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Jan. 24, 2017 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer
37:27
Richard Spencer Interviewed by David Pakman (01/24/2017)
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I'm joined today by Richard Spencer, who's the editor of alt-right.com and president of the National Policy Institute.
Richard, I know you've had a busy inauguration weekend, and we'll talk about that a little bit.
I want to just first start, for people who may not know your sort of political philosophy, in preparing for this interview...
I read about a lot of terms that are ascribed to you, many of which I think you don't agree with.
So let's just see if we can figure out sort of how you describe your political philosophy.
Do you consider yourself to be any of the following white nationalist, white separatist, neo-Nazi, Nazi, white supremacist?
Do any of those terms apply to how you see yourself?
I think white nationalist would be the term that I'm most comfortable with.
The term that I identify with is identitarian.
And to sum that up most concisely, that means that...
Identity is the foundation of thinking about politics, thinking about culture, thinking about society.
So that question, who are we, is the first question we ask.
Before we ask other questions, like, what should our economic policy be?
What do we think about culture?
What do we think about foreign policy?
And so on.
And I think in a recent interview, I think multiple times you've taken credit for creating the sort of concept of alt-right or alternative right.
I mean, I just want to get that on record in our interview before I ask questions based on it.
You do take credit for that?
Yes, I do take credit for that.
In the summer of 2008, I started using this term, an alternative right, or even the alternative right.
And at that time, it was much more vague than it is today, because I think I've evolved a little bit, and I think the term has evolved in parallel.
But at that time, I would say the alternative right was a...
A big tent of people who wanted to get away from the conservatism of the time.
We wanted to get away from George W. Bush.
We wanted to get away from the Iraq War.
We wanted to get away from all the things that defined the right in the 2000s.
And so at that time, the term was, you could say, a bit looser.
As things have gone on, I have developed my own identitarian philosophy.
The identitarian, that philosophy as an ideology emerged in Europe.
I've developed my own...
Version of it, you could say.
I certainly identify with that movement.
And it's interesting because the alt-right has evolved as well.
And I think the alt-right has evolved at this point where it really is an identity movement.
It's an identity movement.
Well, that's interesting you say that because on the one hand, one of the aspects that's very common, and the thing is, you know, the alt-right is a somewhat amorphous movement.
Its borders are not super clearly defined.
It's sort of a self-professed thing.
I think that's good, actually.
The aspect that I've noticed is that the alt-right generally is very critical of what we've come to know as so-called identity politics in the U.S. to the extent that it focuses on non-white identity, non-heterosexual sexual orientation, etc.
It's very critical of so-called identity politics, yet at the same time it's completely about white identity.
Is that not a contradiction of sorts?
No, I think the alt-right is certainly willing to go there.
It's willing to criticize the left in a tougher manner than most conservatives.
We're certainly willing to point out the outrages of Black Lives Matter and so on.
However, I think I would agree that you are getting to...
It's not really a contradiction.
It's maybe just something that's a bit surprising.
I think the typical conservative response to say...
Black Lives Matter or, say, Islamic immigration into Europe, primarily, and so on, is to say, well, why don't you dispense with all this identity politics?
White people have dispensed with identity politics, so should you.
Let's all become citizens and individuals and so on.
We don't see race and the like.
The alt-right is actually fundamentally different than that.
That doesn't mean that we're unwilling to criticize BLM or what have you.
And the thing is, the alt-right is not going to really advance unless we accept the fact that we are an identity movement.
We can criticize other identity movements, but we need to, in a way, recognize them for what they are.
This is something new.
We're not surprised by the fact that African-Americans would want to be a part of an identitarian movement like BLM.
We, in a way, understand them, even if we're highly critical of their actions and their policies.
So you could also say that identitarianism...
Though that word is not very popular.
Certainly not as popular as the alt-right.
Identitarianism is this...
New force in the world that is actually very strong.
People don't want to just become individuals.
People don't want just to become, you know, oh, I'm just this one guy who lives here and I'm a citizen of the United States or a citizen of the world.
People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.
So, identitarian movements, whether that is, you know, Islamic communities that are affirming themselves.
In ways that are a great threat to the things that I care about.
That these are major forces in the world.
Even the pussy, the pink pussy march or the women's march, whatever you want to call it.
That was a kind of identitarian movement.
I think one thing that we recognize is that identitarianism...
Uh, really works naturally and it actually can work peacefully.
Uh, well let me, let's not jump ahead because I want to get to that working peacefully part.
Let's, let's not preempt that.
So in order to get us into that, let's talk about white nationalism.
You've said in a few interviews that what you would like is the United States to be a white ethnocentric nation.
Does that mean whites only?
What I've said is that I I imagine.
A post-American world that would include a white ethnostate.
That is a homeland for all Europeans from around the world.
Wouldn't it make more sense, though, to have those, I mean, if we're gonna go sort of back to the sort of original population, we're talking about Native Americans in the U.S., why would it make sense then to make America a place that would be the homeland of white people?
You're misunderstanding what I just said.
Okay.
I said, I imagine a post-American order that would be an ethnostate.
You could...
See it as analogous to the Jewish state of Israel.
That is, it is a state that is a homeland for all Europeans.
So this would actually be a very new thing.
The people who defined the United States were primarily Anglo-Protestants who came over as colonists.
There was obviously a...
A fraught, bloody history on this continent.
But Anglo-Protestants primarily defined the United States.
After the Civil War, I think the United States became more of a European country.
The idea of a melting pot is fundamentally a European melting pot, and it was often described explicitly as such.
What I am imagining is we are in a situation where the United States is fragmenting.
We're entering interesting times, as the Chinese would say.
We're entering dangerous times.
We're entering fragmenting times.
I am putting forth a kind of dream, as I've talked about it, of what would come after this.
And that is an ethnostate.
And it is utopian in a way, in the sense that it doesn't exist right now.
It doesn't exist in the here and now.
No, I get that.
But to keep our conversation focused as precisely as possible.
What would it involve the removal or leaving of non-white people from the US?
It would involve the establishment of a homeland for European people.
What that would entail, I don't know, because this is something in the future.
I think the question you're getting at is, what do I want right now in the United States?
No, no, no, that's not the question.
My question specifically, let me see if I can frame it a different way.
If in this future white ethnostate...
You learned that non-white people were being rounded up and sent elsewhere.
We don't have to determine exactly where that would be.
Is that something you would be okay with?
Would that help to get us to the white ethno state that you envision?
I would support peaceful, you could say, ethnic redistribution, such as what was done in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
You've called it a peaceful ethnic cleansing before, right?
I actually, you know, I refer to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference as peaceful ethnic cleansing.
Yes.
That's what it was.
And what you would want is something similar to that.
It was done by liberals, interesting.
Again, we're talking about something that hasn't occurred yet.
We're talking about something in the future.
No, I get that.
Something that's really post-American.
I don't see this as occurring.
I don't see as the world we're living in right now as leading towards this next Tuesday.
Yeah, no, I think we can agree with that.
From a sort of like nitty gritty.
I'm sorry, Richard.
From a sort of nitty-gritty perspective, just to sort of figure out where you are on some of these issues, because you're very eloquent and well-spoken, and sometimes it's very easy to sort of get lost in that, something Donald Trump is not so able to do because of his lack of speaking skills.
Are you opposed to something like an interracial relationship?
Is that something, if you see that, are you fine with that or do you say, I'd rather not have interracial relationships here in our country?
I would rather not have interracial marriage.
I would rather not have interracial breeding.
And the reason why is because that kind of relationship is, if we randomly interbred In the United States or around the world, that would entail the destruction of all races.
That would not just entail a danger to white people, that would entail a danger to the coherence of Africans, a danger to the coherence of Chinese and so on.
It would ultimately entail the creation of a kind of new race.
An amalgamation of everyone, and that would be dissociated from their true cultures.
They'd be dissociated from history.
They'd be dissociated from these millennia of families that preceded them.
I do not see that as a good thing.
Absolutely not.
Didn't you used to date Asian women, though?
Isn't that a contradiction?
It's not a contradiction.
Yes, Josh Harkinson and Mother Jones did insane amounts of research, and yes, lo and behold, I had an Asian girlfriend once.
But so, is that not a contradiction to your beliefs?
That there is, like, is interracial sex okay, but not children?
Like, you could have sex with your girlfriend, but not have children with her?
I'm not saying that.
The fact is, we all evolve in our life.
This was ten years ago.
I see.
I was a younger person.
I would not do that now.
No.
So you would no longer date Asian women, you're saying?
No.
No.
Okay.
Fair enough.
That was a decade ago.
It's, you know, we, yeah.
Okay.
Let's talk about your views about Jews.
I want to hear a little bit about your views about Jews.
Are Jews white?
No, Jews are not white.
Jews are Jews.
And if we define white as European.
That is connected with the peoples of Europe, of, you could say, Western civilization.
It's really European civilization because it's not just of the West.
Jews are not European, fundamentally.
They have a fundamentally different consciousness, a sense of themselves, and a different story.
Even Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews who are from Europe, as you're saying, they're also not white.
No, I include all three.
Branches of the Jewish family, the Mizorahim, the Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews.
No, they are not white.
Their consciousness is, in a way, anti-assimilation to Gentiles.
We recently celebrated Hanukkah this past December and January.
Were you part of that?
No.
You mean the Jews recently celebrated Hanukkah, yeah.
Jews did, yes.
I was using that in a general sense.
I see.
Hanukkah was recently celebrated this past December.
And Hanukkah is a celebration of resistance to the Greeks, resistance to assimilation with the Greeks.
Jews have a fundamentally different story to tell about who they are than Europeans.
And those two stories are not really compatible.
Now, of course, they're different.
What are the stories within the European family?
Russians have a different way of thinking about themselves, Scots have a different way of thinking about themselves, Italians, so on.
But Jews really have a fundamentally different way of understanding who they are.
And I think, effectively, all Jews would agree with me in that sense.
Jews have had a contradictory relationship with Europeans, where they have sometimes identified with whites.
I would say the trend now is for Jews not to identify themselves as white.
We're going to take a break in a second, but before we do that, are Iranians white?
I mean, Iranians are from Aryan people, they're not Arabs, they're not Africans.
Are Iranians white?
Yes, we're getting in some complicated questions.
Obviously they are Indo-European, and obviously they share a fundamental basis.
I think it would be possible for Europeans and Persians to have Have better collaboration and so on.
But I would say that that where I'm coming from is more of a an emphasis on European culture and and Europeans in North American European culture.
So you see European whites.
You see interesting.
You see European whites as being more sort of compatible in a sense with Iranians than with Eastern European Jews.
Look, we're getting into some technicalities, to be honest.
Persians and Europeans, we do share a foundation that is very deep.
That being said, in terms of as an identitarian, I would identify with Europe.
Primarily not so much Persia and the European world and North America.
Got it.
I'm just acknowledging the fact that there actually is a deeper foundation.
Because remember, identity is a very complicated thing.
It can go down very deep.
I would say that that bond between Persians and Europeans, it's almost so deep that the Indo-European world that it's maybe not the best place to form a state or a coherent culture from.
I think history has to play a part in this as well.
But I'm just acknowledging that fact.
I mean, it's very interesting.
There's one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century is a National Geographic And you probably know what I'm referring to.
It's actually an Afghan woman who is staring out at the camera.
She has green eyes and hair color is probably similar to mine.
You probably know the photograph I'm referring to.
The fact is, she is Aryan, yes, in a deep sense, but is she really European?
I think the fact that she is a Muslim, she's from a dramatically different historical context and geographic context.
But this just gets at the...
You know, the complicated nature of identity.
You can dive deeper and deeper and deeper and find some common bonds, but sometimes those aren't the best places to start.
I'll say.
All right, let's take a quick break.
We're speaking with Richard Spencer, alt-right.com.
We'll take a break and continue with him momentarily.
We're continuing with Richard Spencer, who's the editor of alt-right.com, president of the National Policy Institute.
He says he's okay with the term white nationalist about himself.
We've been talking about that.
Richard, what are your views on Jews?
And let me contextualize it in this way.
When I interviewed Glenn Miller, who now is on death row for having tried to kill Jews at two Jewish community centers in Kansas, ultimately ended up killing Christians, but...
His intent was to kill Jews.
When I interviewed him in 2010, he said that he personally hated me, even though he didn't ever meet me, merely because I am Jewish.
And it was sort of a, it had nothing to do with anything I had done.
Just by being Jewish, I was a problem to him and we could not get along.
What's your view on that?
I mean, can you, are you able to hang with Jews?
Or if not, if there is, as you mentioned in our first segment, Such a sort of incongruency between European whites and Jewish identity.
What's tough about just hanging out with Jews?
Like, how does it manifest itself?
No, I would certainly strongly disagree with those sentiments, and I would obviously strongly condemn the actions that he allegedly engaged in.
Well, he's been found guilty.
There's no allegation.
It's not alleged.
He's on death row.
It's been convicted of.
No, I have a very different perspective.
On a personal level, can I get along with you?
Can we go have a beer?
Of course we can.
We're having a productive discussion right now.
But the thing is, we aren't just mere individuals.
I have people that I respect who are Asians.
I've had interesting conversations with people of African descent.
I can get along with them.
But what we really need to think about these things are on a communitarian basis.
That are biracial or multiracial.
Is this a way to achieve happiness first?
And is this a way to achieve true flourishing?
And I would say absolutely not.
Biracial and multiracial societies are going to ultimately fragment, are going to ultimately end in chaos, and they're gonna end in blood and tears.
And how would that ultimately manifest?
Like, let's just carry out our example, right?
You know, you see Jewish identity as fundamentally incompatible longer term with European white identity and consider yourself a white nationalist, have talked about this peaceful ethnic separation, etc.
So if we're hanging out, talk to me about the next step, at which point it would become a problem for us.
It becomes a problem on a group level.
It doesn't necessarily need to become a problem on an individual level.
As I said, I can talk with civilized people of all sorts of backgrounds.
But if we look at the history of Haiti, if we look at the history of just Jews in the United States, the fact that you still understand yourself as a Jew means that your family, your community has resisted assimilation.
I understand why you want to resist.
And in what ways- I mean, in what ways have I re- Let's break this down.
I want to really break this down.
You would no longer be a Jew.
In what ways have I resisted assimilation beyond just saying I'm a Jew?
True assimilation would mean that you would not say that you are a Jew.
True assimilation would mean intermarriage, the loss of your identity, your religious identity, and your ethnic identity.
That is what- Assimilation will ultimately entail, and you have resisted that.
I understand why you would want to.
I understand why you would want to maintain your family and your traditions.
I respect you for it.
Sure, but beyond saying that by merely mentioning that I'm Jewish, I've resisted assimilation, beyond just the sort of signaling of identity, is there any practical way in which I've not assimilated into American society?
You've obviously assimilated into American society to a great extent.
We're speaking English.
I'm sure you like a lot of the same things that Americans like in terms of minor things.
The fact is, Jews in the United States have a precise identity.
They understand themselves as Jews.
They see the world very differently than a white person in Wyoming or Mississippi.
You have a different consciousness of the world.
The Jewish experience in the United States, in North America, has been Very different from the experience of my people, from the experience of other Europeans.
But what would be an example of that, Richard?
So obviously I'm likely to have, as a Northeast liberal, I'm likely to have significant political differences with someone from Wyoming, for example.
But aside from political differences that we could have regardless of whether I'm Jewish or not, in what ways are we fundamentally at odds?
The Jewish experience in the United States has been a fraught one.
It is certainly one that has involved anti-Semitism on the behalf of many groups, on behalf of elite groups.
There used to be a kind of WASP elite class that was, to a large extent, although not 100%, anti-Semitic or at the very least aware of Jewish identity.
They wanted to prevent Jews from entering institutions, although they ultimately...
Yeah, but Richard, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm really trying to drill down with our audience for you initially said I've assimilated enough to be able to sort of exist in American society.
But that because of my Jewish identity, there are still significant areas of, I guess we could call them friction with, for example, someone from some European white person who lives in Wyoming.
Without getting into historical generalities, aside from my political differences as a liberal with like a conservative from Wyoming, what specifically can you point to that makes it evident that we're just not really compatible?
Again, I think the problem here is that I actually am talking in terms of generalities because history takes place in terms of generalities.
It takes place in terms of nations and peoples and civilizations.
You're talking in terms of individualism.
If you came and had a beer with someone in Wyoming, I'm sure it would all be fine because you're a civilized, upright individual.
But the fact is, history doesn't work that way.
We have this liberal bias where we want to see people as individuals, and that's a good thing in many ways.
But it's not actually a good thing in terms of understanding history.
Jewish consciousness, and I'm going to paint in broad strokes here, because obviously we're having a conversation.
Jewish consciousness in the United States has actually been deeply conflicted.
It's on the one hand, it has pointed towards Israel as a, and I'm talking about more recent Jewish.
The more recent Jewish experience.
It's pointed towards Israel as a fundamental homeland.
Israel has a claim on the heart of millions of Jews here in a way that it simply does not on any Gentile.
That is a foreign power that has a claim on Jews here that would simply not exist if this were a European Christian nation.
This has often led to a kind of conflict in terms of consciousness, where elite Jews, intellectual Jews, have been at the vanguard of promoting many liberal and left-wing policies.
They've been at the vanguard of promoting things like civil rights.
They've been at the vanguard of promoting things like mass immigration.
What?
It's interesting to see this couched in this way, as if these are such incompatibilities.
Jews, like many groups, have been at the forefront of promoting civil rights.
I just am not seeing that even now going from the individuals to generalities that these cause conflicts.
The same Jews that would promote mass immigration.
Towards the United States and even towards Europe would not promote the same kinds of policies in Israel.
The fact is, Israel is an ethno-state.
It is a Jewish state.
It is a...
Jewish nationalist order in the Middle East.
Jews do not view the United States as that.
And indeed, many Jews view someone like myself as inherently bad for the Jews, as hostile towards the Jews.
Because I have a different view of what the world should be than as a kind of liberal, mass immigration, multicultural world.
Many Jews feel more comfortable in a world that is based on liberal ideology, based on civil rights, based on mass immigration.
And they feel less comfortable in the world, in a world that is based on European identity.
For the simple reason that even if Jews have assimilated to a great extent, they are still fundamentally Jews.
Okay.
All right, let's put a pause on this just because I can tell we're- we may not get further than we've gotten so far.
I think people maybe have a sense of where you're coming from on this.
Let's talk about this weekend and I want to talk about Trump a little bit.
So this weekend you were at an inauguration related event.
And you were punched.
Someone, while you were given an interview, actually came up and basically, I think there's no other way to say it than just sucker punched you.
It wasn't clear whether you even saw it coming.
What exactly happened here, to the best of your understanding?
Yes, I was luckily not knocked out, but I have suffered a mild concussion.
I mean, I'm going to be fine.
I have a black eye, as you can see.
But I'm going to be fine.
But it was a physical assault.
It was a totally outrageous one.
Because it was a sucker punch.
I was looking the other way.
The guy came out of nowhere and ran off.
What happened is that I was actually with two photojournalists.
And we kind of documented my experience at the inauguration.
I was up fairly close.
And then we were walking home.
And I was actually...
We were going to just walk to a restaurant.
We were not walking towards any kind of protest, but we just happened upon this so-called black bloc protest.
That is people who had identified themselves as anarchists.
And while I was there, there was a woman who screamed my name out in pain.
You know, Richard Spencer!
And after that happened, people circled around me.
And some of them were a bit impolite.
They were screaming at me.
There were a couple of people that I was actually talking with.
And I've done this before, you know, kind of engaging with enemies.
You know, there's some sarcasm and then, So you do see them as enemies.
Well, I'm adversaries, what have you.
Of course, they fundamentally disagree with me politically.
Yeah, sure.
Okay.
So I was, yeah, then I was actually, while I was speaking with one, I think it's the same person who did this.
He came out of nowhere and he actually punched me.
In the face.
And it was a kind of glancing blow, even though he gave me a black eye.
And then he ran off, which is what they always do.
And after that happened, an Australian broadcast company came up and started speaking with me.
And I was giving an interview to them.
They were asking a couple questions.
This guy, and I think it's the same person, he came back and he hit me in the side of the head.
So, you know, as is clear in this video, that's, you know...
I've been retweeted a million times now.
I was looking at the camera speaking and he came out of nowhere and hit me with his forearm across the head.
I was thrown back and of course he ran off again.
So yeah, it was a totally outrageous sucker punch.
You were at the inauguration.
When Trump says stuff like: America First, for example, which is a slogan that the Anti-Defamation League has suggested he not use because of its references to anti-Semitic context in which it was previously used, etc.
I mean, do you like hearing stuff like that from Trump?
Yes, I do.
But it's a complicated matter.
First off, America First was not an anti-Semitic.
Uh, group at all.
There was a group called America first that opposed, uh, the United States entrance into the second world war.
Yes, but on the basis that it was Jewish interests trying to pull the United States in for their own benefit.
I mean, it was fundamentally antisemitic and it's at its core.
It was not fundamentally antisemitic.
I mean, we, we might just disagree with that.
I think we would interpretation here, but.
It was not fundamentally anti-Semitic.
The acknowledgement that Jews have interest, that is not fundamentally anti-Semitic.
I acknowledge that Cubans have interest.
It's just being realistic.
But anyway, no, I'm very happy to hear Trump say things like America first.
We would not have heard that certainly from Barack Obama, but we wouldn't have heard that from Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz.
So I think this is a positive development.
I think the...
The arrow of Donald Trump is pointing in the direction of identity politics, and I think that's a very, very good thing.
Okay, so on that note, and I really want to get to the nitty-gritty on this because there's so many different views on this from alt-rightists, so to speak.
How much do you really think that is part of the white nationalist agenda might be accomplished under Trump?
And the other question I have, and hopefully we can get to these somewhat succinctly, is: How do you rationalize Trump having a Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren with the identitarian identity politics stuff that is compatible with your white nationalism?
Do you just sort of ignore that or excuse it?
I don't ignore it.
All I'm saying is that Trump seems to be moving in this direction.
Trump is not going to be a true alt-right president.
Excuse me.
He's just simply not going to be that.
But is this movement, is his civic nationalism pointing in our direction?
I would say yes, because history is pointing in the direction of identitarianism.
Now, Trump, again, he is not a white nationalist.
He actually explicitly said, and rather cliched, I think Stephen Miller should up his game a little bit, to be honest.
But whatever color we are, we all bleed red, white, and blue.
You know, something from a 1980s action movie.
You hate that, right?
I mean, that's just vile to a white nationalist.
It's not vile.
It's rather lame, to be honest.
But what he is saying is a kind of civic nationalism.
I think Trump...
Though he is kind of pointing towards identitarianism, I think in another level, and maybe in a primary way, he is a last gasp of American civic nationalism, a last gasp of the American civic nationalism of the mid-20th century.
And that was, remember, in an overwhelmingly white country.
That was 85 to 90 percent white in terms of its population, but it was 100 percent white in terms of its culture, popular and high culture, and so on.
He's gesturing towards that.
Trump is retrograde in a way.
He's trying to revive.
Civic nationalism from the mid-20th century.
I don't think that will work for a number of reasons.
First off, I think a civic nationalist identity is impossible in a multiracial country.
But I think more than that, civic nationalism of the Trumpian variety is viewed as unbearably white.
By non-whites, by many Jews, by many people who are left-wing or liberal.
They view it quite correctly as an avatar of identity politics, as a kind of white America reasserting itself.
So in this way, Trump is a white nationalist, so to speak.
He's alt-right whether he likes it or not.
And I don't mean that in the sense that he consciously, explicitly agrees with me.
He doesn't.
But I mean that in the sense that his version of civic nationalism is just irredeemably white from the viewpoint of people who see the future of America as a kind of neutral platform for the world, as a multiracial, multicultural country that has no real identity of its own.
So Trump is caught in this contradiction.
He's trying to be raceless.
But he's being extremely racial at the same time.
Well, I think you've explained very well how this analysis that while Trump is not a white nationalist, his rhetoric has really interested many white nationalists.
So what better, who better than a white nationalist to explain it to us?
Richard, we are out of time, but real quick, I heard that you'd, will you denounce Adolf Hitler?
I heard you don't denounce Adolf Hitler when asked about that.
Adolf, national socialism was a disaster.
The 20th century was pretty much a disaster.
Yeah, but do you denounce the actions of Adolf Hitler?
I'm not gonna play this game where you throw out historical figures and I denounce them.
I mean, do you denounce Stalin?
Do you denounce Pol Pot?
I mean, look, the national socialist Germany, it's part of history.
It's not who I am.
No, I'm not asking if Hitler is part of history.
So you don't denounce Hitler when asked.
I don't play this game of denunciation.
But calling it a game is a game.
That's a game.
To call it a game is playing a game.
What?
To call it a game is playing a game.
Do you condemn the KKK?
The KKK?
I mean- Yeah, you've heard of them, right?
Or are you like Trump?
You've not heard of them.
Look, the KKK, I mean, I don't know if we have time to talk about this.
I mean, the KKK, the 19th century KKK, has nothing to do with where we are now.
It's a historical thing.
The second Klan was not engaged in violence, by the way.
It was a kind of Americanist group.
Okay, so you don't denounce them.
That's okay.
I mean, I'm just asking.
I'm not going to denounce these historical things that don't really have any resonance to where we are.
If someone in my movement ever claimed that he was going to engage in violence, I would denounce him in a second.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, we'll hold you to that.
I'm not going to be burdened by history.
Okay.
Interesting reaction.
I think that there's a lot to glean from that.
Richard Spencer, editor of alt-right.com, president of the National Policy Institute.
I think we've learned a lot today.
I don't know that we've done much to foster better race relations, but ultimately we know that that's not really the goal of Richard Spencer.
It's to achieve a peaceful separation, I think, is where we've determined you land.
Is it fair to sum up in that way?
I disagree with everything that you just said, actually.
I think having a respect...
I think having...
Hold on.
I think having a respectful, rational discussion is the best way for there to be good relations between people who have different views.
Sucker punching me is not going to not going to be the way to do it.
That we can agree on.
I think it's good that we can end on the note, which is I agree.
Sucker punching you on the street is not going to help anything or anyone.
Thank you.
All right.
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