In the comments on anarhistnews.org, in the comments on this video, and in my own conversations about Michael Malice with other anarchists, those who haven’t heard of him are in the majority. This is a problem and Malice is one of the main reasons why I started creating YouTube content ( see here: https://youtu.be/cZU6YADjZuY )…

1) Michael Malice’s book The Anarchist Handbook is the Amazon #1 (and also #6) best selling book on Anarchism. If book sales mean anything – and for those who study anarchism’s past and present they mean a whole lot – at the very least this means that if you haven’t heard of Malice then you haven’t heard of the most popular contemporary anarchist author. You should be familiar with people who represent you to the general public and who are making money off of our movement. 

2) Malice had been on all of the popular alt-right darkweb shows that I know of : video and audio podcasts. This began mostly with his previous book on the alt-Right, the not as influential The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics. His overall project as a media figure brings anarchist thought to the alt-Right and vice versa. His Handbook is a tool for funneling potential anarchists into the alt-Right. This should concern you. 

For all of the uproar anarchists have been in regarding the alt-Right, it is reasonable to expect that Malice would be high up on the enemy list. The fact that most of us haven’t even heard of the guy… it makes me wonder how much insight anarchists have into the rest of contemporary American political life. Usually, I feel like we are leaders when it comes to our insights into these things and I consider myself disabused of that illusion now