“For many of the rally attendees, Charlottesville may be the first time they gathered with the people they’d spoken to online, their first chance to see the movement they’d joined in the flesh. For some of them, that first encounter, and the violence that they were a part of, may have left them with a queasy feeling, and looking for a way out.
I want this week, and the weeks that follow, to be a time when the men and women who attended have a chance to listen to that small, still voice. A time when it is as easy as possible to take a step back and decide that their first march will be their last march.
Doxxing and social vilification complicates that. It’s harder to walk away from the group you’ve attached yourself to when you know (because everyone is telling you) that you’ve blown it – that you shouldn’t have a job; that you can’t be forgiven; that everyone needs to know who you are right now, so they can shun and disemploy you for the rest of your life.”