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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

At The Daily Beast [thedailybeast.com], again.

Donald Trump Jr. had just started talking about his new book at UCLA on Sunday when someone in the audience began imitating actor Joaquin Phoenix’s unsettlingly loud laughter from Joker.

As the cackles filled the auditorium, Trump Jr. looked into the crowd, unsure whether what he was saying was really that funny.

Things only got worse from there.

Audience members began demanding a chance to question Trump Jr. and the event’s host, young conservative star and Turning Point USA chief Charlie Kirk. Over chants of “Q&A!”, Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, took the mic to call her boyfriend’s detractors losers.

“I bet you engage in online dating, because you’re impressing no one here to get a date in person,” Guilfoyle said.

Alright, we have been over this at least a dozen submissions. What is new here? Read on!

And their fringe-right hecklers, who call themselves “Groypers” in a nod to an obese alt-right cartoon toad that’s like Pepe the Frog but more racist, notched another win in their new battle against mainstream conservatives.

“What a HUGE victory today,” 22-year-old white nationalist Nick Fuentes wrote on encrypted messaging app Telegram after the event. “Cannot be understated what an incredible win we saw at UCLA.”

Whether he knew it or not, Trump Jr. had walked straight into a right-wing civil war that pits Fuentes and his allies against more mainstream conservative stars, including Kirk, podcaster Ben Shapiro, and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX).

Victory, over a sitting US Congressman, who is not Louis Gohmert.

One Crenshaw antagonist kicked off the Q&A by asking Crenshaw, a Navy veteran, about the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that left 34 crew members dead. Inquiries in the United States and Israel found that the attack was an accident, but it has become a popular talking point for Fuentes and his supporters.

“What do you call yourselves?” Crenshaw responded. “The ‘Groppers’? It’s a very strange name. These guys are the Alt Right 2.0.”

As Crenshaw faced increasingly hostile questioning, friendly audience members tried to create a separate question line to get around Crenshaw’s critics. As the event ended, Gionet and his allies attempted to reach Crenshaw at the stage but were blocked by Turning Point members.

And I thought "Baked Alaska" (Gionet) had recanted his past alt-rightyness. Oh well, got to make a grifting.

Fuentes’ attacks have put some pressure on Turning Point. Since the “Groyper war” began, two the leaders of two Turning Point chapters have dissolved their groups, citing sympathy for Fuentes or claiming that Turning Point is stifling their free speech.

Last week, Shapiro devoted much of a speech sponsored by another campus group, Young America’s Foundation, to denouncing Fuentes and his cohort. Shapiro highlighted a video in which Fuentes denied the Holocaust using an elaborate metaphor about the Sesame Street character Cookie Monster, as well as a post immediately after the Charlottesville march where Fuentes attacked a “rootless transnational elite.”

Shapiro also brought up Fuentes’ attack on Matt Walsh, a columnist at Shapiro’s Daily Wire, whom Fuentes called a “shabbos goy race traitor” for attacking white supremacists in the wake of the El Paso shooting.

“But maybe he was just being ironic, bro,” Shapiro said, mocking Fuentes’ defenders.

The fight has drawn in a host of conservative personalities on either side. Conspiracy-theory hub Infowars has been generally supportive of Fuentes, describing his targets as “grifters” from “Conservatism, Inc.” Columnist Ann Coulter has retweeted messages supporting the attacks on Kirk, while writer Michelle Malkin praised the questioners in a radio appearance and downplayed the racist and anti-Semitic nature of their group.

“It’s breaking out on college campuses now,” Malkin said. “There are many young, and very intelligent and sharp nationalists that are challenging Charlie Kirk and some other members of the open-borders lobby in the Republican Party.”

Former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka has blasted Fuentes and his fans, calling Fuentes a “Holocaust Denying scumbag” on Twitter.

“Let’s show these reprehensible, disgusting anti-Semites who America really is,” Gorka told Kirk on his radio show.

Oh, my! I really hope they do not come to fisticuffs! Nazis punching Nazis in the face? Where will it end?

Original Submission