Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

I Lost My Son to the Alt-Right Movement
New York Magazine ^ | August 18, 2017 | Anonymous As Told To Alexa Tsoulis-Reay

Posted on 08/18/2017 12:22:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway

My son was in Charlottesville. He probably went with his friends, but I don’t know for sure because I haven’t talked to him in about three years.

Maybe some alt-righters were born into racist families and then they just follow along, but we weren’t like that. He grew up in a big, multicultural city. When he was a kid, he was very accepting — his friend group was ethnically diverse, we often hosted overseas exchange students. He was dating someone who wasn’t white. He was a responsible kid. I mean, he would occasionally drink and smoke pot and stuff like that, but he wasn’t getting into trouble or anything. He had a few close friends, but he was not that great with getting girlfriends.

He was a good student, smart, sweet, and we were close. He always told me he loved me. But over time he began to change. I was worried it was drugs or depression. He started treating me like shit. I remember one time I went to hug him and he nearly ripped me a new one just for touching him. He said, “We have nothing in common.” I was hurt. That was just the beginning.

When he was in his late teens, he started listening to this podcast FreeDomain Radio. After he told me about it, I googled it, and from that point forward, my life was never the same. It was founded by this guy Stefan Molyneux, who I later learned is a major figure on the alt-right. He spews horrible things. I heard him listening to the podcasts in his bedroom. My son started saying things like, If we could just get the Asians out of here it wouldn’t be so crowded. I realized he was getting into really dangerous stuff. He was beyond the point where we could have a rational discussion. Not long after, I told him I thought he should move out.

Related Stories

Men’s-Rights Activism Is the Gateway Drug for the Alt-Right After he left, we stopped talking and he pretty much alienated his closest friends. The only way I could keep track of him was by watching his online presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (I remembered his nicknames from when he lived at home). I saw that he was questioning the Holocaust, and tweeting about Trump, white supremacy, and all this horrible stuff about women. On his YouTube account, people were commenting that women don’t need to have education because their place is at home having babies. I panicked and approached a local religious group that’s very knowledgeable about cults and they said, Just wait it out and take care of yourself.

These days, I check up on him whenever I’m on the computer — it’s constant. I’ve got all his social-media pages pinned on Google Chrome. Sometimes he removes posts quickly and sometimes he makes things public and leaves them there. Maybe he wants me to see? I make sure I’m not logged in when I look at his accounts because I don’t want him to block me.

I recently saw him on a video, he looks healthy. Taking good care of yourself is all part of the white-supremacy thing, right? They have to be in good shape in case there’s violence, and they have to be fit so they can make good white babies. My thinking these days is God forbid he should have kids.

I knew from his tweets that he was going to Charlottesville and I was nervous because I know these things can turn violent. And throughout the day I was anxious, waiting for him to tweet so I knew he was okay. I’m horrified that he was there. From his tweets, it sounds like he was hanging around with neo-Nazis. It’s hard for me to believe. And then there’s a part of me that hopes he does something and gets caught because that’s one way to get him reformed.

I think the biggest thing with him is he needed a father figure. His dad really disappointed him. The alt-right is definitely a group that people are recruited into. I really do believe that. They take a “normal” level of fear of difference to the extreme. And I think that time of life — after school, when you are in your early 20s, is a real period of transition, of finding yourself. These kids think they have found the answer in these alt-right groups, you know? Like, I can be a part of something that’s bigger than me … and then they feel like they’re really going to make a difference, they even have a passion for making a difference.

All parents look back at how they raised their children and think they could have done something different, but I did the best I could. I raised him alone for a big part of his life. When he was younger, I had more control, but you can’t be with them 24/7. You don’t know what they’re listening to. They take their laptops to school. You can’t know everything that’s on the internet. Once they find it and feel like it speaks to them, they’re not going to listen to you.

These days the only way I can reach him is email. I sometimes send him videos of our dog. I have an extension on email that shows me if he reads it. The last thing I sent him was a video of our dog, but you could hear my voice … I secretly hope he felt something when he heard my voice, because deep inside I know he must miss me.

*Some names and details have been changed.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bummer; charlottesville
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last
The KKK took my baby away...
1 posted on 08/18/2017 12:22:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Sometimes, kids are just smarter than their parents.


2 posted on 08/18/2017 12:26:04 PM PDT by LibWhacker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

What a nutcase.

How about just don’t talk about politics with your kid? I have family and friends from across the political spectrum. We avoid the stuff we disagree on (politics, religion, etc.) and everything is cool.

Politics to the Left is a substitute for religion. They have no hope for the hereafter so they want “change” here and now in the real world to create some perfect paradise, which inevitably leads to mass murder.

Thanks for posting this. Liberalism is a mental disease.


3 posted on 08/18/2017 12:26:07 PM PDT by TigerClaws
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
I think the biggest thing with him is he needed a father figure.

This seems to be a society wide problem. No discipline in the home.

4 posted on 08/18/2017 12:26:15 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

was the dog a german shepherd...

he is an adult making bad decisions.

perhaps all those asian exchange students had an impact.


5 posted on 08/18/2017 12:26:29 PM PDT by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
From the article.

Men’s-Rights Activism Is the Gateway Drug for the Alt-Right

Ah, if you are not a cowering metrosexual, then you are a de facto fascist. Got it.
6 posted on 08/18/2017 12:26:47 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Cucking. It’s a religion. Maybe worse than leftism.


7 posted on 08/18/2017 12:27:17 PM PDT by riri
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

How I was born a baby killing, dog drowning, wife beating Nazi!


8 posted on 08/18/2017 12:27:19 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Anonymous? Please.


9 posted on 08/18/2017 12:27:33 PM PDT by BookmanTheJanitor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Pathetic self serving screed which is probably total B.S.


10 posted on 08/18/2017 12:27:44 PM PDT by dainbramaged (Get out of my country now)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Bull crap.
Kid got fed up with this diversity B.S.
Kid got fed up with blacks and illegals getting preferential treatment.
Kid go FED UP/
Quit trying to push this diversity Crappola up our ASSES.
Morals? The church lost that cause they couldn’t afford to label FREAKS.
NOt interested in trannies or homos or blacks of illegals getting “special rights”.


11 posted on 08/18/2017 12:27:58 PM PDT by Joe Boucher (President Trump makes obammy look like the punk he is.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Antifa & BLM are taking my son away. He went to Texas A&M a nice conservative kid from California. Then he got into Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone and then those friend got him into BLM. He graduated and is home now.

His friends in California are more conservative, so that’s an improvement.


12 posted on 08/18/2017 12:27:58 PM PDT by luckystarmom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Sound like the son lost his mom to the Moon bat pink hat brown shirt leftist?


13 posted on 08/18/2017 12:29:38 PM PDT by Leep (Less talk more ACTiON!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LibWhacker

This person seems to have jumped over the cliff of misconceptions.


14 posted on 08/18/2017 12:29:40 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Exempting Trump and his team, our media and government have adopted the Zoolander management style.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
The alt-right is definitely a group that people are recruited into.

And the alt-left is...?

15 posted on 08/18/2017 12:30:00 PM PDT by Salvey
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Army Air Corps

Exactly!


16 posted on 08/18/2017 12:30:33 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Exempting Trump and his team, our media and government have adopted the Zoolander management style.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Fake, fake.

Fake, fake, fake!


17 posted on 08/18/2017 12:30:38 PM PDT by subterfuge (Save the monuments!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Anonymous sources could be plain old fashioned,fiction writers.

What they say is meaningless.

.


18 posted on 08/18/2017 12:30:58 PM PDT by Mears
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Maybe your kid was screwed out of a job or admissions because of discrimination against whites?

Maybe he’s been taunted for years at school or in public by blacks?

Maybe he’s tired of all the crime, complaining and hypocrisy?

Maybe he saw bigots like Obama and Sharpton for who they really are?

Maybe your son thought the removal of CW Monuments was wrong, over the top? Maybe he has a sense of history?

Like Trump said, there were good people on both sides, and bad on both. Why “Mom” would not see why son might have been alienated by all the racial crap going on that tries to stack the deck against him, is why “he’ changed


19 posted on 08/18/2017 12:31:20 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat (Search "Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy tweets" and pass those links on to all you know)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Any anymouse sob stories like this are usually complete fiction. Wonder who the author is. More of a creative writer than a journalist.


20 posted on 08/18/2017 12:31:47 PM PDT by Oldexpat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson