James Edwards: "The Best Decision I Ever Made" (2016)
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Our first speaker this morning is James Edwards, and you all know him, of course, as the host of the political cesspool radio program, but he's a lot more than that.
At age 20, he was a convention delegate when Patrick Buchanan ran for the presidency in the year 2000.
Thank you.
Thank you.
At age 22, he made a serious bid for the Texas State House as well.
And he is also the author of the excellent book, Racism Schmacism, which came out in 2010.
But it's in radio where Mr. Edwards has really had an impact.
He broadcasts live on AM and FM radio, and it's syndicated by the Liberty News Radio Network.
His guests have included congressmen, presidential candidates, and no fewer than five of the speakers at this conference: myself, Sam Dixon, Peter Brimelow, Ramsey Paul, and Philip DeWinter.
So, he really is one of the stalwarts of our movement, a real pillar of what we are trying to accomplish.
Please welcome James Edwards.
Thank you, Jared.
I can tell you felt it important to have someone devastatingly handsome go first today.
Welcome to Tennessee, y'all.
Tennessee's my home state, and I'm very happy to be a Tennessean.
You know, I tell people all the time I feel as though I won the genetic lottery having come into this world as a southerner.
But I'm especially excited to be a Tennessean, a state that has produced three of the finest Americans to ever live.
Number one, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a man whose military exploits rivaled that of any mythological god.
Andrew Jackson, one of our greatest presidents, maybe the last good one.
And a guy who's been in the news recently.
And then finally, a very dear friend of mine, Jack Daniels.
All right.
Well, it's good to be back at AR.
It's been a few years.
You know, once I started having children, my social life went, you know how that is.
But it's so worth it.
And I'm going to talk about them a little bit later.
But when Jared called me a few months ago to ask if I'd be interested in speaking to AR again, I told him that, of course, I would be, but what should I talk about?
Because, after all, as everyone knows, I'm an expert on so many things.
And he suggested, and I quote, If I were to suggest anything, you're enough of a veteran now that you might want to talk about your career as a racial dissident, your tangles with the media, and how it may have affected your personal life and family relations.
The story of your program would obviously be part of that.
And so I said, Jared, you know, you want me to come and spend a half hour, 40 minutes, talking about myself?
I said, well, I'm certainly the world's premier authority on that subject.
Sign me up!
But in all seriousness and far from self-indulgence, I hope that my story can be one that you can draw some inspiration and encouragement from.
For me, I sincerely believe that the course may have been charted before I was even born.
You know, some of us may be genetically predisposed to engage in the struggles of one's time.
My mother's maiden name is McGregor.
And as we all know, the Scots have always been the wild men of the white race, always wanting to go out and bonk some heads and become engaged in the struggle, although the Edwards side of my line certainly didn't shrink from their duties either.
On both sides of my family tree and its separate branches, I can proudly tell you that if a man was of fighting age during Lincoln's savage war against the South, that they did their duty and defended the Confederacy.
I am both the lineal and collateral descendant of historic and heroic men who gave it all to defend their homes and their loved ones.
Serving as an advocate for one's race bridges the gap between our distant ancestors and our future progeny.
And doing one's duty also gives our lives meaning and fulfillment.
It certainly has for me.
And becoming involved in European-American advocacy doesn't have to be an albatross.
And my experience has been one that's been particularly uplifting.
The best decision I ever made in many regards.
And even the horrible defamations and attacks that we endure, they help us to build character.
After all, adversity is the trial of principle without which one hardly knows whether or not he's honest.
Only after someone has sorely tried can he be truly worthy of leadership.
So how did it all begin for me, though?
For me, it began in 1980.
When I was born, and to the only privilege that one can truly have, I was born into a wonderful and loving family.
In fact, when looking back on my life to this point, I've become more thankful each day for the very traditional, conservative, and Christian parents and grandparents that I had.
I was in church every Sunday morning.
I was disciplined, and I was challenged to do my very best in all things, whether it be school, sports, or anything else.
And I shudder to think...
What paths I may have taken had it not been for that solid foundation upon which my upbringing was built.
Very fortunate to have the stability of consistent parents and grandparents who always let me know and showed me how much I was loved, the importance of our cultural and spiritual heritage, and the difference between right and wrong.
And so it was in this nest that I marinated and flourished during my childhood and formative years.
Then around the time I was 18, Coming of age, the same years my Confederate forebears would have gone off to fight, I quite literally, and I remember this, having this unrest in my spirit.
It was as though perhaps my ancestors were reaching out to me and saying, it's your time now.
And I think this moment comes to many of us, and it's simply a matter of whether or not we answer the call.
Of course, as a teenager, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I wanted to do something.
So, you know, my father had voted for Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996, and as fate would have it, Pat was mounting a third and final campaign in 1999.
This was my entry point.
So I spent a year traveling the country working as a volunteer on behalf of that campaign.
Jared mentioned I served as a delegate to his nominating convention in California of that year.
You know, of course, by November of 2000, that was all over, but I was just getting started.
Something had come alive in me, and I continued to look for open doors and a quick parenthetical departure.
You know, since then, Pat's been on my show a handful of times.
I even defended our work on National Public Radio and asked about it.
In 2002, I mounted my own campaign for the Tennessee State House.
I was 21 years old.
When I held my campaign kickoff party, I turned 22 that year, and I had no money.
Some things never change.
No experience and no supporters at first other than my family, my pastor, and a few close friends.
But I was full of piss and vinegar, and I was determined, so I poured my heart into it, my soul into that campaign, literally the soles of my shoes, which I wore out.
I still have them at home.
There's a hole.
You can stick your fingers through it.
And I worked seemingly around the clock, knocking on doors and sending out mailers, just fighting like a junkyard dog.
I really thought I was going to win.
Well, I didn't.
But as a young and inexperienced candidate running as an independent, I got roughly one-fifth of the vote in a three-way race.
And I remember the night the election results came in, again, thinking that, you know, I'd fought so hard, I was naive, you know, I was going to go to the statehouse, I was a budding governor, they just didn't know it.
And so I remember the bitter sting, you know, seeing, you know, yeah, 18, 19 percent of the vote.
But it's good to feel these things.
It makes us savor victories that much more.
The man who won that election, by the way, is about two hours down the road right now.
He's the current Secretary of State in Tennessee.
Well, I got really bored after that, okay?
So 2003 was an interesting year.
The last year that I didn't have an active banner under which to serve.
I learned how to fly airplanes.
I went after my private pilot's license.
But shortly thereafter, my life definitively changed forever.
My ill-fated campaign had raised my profile just enough in the local community that when a new radio station had switched formats to talk, I got a call and was asked if I wanted to do my own show.
Now, please understand, I'd never been on the radio before a day in my life, and it certainly didn't take classes in broadcast journalism or anything like that, but I was intrigued with the opportunity, and I marveled at how the broken road from my upbringing, the Buchanan campaign, my campaign, had taken me here,
and without any of those steps, I wouldn't have made it.
That opportunity wouldn't have presented itself, and so there was the door, and I walked through it.
My first night on the air was October 26, 2004.
And if I may, since that night, a day has never passed without me working for the cause, whether it's updating my website with fresh content, broadcasting programs.
I work for hours every single day for this movement.
No sick days, no vacation days.
I've done that for 11 years, and that's the kind of discipline it takes to make an impact.
There's no shortcuts.
Back to how the show got started.
Yet I still, in many ways, consider myself to be a paleoconservative.
And I know that there's a lot of new terms out there that come up, and you can call yourself whatever you want, just as long as we're all pulling in the right direction and it's clear that race is something that you're conscious about.
So I knew I wanted my show to advocate for certain familiar positions with regard to immigration, trade, political correctness, but I also wanted anything that was mine to be a very complete and accurate reflection of me.
So it was my intention to blend elements of my faith and Southern heritage into the mix.
You know, this to me is very consistent with our positions on race, by the way.
As it was written in one syndicated column last week, a people's faith, in many ways, creates their culture, which in turn creates their civilization.
And when the faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people begin to die.
And that's, of course, a recent history of the West.
But it was also imperative to me that my show be a little more particular.
So every local market has their so-called conservative talkers and they all say the same things and none of them really stand out.
I didn't want to be like that.
The same can be said for religious talkers.
But I noticed that there was a tremendous void out there.
At the time, there were no mainstream media outlets that were explicitly advocating on behalf of the interests of whites, which was becoming something of paramount importance to me.
And so I wanted to bridge the gap between respectable conservatism and my more muscular brand of politics.
I wanted to interview people who I'd identified out there who were saying interesting things but had otherwise been shut out of the debate.
And I thought, you know, My people have done a lot to be proud of, so I think I'll make a celebration of our heroes a focal point while also having the discussion of racial realities and racial double standards be part of my bread and butter.
And I felt sure that if I was very careful and responsible in the way that I framed and presented these issues, that it could prompt a polite and respectful discussion.
But boy, I learned.
I sure did learn.
I was certified as a hate group six months later.
A hate group of one, I guess.
But I remember the first time the media came down on me and started calling me a racist.
That was nearly ten years ago now, but it was a defining moment.
And I knew I wasn't any of these things that they were saying, of course.
But naturally, it crosses your mind that, especially your first time, your first rodeo, well, maybe if I just...
You know, explain it and deny it and, you know, apologize if anyone was offended that the plague will pass over my home.
But, you know, I had seen people do that before and I just knew that it wasn't effective.
It wins you no favor with those who hate you and it only makes you look like a weak and sniveling little worm, which is exactly what these people who do that are.
I had done nothing for which I should be ashamed.
I had told no lies and no apology would be coming from me ever.
I remember standing that first time.
Everybody remembers their first time, right?
I remember standing with my shoulders squared and looking into an NBC News camera and doubling down with the fierce and righteous defiance.
And since that day, the motto of my work and our show has always been no retreat, no surrender, no apologies.
And it has made all the difference.
Now, again, we're talking 2004, 2005, 2006, and this time, and, you know, when I'm first cutting my teeth in broadcasting, this was before Facebook, really.
This was before Twitter.
This was before podcasts and all of these things.
We were on the air in our local market, and certainly we had our Internet stream, which brought in a growing global audience.
But we were, at that time, in many ways, taking on the media virtually by ourselves, you know, very pioneer and trailblazing in this regard.
And now, of course, you know, there's so many incredible podcasts out there, so many things.
You know, time would never permit me to provide you with all the details or even a fair sampling of the highlights that I've experienced during this wonderfully turbulent ride as a talk radio host who champions truth.
And that's really all we're talking about here.
You know, we are brokers in common sense.
That's it.
I mean, anything that I say when taken in proper context could be Even at all controversial just shows how sick America has become.
But since that fateful night when I first took microphone in hand, I have had my work covered by hundreds, hundreds of the most prominent newspapers and magazines and radio and television shows around the world many times over.
In fact, you know, to be frank, over the course of the last 11 years, there may be four or five people who...
Have been covered as extensively as we have.
And I think that that's certainly a testament to our effectiveness.
And, you know, as I often say, if you're not catching flack, you're not over the target.
And I think that we've positioned ourselves to be exactly where we want to be right in the middle of all of it.
A few months ago, just to give you two highlights, just a representative sampling, very small.
A few months ago, I had the tremendous honor...
Of being denounced on the official record by members of the United States Congress.
And to be identified by such a reprehensible group of whores and sociopaths...
Of whores and sociopaths as someone completely different than them is something that I really hang my hat on.
Denounced for what?
You know, for refusing to hate myself?
And so I fired right back at him with an open letter.
And, you know, people say, well, you're a white supremacist.
I've been called a white supremacist so many times.
Good God.
But, you know, in many ways, whites are inferior.
I'll give you one example.
Some whites are afflicted with a certain deficiency.
Most people need three things to survive.
They need food, water, and shelter.
Well, whites need one more thing than that.
Well, not all of them, certainly not the people in this room, but too many.
Too many need one more thing than that.
They need status and they need cocktail parties in order to survive.
And in order to achieve such status in today's political climate, they must hate themselves and work to harm the members of their extended family, which, of course, is what our race is.
Thank God I don't have that disease.
And I would much rather be respected by the people in this room Than those who rule on the Sodom of the Potomac.
I remember my dad calling me.
My dad called me after this thing with Congress.
And he just said, I'm proud of you, son.
And, you know, I'm a 35-year-old man with children of my own now.
But that still means so much.
And he wasn't proud, of course, that I got denounced by Congress.
In fact, my dad and I disagree on some very important political issues.
But I think he was proud that I had the courage of my convictions to stand up.
Speaking of storms, you know, every now and then, a perfect storm does present itself.
And last summer, I was witnessing this anti-Southern hysteria that had swept through the media and government.
It was metastasizing, and I felt the pressing need to do something proactive.
Now, this was, of course, after the horrendous murders had taken place in Charleston, and everybody was looking for a Confederate flag or monument to blame for it.
Nathan Bedford Forrest, who I mentioned earlier, is buried in Memphis, where I live.
And a few white-hating zealots thought it would be a good idea to tear down the monument and dig up his bones.
Now, when I read of this plan to desecrate the grave of an American hero, I was reminded of Forrest's own advice.
Get there first with the most men.
And so, I helped organize a rally that drew 500 people in less than a week's time.
500 people at the gravesite of Nathan Bedford Forrest that made worldwide news.
And to see that many men, women, and children make a public show of solidarity was nothing short of inspirational.
And furthermore, the caliber of people, as those of us in this movement know, the caliber of people that are our fellow travelers is...
Quite top shelf, and that was the case that day.
I was talking with off-duty law enforcement officers, doctors, business professionals from all walks of life, all either holding or waving a Confederate flag.
These people are kin to me, and that's what those who hate us can't understand about our unwillingness to abandon our customs and symbols.
We're incapable of forgetting who we are.
It's personal.
And if America's going to reclaim her destiny, she's going to have to first look south.
Now, the situation with Congress and the rally at Forest Grave are just a couple of examples of the kinds of things we find ourselves dealing with on a monthly basis.
There is never a dull moment in the political cesspool and for my team.
And speaking of my team, Keith Alexander is out there somewhere.
Where are you, Keith?
There he is.
Keith Alexander is my co-host on the show.
big round of applause for Keith if we could.
Keith's with me every week, and he actually provides the substance to the broadcast.
I'm just there to be charming and take abuse.
I'd like to mention one other thing that happened a few weeks ago that I'm sure most of you have read about by now.
So we were listed by a media outlet, one that has dogged me for years, but nevertheless, they listed me as one of the top 25 right-wing media fixtures most responsible for boosting Trump's nomination.
So, okay, I'll take that.
They didn't mean it as a compliment, of course, but I'll take that.
And so anyway, the Trump campaign issued press credentials to me and offered me the opportunity to broadcast my program live from one of his stump speeches in Memphis.
This was back the last week of February.
Had a great time doing it.
He got my media badge, parking, just the works.
Broadcast the show while Trump was speaking simultaneously about 20 feet away.
It was a great show, a fun experience.
So after I get home, within a couple of hours, I get an email from a press agency scheduling interviews for Donald Trump Jr. asking if I'd be interested in interviewing him.
So we made arrangements, and we ended up doing a fantastic 15-minute talk.
It was supposed to be five minutes.
He ended up staying for about 15, 20 minutes with us.
And it was just a fantastic interview, nothing controversial at all, talking about his father's campaign and a couple of the issues that's brought it to life.
All right, so this is the moment when the establishment press really went berserk.
All right, so just a quick departure here, and I want everybody to be honest.
I'm going to ask you three questions, and I want you, with a show of hands, to be very honest with yourself and with me and with everyone else.
Raise your hand if you have a favorable opinion of the media.
My people, all right?
All right, another question.
How many of you, raise your hand, if you think that the media concerns themselves with facts, who, what, where, when, and why, and attempts to be objective when reporting issues of a racial animus?
Raise your hand.
All right, now one more question.
I'm going to be obtuse here.
Be honest with me, though.
Raise your hand if you consider the press at large, with very few exceptions, to be...
Made up of nothing but degenerates and liars.
Yeah, me too.
They're simply mouthpieces for the regime.
They fancy themselves as the enforcers of political correctness, which is comical when you take into account how effeminate the men are.
And, you know, some of the women are a little manly, but that's a different story.
But anyway, so we have Don Jr. on, and they had to be thinking to themselves, now we've been lying about this Edwards guy for 11 solid years.
We've called him everything but a white man.
We call him a white supremacist every time we write about him.
We've called him a white supremacist so many times people think that's his birth name.
We've slandered and libeled him until we've run out of ink, and now he's still here, he's still having a good time, and now he's interviewing members of the next first family.
We have got to get more serious about this thing.
So, you know, the editors had to lay down the law with their scab reporters and tell them to get creative.
They must have said, you know, the usual lies about this guy are working.
And you've got to come up with an even bigger lie before this thing just gets away from us.
So they did what they do.
They went to work.
And I'll tell you how the media works.
Now, if you've never been covered by the media before, what they will do if they don't like you, they will...
If you have a record or program or a website or anything that they can browse through, they will go through years worth of content and commentary.
Years. And they will find a single statement, a single sentence even, that they can twist and pervert and manipulate and bend out of context.
And they will present that to the world as the sum total of your entire belief system.
But they're also lazy, and so I've been very upfront about these issues, so they really haven't done that before with me, at least dig deep.
Their laziness kind of takes over.
So in most hit pieces with me, they simply copy and paste an item from my statement of principles.
We've got a mission statement on my website that kind of talks about the things that my show is about.
And one of the planks in our mission statement reads that our work, part of our work, is...
An attempt to revive the white birth rate to replacement level fertility.
Alright, so this is something they use.
They say James Edwards is a white supremacist and the proof is on his statement of principles he says he wants the white birth rate to reach replacement level fertility.
I mean, hell, that just means I want our people to survive.
To simply want to survive now is a white supremacist notion.
And look at all these articles over the years where they've used that.
And it's always the same boilerplate.
I mean, there's no originality, no creativity.
But as I said, they had to get creative on this one because, you know, Trump Jr. was a pretty big deal, especially with what's going on in the election cycle.
And so they dug deep into my archives, and they finally found something that they thought they could twist out of context and manufacture into a headline.
So in August of 2008, August of 2008, I posted a very nondescript, there wasn't anything to it, really.
It was just an excerpt from a black writer for the Jamaican Observer newspaper.
And he wrote this, and I quote, We blacks were changed for the better, I might add, on account of slavery.
We're a better race today because our ancestors went through slavery.
The millions of lives lost were not lost in vain.
The Europeans proclaimed the need for us to be civilized through And though it may be hard to understand, they were right.
Indeed, based on what is happening in Africa today, slavery was, for us in the West, in many respects, our salvation.
That was a direct quote from a black writer.
Now, it's clear that no one fancies slavery and no one wants to resuscitate the practice.
It was bad for everyone, certainly bad for whites.
But this is what this guy said, and, you know...
I thought it took a lot of courage for him to write that, a black writer in a majority black country to write something like that.
And so I followed it up with a single sentence saying, you know, in some ways I agree with him.
I mean, it's undoubtable that blacks in America have a higher standard of living and more opportunities than their kinsmen do in any other place in the world.
And by the way, for the people who are so obsessed about slavery, you know, it still exists today.
Slavery has not been eradicated.
It's been eradicated in Western countries.
It still exists today.
Exclusively non-white countries, but nobody cares about that.
Well, anyway, so that was the quote.
I posted his quote, and I said, you know, I agree with him in some ways.
So the day after we announced that I have received these press credentials, we did the broadcast live from the Trump stump and had Donald Trump Jr.
We had an interview with him in the can.
The press headlines scream, Donald Trump Jr. interviewed by pro-slavery radio host.
Citing that entry as their proof.
And I mean, you know, the media speaks with one voice.
The media speaks with one voice.
And I'm not talking about it's an AP article that's been, you know, propagated and republished in different outlets.
That was either the headline or mentioned in the body.
Of every single article that covered that story, and every outlet covered it, Washington Post, New York Times, New York Daily News, Newsweek, Reuters, UK Daily Mail, Times of Israel, CNN, MSNBC, it was everywhere, global.
Biggest news story of the day.
They wore it out.
They wore it out.
A completely manufactured and manipulated lie that I'm a pro-slavery radio host.
That's how it's described as if my show exists just to advocate for slavery.
It's just disgusting.
And they wore that lie out for two weeks, and it's still getting play.
Just last month, it was mentioned in Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal.
A reporter emailed me from the Wall Street Journal.
In The Atlantic, Donald Trump Jr. was interviewed.
He said, that interview will follow me for the rest of my life.
So I don't talk to the media anymore.
I adopted a policy a few years back.
You know, I've done it all in media.
I've seen a lot.
I've got some experience.
I do my own show every week.
I actually had a very short-lived stint as an on-air commentator for CNN.
Every time they had an issue that they thought I was well-suited to talk about, they'd have me on.
I mean, that lasted about a month.
But, I mean, I do have some mainstream bona fides, you know.
But I don't do any interviews anymore unless it's live radio or television.
So they're reduced to kind of transcribing my commentaries in order to get something from me.
But I've turned down over 100 media interview requests.
This year alone.
And the main reason is I don't like having to delouse.
But I don't, although it's easy with my great haircut, I don't even give them the courtesy of responding with a no.
I'll give you a couple of other examples.
So I broke my rule one time last year.
I had the senior editor of the Washington Post last summer.
It was actually on my birthday, June 22nd.
It was the last time.
Now, I'd had this policy for a couple of years.
If it's not live and unedited, I'm not going to do it.
A senior editor of the Washington Post, he wants to have me do an interview.
And I said, you know, this is a publication of record.
I'll give him a chance.
And so I talked to this guy for an hour.
An hour!
And one of the things he asked was, do you consider yourself to be a white nationalist?
And I said, frankly, I don't.
And the reason for that is the media uses it interchangeably with white supremacists.
The elementary distinction between the word nationalist and supremacist.
So I don't use that.
I refer to myself as this.
I refer to myself as this.
You can refer to me as that when you write your article.
But I would appreciate if you didn't refer to me as a white nationalist.
I've never claimed that for myself.
And it's okay if other people do.
I understand where you're coming from.
But just from a media point of view, that's the way I choose to do it.
And anyway, so the story comes out.
White nationalist James Edwards says...
And that's the way it always is.
And he didn't use anything that I said in this hour-long interview.
So there was really no reason for him to interview me at all.
But he had this pre-written narrative, and they always do.
And if you don't fit into the caricature that they've created for you, if you don't say something silly and foolish, they're just not going to use what you say in most instances.
I'll give you another example.
I got cast for a reality television show in Sweden.
And so this was two years ago.
I think.
And so they said, you know, we're doing a show on Southern culture.
And it's going to be, I think it was a six or eight part series.
And they said, each episode is going to focus on a different topic.
And we want you to be the traditional Southern voice on race, on the Confederate flag, homosexuality, you know, whatever.
It was a cornucopia.
I said, okay, I can do that.
So I traveled to where they were filming, and I spent a couple of days, and they had this production assistant, they had this film crew, followed me around.
We did different sets and different scenes.
I'd go in a coffee shop, get a drink, and they'd ask me, you know, some questions.
And they got about eight hours of footage.
Now, keep in mind, when I was pitched this thing, I was supposed to be in every episode to talk about these issues.
And so they got eight hours of footage, and then it goes to post-production, and then, you know, they're going to...
Take out what they want and put it in the program.
Eight hours of footage.
The show comes out.
Grand total, my time on the program and the whole series, 36 seconds.
36 seconds because I didn't get up there and just represent our calls like a fool.
You say, well, you've done some things.
You've made a name for yourself.
You've had some interesting experiences.
But what's the cost?
What is the cost?
What did it cost me?
That's the question so many people have.
How does it affect your personal life?
Some people say that these positions we take may make it difficult to find a mate.
I married a model.
And I'm not just saying she was drop-dead gorgeous and still is.
We've been married 10 years now.
But when we got married, my wife was traveling around as a promotional model for some of the biggest...
We got married two years after I started the show.
She went into that with her eyes wide open.
She knew she was going to be in for a rough ride.
It's certainly been that.
By the way, there's a lot of young people.
Don't be afraid of your beliefs.
Women will respond to aggressiveness and confidence and dominance.
You don't have to worry about that.
We got married.
She is just an incredible woman.
Still to this day, with everything that goes on, 100% supportive.
I gave her the opportunity.
I talked about her being a model.
I gave her the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mother, and that was an advancement that she was very interested in.
I would marry her all over again just for the mother she's become.
We've got a six-year-old daughter, the sweetest, most beautiful.
Girl in the world, a one-year-old son who's always getting into trouble, always smiling while getting into trouble, kind of just like his old man, you know.
And she homeschools my daughter, takes care of our son.
I guess we both do.
She helps me with the show prep.
If you've ever gotten a letter from me, she probably put the stamp on it.
She's just in the trenches with me and a perfect helpmate.
And I've done a lot of things in my life that make me very proud, but nothing comes close.
To matching the pride that comes from being a husband and a father.
That trumps everything so many times over.
Love and family, you know, that's what it's all about.
And of all the blessings that God's given me, those are the two that are at the top of my list.
But what about the other associations?
Well, okay, your wife stands by you, your kids love you.
What about your parents?
Well, I've talked about them.
They never miss a show.
My friends.
You know, my friends...
Interesting, growing up, my parents held me back in kindergarten, not because I couldn't color well or take my naps on time, but they wanted me to have a leg up.
So they held me back one year so I would be older than the rest of my class going out through school.
So because of that, and I'm older than my only sibling, and I'm older than my cousins.
I was always the oldest, whether it was in my class.
I always had sort of a leadership position in my social circles, and I think that experience...
You know, it's something that I was able to build on as I became an adult.
But, you know, my friends, not only have I never lost a friend because of my involvement.
I mean, I'm cooler now than I ever was.
I've got the best stories to tell.
You can tell stories like this.
But much more than that, becoming involved in this cause has enriched my life in so many ways.
It's grown my circle of friends.
Immeasurably, the people in this room, there are people in this room that I would go to war with, you know, go to war for, and they would go to war for me.
And that's what matters at the end of the day, the opinions of the people you love, the opinions of the people who love you.
Now, does that matter more to you, or does it matter more to you the opinions of people who hate you, people who have never met you and are not interested in getting to know you?
You know, talking about the media.
I mean, do we really want the media, a group of people who think it's a great idea all of a sudden for mentally ill cross-dressers to go into the bathroom with little girls?
I mean, do we want those people to have a favorable opinion of us?
We want them to be fair.
And that's another thing.
That issue, every single media outlet once again...
Speaks with a single voice.
There's not one outlet, not one establishment outlet that said, you know what, maybe it's not a good idea for me to go to the bathroom.
Not one!
It's incredible.
This is just, they got from the head table, they got, this is the latest radical egalitarian initiative, and everybody's going to be for it, and they said yes.
But we also have to have a balance in our lives.
Balance is important in our lives and in our work.
I have the 10-year anniversary of my radio program in 2014.
And one of the people who was there wrote something about that that has really stuck with me.
And he wrote, James balances issues of race, ethno-nationalism, history, politics, and culture with his faith, which makes all the world come into focus.
There's no conservatism without order, no order without structure, and no structure unless flesh and spirit are viewed as complementary of the human soul.
Today we hear too many preachers say that faith is all that matters.
Too many nationalists say that race is all that matters, and the vast majority of young people today have been trained to believe that neither matter.
Everyone is searching for identity.
To us, identity means distinction.
To the enemy, identity means uniformity.
The difference between those two poles is the difference between building civilization and destroying it.
Now, not everybody can be up front.
As I said, I've looked for open doors in my life, and I've tried to go through them if I could.
Different people have different lives and different opportunities, but everyone can support the people who are up front.
And you certainly should.
You should get involved in whatever ways you can.
I'm telling you, it'll make you feel good.
I could not imagine my life without this struggle.
I couldn't imagine just punching the clock and paying the bills.
That just seems like a very boring existence.
If there was ever a fantasy or a challenge, I tried to embrace it and tried to realize it.
You know, what happens next in my life?
What happens next in my career?
I don't know.
But I'm ready to embrace that, too, with open arms.
I've lived a full life already.
You know, I'm 35. If I die tomorrow, I would say there's not many bullets left in the chamber.
I've thrown the kitchen sink at this thing.
Now, don't get me wrong.
I'm looking forward to doing much more.
But I've lived, I've loved, I've fought.
And what an incredible journey it's been.
And let me tell you something, folks.
I think we're going to win this thing.
I think we're going to turn it around, and I think tomorrow is going to be a better day than yesterday was.
But no matter what, to quote the great Confederate General Patrick Claiborne, if this cause that is so dear to my heart is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it.
On my face is toward the enemy, and my arm is battling for that which I know to be right.
I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the weekend with y'all and enjoying a conference full of brotherhood and fellowship.
Thank you for listening.
Jared says, oh no.
Jared says we have one question.
When you thought it was safe to come back to American Renaissance, he's back.
I want to praise you.
I've heard people say that millions or millions, at least hundreds of thousands of people would die for the revolution, but almost none will work for the revolution.
And you are certainly somebody who has worked for the revolution, and I'm one of your greatest admirers, and I hope one of your greatest supporters.
I wish I could be a greater financial supporter.
But I have to sound a cautionary note.
And that is your blanket condemnation of journalists.
I also have been treated very badly by the media, as almost all of us have.
But on many occasions, I have not met journalists who were fair and objective.
I've met, on three occasions, journalists who were sent to do hatchet jobs on me and who came with great animosity.
And in the course of, in one case, three days of following me around and interviewing people, They changed their opinions, and then the fangs came off their reviews.
So I want to say I'm glad the press is here.
As someone said, it's a mistake to fight with people who buy ink by the barrel and printing and newspaper by the ton.
And we're glad the media is here, and not all of them are bad.
Especially the working press.
You have to remember, these stories go through many desks.
And all it takes is one unfair, biased, minority, Marxist person to mangle the story and turn it around.
So just a mild remonstrance from somebody who's old enough to be your grandfather.
And we talked about this actually on the phone last week, as you know.
And of course, Sam is one of those people that I mentioned.
He's one of my very best friends, not just in this movement, but in life.
And I love Sam.
And actually, Sam is one of the few people that I go to for advice.