'Let's party like it's 1933': Inside the alt-right world of Richard B. Spencer | WaPo - 22 Nov. 2016 |

Richard Bertrand Spencer had just told his guests how inspired he was by their presence when the rising sound of fury outside the dining room's double doors reached his ears. He knew what it meant.

Spencer stepped into the open hallway and, there, beneath the wooden second-floor railing at Maggiano's Little Italy in Northwest Washington, more than 30 protesters were marching up the stairway toward him. Several held posters -- "No to Racism and Fascism" -- and blew whistles. "No Nazis! No KKK! No fascist USA!" they shouted, their voices intensifying as he came into view.

Ten feet from the top of the stairs, a Maggiano's employee -- a black man in a light-blue button-down and red tie -- spread his arms wide, blocking the mob from reaching the 100 or so white nationalists who had gathered at the restaurant Friday for a private dinner. Spencer walked behind him and looked down at the activists. Then the man who had coined the term "alt-right" grinned and waved.