor Jared Taylor.

Spencer says the alt-right is "an intellectual movement," not a partisan one.

ENB

The mostly-male audience included former Business Insider Chief Technology Officer Pax Dickinson and an array of young men with the same shaved-side, slicked-back-and-long-down-the-middle haircut.

ENB

For sale inside the NPI conference, along with Donald Trump and Harambe t-shirts:

ENB

Former reality-TV star and model Tila Tequila, now a spokeswoman for the alt-right and white nationalism, with Got News head/notorious Internet troll Chuck Johnson at a top-secret, Friday NPI dinner hosted at a branch of the family-style Italian chain restaurant Maggiano's.