It took me a long while to figure this out, because I used to be more aggressive in getting into verbal fights with trolls, but here's the main problem with alt-right and extremist groups like the different alt-furry groups that are popping up: they don't actually want open discourse, free speech, or diverse opinions. They are trolls in the purest sense, in that what they seek is to incite a slugfest, rhetorical or otherwise. These types of slugfests are bad for business, as RMFC found out too late. It's why you see all of the business leaders at top corporations quickly distancing themselves from Trump (who they may have otherwise shared an economic interest with) once he began to equivocate on the Nazi/Klan marchers. These business leaders have probably figured it out, or they have people in their employ who have figured it out - its best to cut a cancer like that off immediately and keep as far a distance as possible, to keep business interests focused on good business, i.e. keeping a clean, family friendly reputation that is accepting of people from all backgrounds and thus able to sell goods and services to people of all backgrounds.
There is of course a balancing act that is being done but I think they have figured out that certain lines have to be drawn. For example, Wal-Mart could say "we want people of all diverse opinions shopping at our stores," and thus people of various political opinions would want to shop there and purchase items. However, if someone shows up in a Wal-Mart store wearing swastikas, I would expect that they would be immediately escorted out by security. Why? Well, having that person in there is bad for business. Thus far, the furry analogue is the Raiders with their armbands and the confederate flag suit, which are really just the vanguard testing the waters to see whether the envelope is being pushed hard enough. The next step would be actual swastikas incorporated into suits, or other symbols or possibly language attached to them which is similarly intended to provoke an extreme reaction from the viewer. And if you think that won't happen, you have to look at some of the conversations that are already happening among "alt-furry" people. They aren't playing around. For example, after that whole controversy about Roarey's cartoon blew up, I happened to be at his Twitter page and saw an alt-furry responding to his post about the Charlottesville conflict. This alt-furry individual's only post was to celebrate the fact that Heather Heyer was killed by the Nazi guy that plowed into the crowd, and asked if others had watched and enjoyed it as well. If someone is willing to openly celebrate the death of a woman at the hands of a Nazi, there is no doubt that such a person would be willing to do things such as put Nazi symbology or other extreme symbols into a fursuit or commit other acts to incite violence or the "slugfest" I spoke of.
So the issue then becomes that these groups thrive on extreme conflict. They literally want to be combatants in a "war." It's like how human beings enjoy vicariously living through our war video games and movies, and we imagine being heroes in such stories - or like zombie movies and tv shows like Walking Dead, we imagine being one of the heroes who is surviving the onslaught with our pals. With these groups, their form of entertainment is not fighting zombies or aliens or the usual enemies, instead they enjoy the idea of engaging in combat with "liberals" or "x minority group" or "sjw". If members of those groups are innocently going around minding their own business, and thus not cooperating in engaging in combat, they will force that to happen by attempting to incite them with extreme images, symbols, and hateful rhetoric. If that didn't work, they would take the next step, and simply start harming and/or killing people to spark the war (e.g. Dylan Roof, Anders Breivik, Eric Rudolph, etc. - http://myfox8.com/2015/06/19/charleston-shooting-suspect-dylan-roof-confesses-to... ) So the issue is again that what these groups seek is not intellectual discourse or debate or an open market of ideas. What they want is intense conflict. They want to see and be a part of people slugging it out, verbally or otherwise. They want war. However, war is bad for business unless you are an arms dealer (and holy crap was gun shop business booming big time while various extreme groups were popping up in increasing numbers during the last 8 + years).
I think cons are currently in a process of feeling this thing out, because in the grand scheme of thing, furry cons are still relatively new when compared to other types of business. That being said, this problem escalated very quickly with RMFC. They are going to have to figure out how to draw red lines and cut off those who would come to the con with the pure intent to incite a war, even if the act of incitement is framed as being "free speech" (which it always is with today's sophisticated provocateurs), because war within the community means more cons get shut down. Certain elements won't care if that happens I can guarantee it. They are already shouting all over twitter and in other places that the furry community "is already done for" or "has been destroyed by sjws" or "needs to be rebooted to return to the good old days."
It took me a long while to figure this out, because I used to be more aggressive in getting into verbal fights with trolls, but here's the main problem with alt-right and extremist groups like the different alt-furry groups that are popping up: they don't actually want open discourse, free speech, or diverse opinions. They are trolls in the purest sense, in that what they seek is to incite a slugfest, rhetorical or otherwise. These types of slugfests are bad for business, as RMFC found out too late. It's why you see all of the business leaders at top corporations quickly distancing themselves from Trump (who they may have otherwise shared an economic interest with) once he began to equivocate on the Nazi/Klan marchers. These business leaders have probably figured it out, or they have people in their employ who have figured it out - its best to cut a cancer like that off immediately and keep as far a distance as possible, to keep business interests focused on good business, i.e. keeping a clean, family friendly reputation that is accepting of people from all backgrounds and thus able to sell goods and services to people of all backgrounds.
There is of course a balancing act that is being done but I think they have figured out that certain lines have to be drawn. For example, Wal-Mart could say "we want people of all diverse opinions shopping at our stores," and thus people of various political opinions would want to shop there and purchase items. However, if someone shows up in a Wal-Mart store wearing swastikas, I would expect that they would be immediately escorted out by security. Why? Well, having that person in there is bad for business. Thus far, the furry analogue is the Raiders with their armbands and the confederate flag suit, which are really just the vanguard testing the waters to see whether the envelope is being pushed hard enough. The next step would be actual swastikas incorporated into suits, or other symbols or possibly language attached to them which is similarly intended to provoke an extreme reaction from the viewer. And if you think that won't happen, you have to look at some of the conversations that are already happening among "alt-furry" people. They aren't playing around. For example, after that whole controversy about Roarey's cartoon blew up, I happened to be at his Twitter page and saw an alt-furry responding to his post about the Charlottesville conflict. This alt-furry individual's only post was to celebrate the fact that Heather Heyer was killed by the Nazi guy that plowed into the crowd, and asked if others had watched and enjoyed it as well. If someone is willing to openly celebrate the death of a woman at the hands of a Nazi, there is no doubt that such a person would be willing to do things such as put Nazi symbology or other extreme symbols into a fursuit or commit other acts to incite violence or the "slugfest" I spoke of.
So the issue then becomes that these groups thrive on extreme conflict. They literally want to be combatants in a "war." It's like how human beings enjoy vicariously living through our war video games and movies, and we imagine being heroes in such stories - or like zombie movies and tv shows like Walking Dead, we imagine being one of the heroes who is surviving the onslaught with our pals. With these groups, their form of entertainment is not fighting zombies or aliens or the usual enemies, instead they enjoy the idea of engaging in combat with "liberals" or "x minority group" or "sjw". If members of those groups are innocently going around minding their own business, and thus not cooperating in engaging in combat, they will force that to happen by attempting to incite them with extreme images, symbols, and hateful rhetoric. If that didn't work, they would take the next step, and simply start harming and/or killing people to spark the war (e.g. Dylan Roof, Anders Breivik, Eric Rudolph, etc. - http://myfox8.com/2015/06/19/charleston-shooting-suspect-dylan-roof-confesses-to... ) So the issue is again that what these groups seek is not intellectual discourse or debate or an open market of ideas. What they want is intense conflict. They want to see and be a part of people slugging it out, verbally or otherwise. They want war. However, war is bad for business unless you are an arms dealer (and holy crap was gun shop business booming big time while various extreme groups were popping up in increasing numbers during the last 8 + years).
I think cons are currently in a process of feeling this thing out, because in the grand scheme of thing, furry cons are still relatively new when compared to other types of business. That being said, this problem escalated very quickly with RMFC. They are going to have to figure out how to draw red lines and cut off those who would come to the con with the pure intent to incite a war, even if the act of incitement is framed as being "free speech" (which it always is with today's sophisticated provocateurs), because war within the community means more cons get shut down. Certain elements won't care if that happens I can guarantee it. They are already shouting all over twitter and in other places that the furry community "is already done for" or "has been destroyed by sjws" or "needs to be rebooted to return to the good old days."