A guy named Richard Spencer organized a conference this past weekend for his organization, the inocuously named National Policy Institute. This is how NPI describes themselves.
NPI is an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world. It was founded in 2005 by William Regnery and Samuel T. Francis, in conjunction with Louis R. Andrews.
Can we knock off the bullshit? All this is is the rebranding of white supremacy movements and the whitewashing of unabashed racism. None of this is about protecting the “heritage, identity, and future” of white people; we white people are doing just fine and can luxuriate in our privileged status. I don’t have to get off my butt to defend my good fortune, I can sit back and take it for granted.
This is about putting down other human beings who would like — and deserve — to share equally in all of the rights and privileges we already have. It’s about denying to others what we regard as our due.
They’re succeeding. The chilling thing is how easily the media are manipulated, and how willingly they bend to their efforts to recast themselves as something new and completely different from the KKK and skinheads. This article in the LA Times is a perfect example.
This was the white nationalist lobby — the alt-right — coming to town for a victory lap after Donald Trump’s election, assuming what they see as their rightful place influencing the new administration.
“An awakening among everyone has occurred with this Trump election,” Richard Spencer, president of the white nationalist think tank, said during opening remarks. “We’re not quite the establishment now, but I think we should start acting like it.”
Several hundred pro-white nationalists showed up for the day-long confab, buoyed by Trump’s popularity and the role they now intend to play in bringing white identity politics to Washington.
Sitting around conference tables, the formally dressed men more resembled Washington lobbyists than the robed Ku Klux Klansmen or skinhead toughs that often represent white supremacists, though they share many familiar views.
I don’t assume the reporter is at all sympathetic to their cause, but she willingly accepts their rebranding and their movement into the mainstream, as if it is just the new fact of life that must be objectively reported rather than opposed. Nowhere in the piece are the words “race” or “racism” or “racist” used. You won’t find the words “black” or “Latin” used, either — isn’t it odd how an article about the rise of racist fascists that takes the angle of journalistic abstraction doesn’t, in this case, even bother to get the perspective of anyone who is the target of this focused hatred? The opinions of the white people attending this conference about white people are simply assumed to be all that needs to be brought up. “He said/she said” journalism so readily becomes “We said/they’re ignored” journalism when race becomes an issue.
Also chilling: this remark by one of the attendees.
“We are the epicenter of the right now in terms of intellect,” said 30-year-old Nathan Damigo of California. “We are the culture creators of the right.”
“Intellect”? Jesus. These “scientific” racists are always so ignorant of basic biology and no one in these articles ever bothers to question their claim to “intellectualism”. There’s not one bit of it anywhere in their rationalizations — it’s all pseudoscience and aggressive posturing. “Sporting the same haircut of short sides and back with a familiar flop on top” like a uniform does not make you clever.
But I’ll agree that they are the new “culture creators of the right”. The right is building a new culture that is openly comfortable with racists. They are proudly making American conservatism synonymous with racism, while at the same time sniffing indignantly if you dare to point out that fact. And we’ve got lots of liberals going along with this rebranding, protesting that we’re going to offend a lot of voters if we are so brazen as to recognize that the views they are espousing are in fact racist.
It also reminds me of this infamous passage from 2004 about the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Do not let them get away with using a blasé media to normalize their delusions. Remember how disastrous that reshaping of perceived reality was in the Bush administration, and realize that their new efforts are going to be just as destructive.
They’re racists. They’re fascists. Their goal is to undermine civil liberties and loot the country to benefit themselves and their ugly, hateful kin. You can’t honestly report on Richard Spencer or Steve Bannon or Donald Trump without stating this fact.
That cofounder of NPI is William H. Regnery II, of the Regnery publishing dynasty. Here’s the Southern Poverty Law Center’s article on him:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/william-h-regnery-ii
The thing that bothers me about economic inequality is this. On the one hand, some people have too much money. The cure for this is to give the other people more money. But doesn’t that make the second group just as despicable as the first group is now?
And I run into Regnery publishing when I wear one of my other hats, as an evolutionary biologist: they are big proponents of intelligent design and creationism. So much for the claim of science and intellectualism.
re 2:
only in the minds of the people from whom the money was taken.
interesting question (ignoring the inferences I included) NO ONE reasonable is advocating “take the money” from the top 1%” and simply “give it to the bottom 1%”.
The point most try to make is that the top1% are doing the taking, invisibly, and restraining the bottom1% from achieving even minuscule increases in their wealth.
I, for one, advocate opening avenues to wealth, not just provide wealth. I see too few avenues and many barriers. Those need addressing. Let the wealth FLOW, and inhibit locking it up in isolated reservoirs.
Thank you. I was recently listening to an episode of the podcast Reveal, which bills itself as a forum for investigative reporting, where they interviewed Spencer. Although the interviewer did challenge him on the “we’re totally different from the KKK” argument, it was still a much too friendly interview, in which he was able to present his case extensively, while the podcast didn’t give a lot of context as to what the NPI actually is besides “oh, this is the new thing called alt right”.
Only if you have some cartoonish idea about such distribution, a la Dennis Moore.
The two main drivers of the Trump win were:
1. Economic inequality rising for 46 years.
Or you can call it working class whites voting for something different than a declining standard of living..
2. The demographic transition to nonwhite majority in 2043.
Or you can that racism.
Of the two, I’d guess that racism was the more important.
Trump is unlikely to fix the economic problems of the disappearing middle class.
And he isn’t going to stop that demographic transition either. Not without genociding a few tens of millions of people. At best, he will make the racists feel better by beating up on minority groups such as uppity women, gays, nonwhites, and nonxians.
As a few have noted, good luck poorer whites. We hope your racism keeps you warm during the next four cold winters. It’s all you are getting from Trump.
Trump’s environmental policy will ensure that winters aren’t so cold.
The cure for this is to give the other people more money. But doesn’t that make the second group just as despicable as the first group is now?
That makes no sense at all. What you said is like:
My right leg is longer than my left leg, which is bad.
So the doctor fixed it. Now that both my legs are equal, that means they’re both bad.
By the way, while we’re all feeding each other’s sense of horror and depression to the point of giving up and letting the wolves eat us, WHAT SHOULD WE BE DOING RIGHT NOW?
Sorry but I’d really like to hear about what kind of planning or activity other people are doing that might make a difference. I need hope, and I need to feel like we’re not just buried in the sand up to our necks waiting for the lawnmower.
Even if there *is* no hope, I refuse to give in to hopelessness even if I all can do is wiggle my little finger. Just throw me a bone, please.
Good question.
Except everyone has to determine WHAT SHOULD i BE DOING RIGHT NOW!!! It’s your life and no one elses.
I will resist anyway I can. Lawfully, without breaking any laws.
Vote
Donate to causes like the Democratic party, Planned Parenthood, NSCE, etc..
Don’t donate to religions or religious groups.
Speak up when it is safe.
Organize, demenstrate.
Whatever else you can think of.
It’s nothing when one person does it. It’s a lot when 100 million people do it.
I’ll add here that we aren’t powerless.
All societies depend on the consent of the governed. And the cooperation of the governed. Even dictatorships to some extent.
Hillary won the popular vote. Trump does not represent all Americans.
He doesn’t even represent a majority of Americans. He won a plurality of those who bothered to vote.
Without the consent and cooperation of the governed, a lot won’t happen. Examples.
1. The south has been promoting racism since the civil war ended in 1865.
2. The IRS requires willing paying of taxes.
They don’t have the resources and humanpower to go after too many people.
If a lot of people started dodging taxes, they couldn’t do much.
(I’m not advocating not paying taxes. This is just an example.)
Resist!!!
FWIW, a lot of state and local governments are going to do the same thing.
Get lost, federal government.
I’ll add here that we aren’t powerless.
All societies depend on the consent of the governed. And the cooperation of the governed. Even dictatorships to some extent.
Hillary won the popular vote. Trump does not represent all Americans.
He doesn’t even represent a majority of Americans. He won a plurality of those who bothered to vote.
Without the consent and cooperation of the governed, a lot won’t happen. Examples.
1. The south has been promoting racism since the civil war ended in 1865.
2. The IRS requires willing paying of taxes.
They don’t have the resources and humanpower to go after too many people.
If a lot of people started dodging taxes, they couldn’t do much.
(I’m not advocating not paying taxes. This is just an example.)
3. Marijuana. A lot of people just decided the laws were silly and ignored them.
4. Prohibition of alcohol.
Resist!!!
FWIW, a lot of state and local governments are going to do the same thing.
Get lost, federal government.
I know what I want to do, which is to get out the vote for our local elections, and if there are no elections ‘get out the get out the vote’ e.g. canvas for more canvassers. I registered with the local Dems but I’m just a name in a database waiting for a phone call and I feel like we need to start moving yesterday.
My wife and I are looking for people in our neighborhood we can connect to who are sympathetic and maybe also want to change things, but every time I ask my old friends I get crickets – silence.
I agree we also need to render the federal government, congress and supreme court more irrelevant than ever. It may require building up organizations that do not even exist yet.
Hearing what other people are doing encourages me that our efforts are not in vain, but it also spreads ideas, and man we are going to have to be really creative to survive this thing.
wcorvi:
Having money isn’t a problem, but being a selfish asshole who doesn’t care about others who need help is. Having money by itself doesn’t cause that.
Besides, no, the part in bold is wrong, because your math doesn’t add up.
– Poor person has n dollars, and rich person has n+c dollars.
– Together they have 2n+c, so splitting it uniformly between two people gives each (2n+c)/2.
– Suppose n=$10 and c=$2. Then (2n+c)/2 = $11 each, whereas before the poor person had $10 and the rich one had $12.
So the poor person will not get the $12 amount the rich person previously had. So, if it were supposed that having $12 causes you to have that degree of despicableness (which is not what any serious person would suppose, but let’s just run with it), then the poor person does not in fact end up there, because 11 is less than 12. Also, the rich person will not have it as bad as the poor person did, if for whatever reason you were worried about that, because 11 is greater than 10. They must meet in the middle according to this very simple plan, not where either of them started.
To be clear, the point of this is basically to make our society fair, so that we will all support each other by ensuring everyone has enough for a good life. There’s some minimal amount (certainly way more than $11) which will do the job. And we know where the huge excess amount is — in the hands of rich people who have no need for all of that wealth — so that’s where we would get it.
You wouldn’t have to take everything and redistribute it evenly, because inequality in the real world is much more pronounced than a difference of $2 between the richest people and the poorest people. If we were reducing inequality enough to satisfy the condition that everybody has enough to live a good life (which we’re certainly not doing now), then there would need to be some further reason why we should continue to level the playing field even more than that. Maybe there are such reasons or maybe not, but that’s something we’d only have to worry about if we had made that much progress and isn’t an argument against doing anything at all about inequality.
“Normalizing racism”: dividing racism by the sum total of all racisms?
(Math joke)
This is a followup to raven @11.
Think Progress has an “Investigative Fund”, and the people there have proven to be good investigative journalists:
There is a “donate” link embedded in the article. It is easy to use.
The Daily Stormer has recently rebranded itself as simply a “Republican” news source. I’m afraid they aren’t too far from the mark.
I would say that simply taking the money and giving it to others is “a” cure but that is not the only way change could be brought about.
If that were the only solution possible and the result would be just as despicable then you are implying that were can do nothing to make any changes and we will progress to the inevitable crisis event with a collapse and start again.
The idea of taking from the 1% is ignoring the fact that they are not paying an equitable share in taxes for the prosperity that the stability and infrastructure that society provides. They are in fact the ones who are taking advantage by taking more while contributing less. There is also the reality of the pay/salary differential that has risen in the past few years, a case can be made that that is ripping off the corporations, the employees and share holders of their fair share of the money that the business generates.
there was a reasons that KKK wore hoods. some of it was that many of the things they did were actually illegal for sure and the animosity it gave them help sustain the fear.
Another reason is that they and their ideas are rather repellent when seen in the full light day to many people. Hence the need to dress in “normal” clothes and not openly state their beliefs and goals but try and make them sound not irrational and impossible to bring about without genocide. there is no way to make that idea acceptable to the majority.
So let us encourage them to come out from under their disguises into the full light of reality for all to see.
It is hard to get at the roaches who are under to refrigerator in the dark.
uncle frogy
PZ (Comment #3): Regnery also published the HIV-AIDS-denialists Bible: Inventing the AIDS Virus by former-bio-prodigy and current loonie Peter Duesberg.
“You can’t honestly report on Richard Spencer or Steve Bannon or Donald Trump without stating this fact.”
But,but,but…
If I HONESTLY report on them, I will lose my access and ratings and my phoney-baloney job with the nice big paycheck and the luxury apartment on the park. My bosses want the interviews to be puffball pieces so they can get contracts with the new bosses. If I rock the boat, I might get fired.
What, oh what, is a Principled Journalist to do? It’s a conundrum…