For years, Spencer and his followers worked in obscure corners of the Internet to promote pride in white identity and the creation of an “ethno-state” that would banish minorities. Then came the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, whose attacks on undocumented immigrants, Muslims and political correctness deeply resonated with them.
Though Trump denounced the alt-right Tuesday, its adherents had crusaded for him on Twitter before the election and celebrated his victory as a seminal moment for their cause.
They exulted again when Trump announced that his chief White House strategist would be former Breitbart chairman Stephen K. Bannon, who once called his website “the platform for the alt-right.”
And no one is more critical to the alt-right movement than Spencer, its carefully crafted public face. Last weekend, the articulate, highly educated 38-year-old hosted a conference in the nation’s capital that drew nearly 300 white nationalists and at least 50 reporters. But his agenda reaches far beyond any single gathering. Spencer envisions a world in which his ideals are embraced by the mainstream, and he has vowed to keep pushing until that happens.
Spencer, who has degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago, dismisses such labels as Nazi, racist and white supremacist, preferring to describe himself as an “identitarian.” Even before Twitter banned him and other white nationalists last week, he seldom trolled his enemies.
“Richard Spencer’s clean-cut appearance conceals a radical white separatist,” said the Southern Poverty Law Center, which described him as an “academic racist.”
Spencer is often asked whether he can identify a moment in his life that led him to disdain African Americans, Jews and other minorities, but he always struggles to answer the question.
“I think a lot of people want to figure that out. Like, you know, what happened?” he said. “Nothing.”
Born to a wealthy family, he grew up in Dallas, where he played football and baseball at a nationally renowned private school for boys. Spencer studied English literature and music at U-Va. and earned a master’s in the humanities at the University of Chicago. He left a Duke University doctoral program in 2007 to write for right-wing publications, a career that helped crystallize his political and racial ideologies.
Somewhere deep down, Spencer said, he has always had these beliefs. But the 2006 Duke lacrosse case, in which white members of the team were falsely accused of raping a black woman, made an impression, as did the writings of Jared Taylor, a white nationalist who lives in Northern Virginia.
An extensive profile in Mother Jones revealed that Spencer had previously dated an Asian American woman, and he acknowledged that some of his comrades would probably find that “terrible.”
Last week, he said that he would not date a nonwhite woman again and that he still wants interracial relationships barred.
That belief is core to the alt-right’s most radical goal: an all-white country.
“We need an ethno-state,” he said in a 2013 speech, “so that our people can ‘come home again,’ can live amongst family and feel safe and secure.”
Last week, Spencer was reluctant to discuss how that dream would be achieved.
How, he was asked, in a nation with more than 100 million blacks, Asians and Latinos, could a whites-only territory be created without overwhelming violence?
“Look, maybe it will be horribly bloody and terrible,” he said. “That’s a possibility with everything.”
Spencer, of course, would expel Muslims from his ethno-state. And most women, he said as he was being driven from the hotel to his next appointment, would return to their traditional role of bearing children.
His attitude toward women and minorities made his admiration for Tila Tequila, the Nazi-loving Vietnamese American, surprising. Would he allow her in the ethno-state?
“There are always exceptions, I guess,” an amused Spencer would say later. “I’m a generous guy.”
I cut most of the stuff out that went about his designer clothes and how innocuous he appears. I also left out the parts about his strained relationship with his parents. Anyway, this is the guy behind the "Hail Trump" video.
No shade to the OP, but I wish we would stop giving these types of people so much attention. There's no need to even be spreading their message around, it just lends them credence.
No shade to the OP, but I wish we would stop giving these types of people so much attention. There's no need to even be spreading their message around, it just lends them credence.
This. I was annoyed when my local news was reporting how this guy had ties to Toronto and that he lived in the city 2/3 years ago And then they interviewed him via skype which gave him another platform to announce that there are "many" people in Toronto who share his views.
No shade to the OP, but I wish we would stop giving these types of people so much attention. There's no need to even be spreading their message around, it just lends them credence.
I get what you're saying but ignoring these people is part of the reason why so many people were blindsided by Trump's win. It's not enough to ignore them, they should be exposed and dragged.
Maybe this delusional freak would be more at home in Europe or a state like Utah where there's nothing but white ppl for days. Or alternatively he can just die.
And then they interviewed him via skype which gave him another platform to announce that there are "many" people in Toronto who share his views.