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March 18, 2018 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer
01:12:59
Richard Spencer Interviewed by Itai Anghel (03/18/2018)
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Time Text
First of all, thank you for having us on such a short notice.
My pleasure.
Thanks a lot.
This is for, I mean, I just can't imagine because sometimes your words are being taken out of context.
Yes.
Well, it's two things.
First off, yes, I'll have...
I'll say one phrase and that will be twisted into something that it's not.
But then the other thing, I think a lot of people just want content.
They want to see the whole episode and get a sense of the real conversation and not just sound bites.
Yeah, fair enough.
You know, let's continue in this manner.
Please represent yourself the way you think.
Sure.
My name is Richard Spencer.
I was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
I grew up in Dallas, Texas.
I attended the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago.
I have degrees from both of those institutions.
I was actually a student, a doctoral student at Duke University, and I dropped out in 2007 to become a journalist.
I have always been on...
What you could say the dissident right in the United States.
So when I started writing about politics and when I first worked at the American Conservative magazine, I was always criticizing both the The establishment in general, but the conservative establishment in particular.
So I was certainly motivated by my opposition to the Iraq War at the very beginning and the whole neoconservative Bushite agenda.
But I think I wasn't just criticizing that, I was also criticizing a bipartisan consensus.
I started using the term alternative right In 2008, around the summer of 2008, was when the first usage of that term was put forward.
And then certainly by 2009, I was editing a magazine called Talkies Magazine.
We were discussing the alternative right openly.
The alternative right was not, at that point, it was not what it is right now.
But by about 2010...
I had created my own website called AlternativeRight.com, and I was clearly an identitarian in the sense that, you know, I had moved away from the pure negativity of the origins of the alternative right, of being, oh, we don't like Bush, we don't like the Iraq War, we're not the religious right, we're not mainstream conservatives.
We're alt, something.
And I think that we started to become something, and that is identitarians.
And what that means is that identity is the root of how we look at the world.
So, if you think about the conservative movement in the United States, which is very different from rights around the world, they start out from the standpoint of, "We believe in free market economics.
We believe in an aggressive foreign policy," or so on.
We want to start from a new place.
And also, when you think about the left, the left in previous centuries believed in...
A communist utopia, an end to the division of labor and wealth and equality and so on.
A new type of society, a new type of human being.
That was their starting point.
So we needed a new starting point, one that wasn't purely economic, that wasn't purely constitutional.
And identity is it.
And I would say that identity itself is in question.
We live in an increasingly globalized world and although many people like to rage against the globalists and so on, there are many...
Great benefits of this, the economic benefits, communication benefits, and so on.
But I think everyone, not just white people, everyone's in this situation where we don't quite know who we are, how we fit into this new world.
And there are obviously some, you know, you could say contradictions within it.
One can be both, one can have a global or world outlook and be connected.
With different people and so on.
But one has to call one place home.
One has to be from somewhere.
One has to be something before one can connect to the world.
I think many other races and peoples are fine with this.
One can be an international businessman, but also an Israeli citizen and someone who truly cares about the Jewish state.
One can be an African and have traveled all over the world or what have you, but is ultimately from somewhere.
But I think for white people in general, and American whites in particular, we don't know where we're from.
There's a turn of phrase that people use that say, I'm based out of Cincinnati, I'm based out of Florida, or something like that.
And that basically means they happen to be there right now for the next three months I'll be based out of somewhere.
They're not truly from somewhere.
They don't have that sense that Germans call Heimat, or even Patrie, a national feeling from the French language.
And so really this question of identity, it is a question.
It's something for Americans.
We live in a globalized world, a world of automobiles and strip malls and the internet and all this kind of stuff.
And that question of who are we is a question.
It's a search.
And I would say that there are many different levels of identity.
There is a purely elective level.
What movies do you like?
What television shows do you watch?
What music do you listen to?
But even that says something about you.
But then there's some deeper levels, things you don't choose.
One is born into a family.
One is born into a certain region.
One speaks a language.
One has a nationality, a passport, a citizen identity.
But at the basis of identity is race.
And what is race?
Race is an extended family.
Race is a concept that I'm not just an individual, and I'm not just a member of a family unit with four, eight people.
But actually, I'm connected to a bigger civilization.
And this has a biological component to it.
It, of course, has a cultural and a linguistic and a spiritual component as well.
But it fundamentally is a family.
That is something that...
The state of Israel seems to be very good at, in the sense that Israel has a sense of Jewry around the world, really, and not just Israeli citizens.
There's a concept of the diaspora, and I know that certainly Jews don't all see eye to eye.
I think Jews are at each other's throats often, but there's still a sense of family.
That is bigger than simply an individual or simply an ideology.
And so that is what identitarianism is for me.
So, you know, the alt-right, it's nothing if it's not an identitarian movement.
It's nothing if it's not searching for meaning in this world.
And it's great, you know, we got very excited about Trump and Build the Wall and all that stuff.
That's all great, but it's also a bit meaningless, to be honest.
If the alt-right is simply a Trump cheerleading squad, or we simply get exercised by this issue or that one, or we hate Hillary Clinton, or whatever, the alt-right will have failed.
The alt-right fundamentally has to be about the search for identity and the search for truth and something bigger in this world.
Okay.
So, I mean, when you envisage your home, your patria, who belongs to it and who does not belong to it?
Right.
Well, you know, it's interesting because we can look at that historically and then we can also look at that in terms of the future.
So, historically, what it means to be an American, what it means to be a U.S. citizen, Did have a racial component.
Actually, in 1790, this was made explicit in terms of the United States was a frontier.
It was the opposite of, say, Prussia, which was a military society with enemies at both gates.
It was an open frontier.
But to become a United States citizen was someone who was white of good character.
and so there's this interesting quality to the United States where it was wide open there was I mean, John Jay talked about, he thanked God, actually, about the fact that the United States more or less congealed around Anglo-Saxon Protestantism.
Certainly with the immigration that came out of the 19th century.
The United States started to become a white Christian country.
It wasn't just Anglo-Saxon Protestant, it was white Christian.
And I would say now, in the 21st century, all of these things are in question in a way.
We are certainly white, and we are attacked as being white.
In the sense of discrimination against whites and white men in particular at universities and major corporations and government hiring, etc.
We're being attacked racially.
Discrimination in the sense of culturally and morally...
They let you feel a sense of guilt.
That's the biggest thing.
The discrimination at Apple Computer or at the US government or at Princeton University.
None of that compares, really, with this profound feeling of guilt that is burdening the white race.
And this is a very interesting thing, because it actually is post-Christian, which is not anti-Christian, in the sense that previously there was an original sin and then a redemption through the coming of Christ.
Now there is this original sin, which is slavery.
Or racism, or perhaps in Germany and elsewhere, the Holocaust, or so on.
And then we can be redeemed, in a way, by bringing in the second the Jesus Christ comes in as an immigrant or a refugee.
Or a white person can engage in self-flaggression.
I'm mispronouncing that word.
A self-harm, effectively.
By giving over power.
By saying, oh, I don't want my community to be white.
I don't want my university to be white.
I want to bring in as many people as possible, and so on.
That we can kind of overcome this guilt by destroying ourselves.
Do you remember at the point of time in which you felt...
Yeah, yeah.
Did that make me feel guilty?
I mean, you were not born like it.
I mean, I guess there was...
A point in time in which you really felt something that became gradually and gradually more radical?
Yeah, you know, people have asked me, you know, how did you become like this, basically?
And I think I was always like this.
I was not a radical in the sense that at no point in my life was I throwing bombs or really even protesting that much as a young person.
But I did have a, there was a radicalness in the sense that I wanted meaning in my life and I was in search of this.
I was in search of this intellectually on the left for most of my adult life, on the right more recently.
But also I wanted meaning in the sense that the white race is a, we have a guilt culture at the moment.
We ultimately need a hero culture.
At the end of the day, the way of overcoming this guilt is to...
It's going to be a kind of embrace of the past and a certain forgetfulness as well.
We can't look at our own history as a history of violent oppression of the world.
We can't think of ourselves as we're uniquely evil.
We are the cancer of mankind, the cancer of human history, in the words of Susan Sontag.
We have to ultimately be proud of the fact that we're powerful.
And when one's powerful...
One does engage in things that are violent.
One takes on that burden of ruling and conquering and exploring.
And we need to embrace that.
But on another level, we also need to learn how to forget things.
Very insightful when he talks about the importance of memory, but also the importance of forgetfulness.
And, you know, memory is wonderful in that we remember our parents, our ancestors, a certain feeling we had when we were a child.
But memory can also be a burden.
If we are constantly burdened by the weight...
Of something like the Holocaust, where, you know, Theodore Adorno said, you know, there's no art after Auschwitz, effectively.
That terrible act is so awful that you can't create something life-affirming and heroic.
At some point, we need to swallow that guilt and forget.
A lot of conservatives think the past is more important.
We need to always go back to the past.
I disagree.
The future is more important.
We need to have an openness to what we're going to do in the future.
We need to think of ourselves as we will will a better world for ourselves and our children.
We are not going to be weighed down by mistakes we might have made, by things that are truly terrible.
You know, terrible actions in war are certainly not unique to the white race.
But, yes, there are many aspects.
When I look back at the 20th century, I want to cry or vomit.
It was a disaster on many levels.
But we need to ultimately overcome this psychologically and think of ourselves, again, as a heroic people, one that should rule, one that should be making the world a better place.
So many other cultures are not burdened by this guilt.
And this is what whites need to become.
All of the discrimination, the immigrants, the bad foreign policy, all that stuff is tiny.
It's a flea in comparison with this massive elephant that is white guilt.
Very interesting.
I can refer to some of your things, but just one sentence that you said about forgetting the past.
For me, for example, my grandmother came from Germany.
Thank God no one got hurt from my family who came from Germany.
I will never be able to forget, obviously, the Holocaust and the Second World War.
But no problems for me, you know, to someone who is German, I won't be connecting to him just after I will make sure that he feels guilty for the rest of his life.
I agree with that.
But the thing like forgetting the past, you meant it like, okay, let's not refer to it as it never happened?
No, I don't think we should refer to it as it never happened.
I think there's a place for history.
There's a place for remembrance and so on.
But what I'm saying is that memory is not an end in itself.
And memory has to be judged vis-a-vis forgetfulness.
And forgetfulness is a quality that we underestimate.
You know, I have made mistakes in my life.
I've made mistakes recently.
But at some point, you have to overcome these errors and move on.
But if we live in this guilt culture, this sense that we are uniquely burdened with this guilt and we will be redeemed from the outside.
We will be redeemed by allowing in refugees.
We'll be redeemed by giving up power and so on.
We will continually sink into degeneration.
So you think you're being misinterpreted by all the others?
Oh, by other journalists and so on?
No, not journalists.
Black people, Jews, whoever, you know, they think that you are white supremacist, racist, and that stuff.
Like, they won't be listening to you?
Or, you know, where, according to you, everybody got it wrong?
Yes.
Yes and no.
I would say that...
I am being misunderstood in the sense that when I say these things, this doesn't mean that I don't have respect and understanding for other races and other peoples.
In the sense that I can actually talk with a black nationalist, say, and say, I understand you.
I can talk with an Israeli...
An Israeli nationalist to say, I understand you.
At the same time, I think a lot of the outrage against me and the alt-right and the whole thing is in a way warranted because we are trying to change the system.
I've never wanted to engage in politics.
In order to, you know, twist a knob and move a lever and just adjust the system.
The system probably should fear people like me because we are offering a different worldview and that's going to have wildly different cultural and political implications.
So I am, you know, I don't like it when I am being deplatformed on social media, on payment process, all this kind of stuff.
It's terrible.
But, in a way, I kind of get it.
Because, you know, the world is...
History is not always a...
History is often a zero-sum game.
I mean, history isn't always a live and let live, let's all have our own opinion and we'll all gather around and sing Kumbaya.
History is often a battle, and there are winners and losers.
I want the world to go in a different direction.
And, you know, in a way I understand why people...
Not so much your average black person, your average Jew, your average Hispanic, whatever.
They don't...
I would go have coffee with them, get in a conversation.
I don't want to harm them.
I don't...
I respect their own identity.
But the system itself...
But you like to differentiate yourself from them.
Yes, no question.
But they want to differentiate themselves from me.
I mean, look, white people are in this weird position where...
We are viewed as white.
We are targeted.
The differentiation is being made by others, and yet we aren't doing it ourselves.
The average conservative response to anti-white discrimination or this guilt complex is, oh, hey, man, we're just all individuals.
I'm not white.
That's the milquetoast, weak, Loser response to all this kind of stuff.
And what I'm saying is, look, we are white.
They are recognizing something unique about us.
And yes, if people who had my views held political power, the world actually would be very different than it is.
So I'm saying we need to understand that and embrace it.
And be willing to engage in a confrontation.
But you would like to create a state only for white people, like an entity or a country?
Yes, eventually.
Practically speaking, how it would take place?
I don't know.
Practically speaking, I don't know.
And many people have criticized me for saying, oh, you need to have a five-step plan for how this is going to happen.
I don't understand how...
I could be expected to think about how history will unfold.
History unfolds with these contingencies.
It takes these twists and turns.
But you know they create a territory only for whites.
You need to tell other people, you go out.
You are not part of this territory.
That might have to happen.
Look, if people came to a territory peacefully without violence, they can therefore leave without violence.
And ethnic cleansing.
I mean, actually, I mean, take an ethnic group, throw them out.
I mean, it can be done in a violent way, but you think it can be done in a peaceful way?
It certainly can be done in a peaceful way.
I mean, if we look at the history of, say, the establishment of Israel, it was done to a degree peacefully, obviously to a very large degree violently.
There was dispossession of others.
But the fact is, the survival of my people is non-negotiable.
At the end of the day, I think we should be willing to fight for our survival.
You feel the survival of the white people is under jeopardy?
Yes, no question.
We're being dispossessed.
You know, again, I don't know.
I don't think that they're going to come at us tomorrow morning with machetes or lock everyone up.
Of course I don't think that.
But in the sense of where is history going?
History is going towards the dispossession of white people, the influx of massive amounts of non-whites, Arabs, Africans, and so on, much of them Muslims, Hispanics, and so on.
Coming into white countries.
This is the reality.
Where is history pointing?
And you can say, oh, we're fine now.
Look, we're all comfortable here.
We can all go to our fancy restaurants and go up to our condo and watch Netflix and drink Chardonnay.
But the fact is, one has to look out in front.
We have to think about what's going to happen in 100 years when we're not alive.
And we have to make decisions on that basis.
So there's no question that this is happening.
What's happening to the Boer people of South Africa?
Just the other day, there was a...
Almost unanimous vote in Parliament to dispossess farmers without compensation.
That kind of thing can happen in formerly white countries.
But, you know, I think probably a more likely scenario in the United States is that we're just going to drift into humiliation, not so much physical dispossession.
We'll just lose a sense of ourselves.
We'll become this debased race, a parody of what we have been in the past with no sense of ourselves, no care about the future, no care outside of what am I going to consume this morning, what kind of sauce do I want to put on my hamburger, what am I going to watch on my iPhone.
I don't want to save the white race if what we're going to be is a bunch of Humiliated imbeciles, you know, barely making it.
The meaning of Europe is something much bigger.
It's this challenge that we need to rival our ancestors.
We need to rival the ancient world in terms of greatness.
Yeah.
Okay.
I really want to understand you.
And I understand there are quite a few things that you're saying.
But, you know, if you mention the Holocaust.
How do you refer to the Holocaust?
It was a sad event.
It happened.
How do you see it?
I think all of those are certainly correct.
The Second World War was an absolute catastrophe.
And I do think it is rather unfair, to be honest, that the Jewish suffering seems to have a unique position when we look at the Second World War.
Almost everyone can say, "Oh, six million Jews died in the Second World War." Your average high school student knows that statistic.
How many Russians suffered during that catastrophic period?
How many Germans suffered?
At the hands of Allied bombing raids and so on.
These are very serious questions.
How many Poles suffered at both the hands of Germans and...
I'm not even arguing with you about numbers.
You know, undoubtedly, Russian people were killed in mass numbers, much more than the six millions.
But it's a naive question.
Are you sad for the Jews who were being killed?
Yes.
Yeah, definitely.
I feel sympathy.
But Jews nowadays, they can be part of the white country or they have to be excluded.
Oh, you mean in terms of a future?
Right.
So obviously they're Jewish citizens of the United States and so on.
But in terms of an ethnostate in the future, if we're able to create a real homeland for us, no, it would not be a homeland for the Jews.
Jews have a homeland.
They have a homeland right now, which is Israel.
And actually, my concept of the ethnostate, which is a bit different than other people's, my concept actually takes...
It is influenced quite a bit by Zionism in the sense that, you know, we have ethnostates right now.
You could say that Poland right now is an ethnostate.
It has a common language, a common ethnicity, more or less, with some Slavic and Germanic elements, a common ethnicity, a common religion, more or less, with Catholicism, a common history, certainly, and a common story of suffering and overcoming.
That is an ethnostate.
But my vision of an ethnostate is actually grander than that.
And it would take some cues, you could say, from Zionism, in the sense that it would be a large area that would be open to all white people.
So it would be open to Slavs, it would be open to Anglo-Saxons, it would be open to Italians, it would be open to Celts.
In a way, one's history, one's race is one's passport.
And much like Israel is a homeland not just for Israeli citizens, but for all Jews, this ethnostate would be the same for whites.
But you know, a lot of Jews are being regarded as white.
True.
Do Jews regard themselves as white, I think is the question.
You know, it's like you said in the beginning.
You didn't answer.
No, no.
I mean, you mentioned that...
You're being left with a sense of guilt as white.
A lot of Israel are being left with a sense of guilt as white.
You know, Israel as well, you know, it's divided between Ashkenazi Jews, Farhani Jews.
A lot of people will tell you, you know, Ashkenazi stole our property.
They did everything to us.
You know, by Arab Palestinians, they said, we grab the country.
So you keep going with a sense of guilt.
According to them, you're another white imperialist, you know.
Right.
Okay.
You know, it doesn't really matter.
Right.
So, you know...
There's no doubt that Jews are also affected by this white guilt.
Jews are excluded according to your idea because of what?
Because there is a problem with Judaism or, you know, you need to be a Christian.
And by the way, a Christian is Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox.
Sure.
I think it's fine.
I agree.
Jews, in a way, exclude themselves.
I mean, I think it would be...
An insult for me to say that Jews are just white.
Because Jews aren't just white.
And in fact, Jewish consciousness and Jewish identity is based on resisting Gentiles.
I mean, the celebration of Hanukkah is fundamentally about not being Greek.
And Jewish identity, I mean, there would be no need for Israel if Jews were just simply white people.
You know, French fought Germans and Polish fought...
That's true.
Everybody fought each other.
I agree.
But you bring them together...
But we understand ourselves...
We ultimately understand ourselves as European.
Even the most intense ethno-nationalist, the Frenchman who just hates the English more than he hates death itself, or so on.
And those people, you know, that's kind of something from the past.
Even the most intense ethno-nationalist within Europe understands that we have a common civilization.
And, you know, as Charles de Gaulle said something to the effect, what is the French-speaking people?
I think he described himself as a Mediterranean people of the Christian and Catholic religion that is influenced by the classical world.
Even that isn't quite...
Correct.
Because, you know, France actually has a tremendous Germanic influence.
The word France is Frank.
But all I'm saying is that...
Even within our particularity, there is a sense of commonality.
Russians understand themselves as a third Rome, and thus connected to Byzantium, connected to the Roman Empire, and so on.
Christendom itself, this idea during the Middle Ages, there was an international Christendom, you could say.
Even something like the European Union, which is a bugbear on the right in general, You find a lot of people who share your view and are really,
really ashamed to express it because I'm absolutely sure that there are a lot of them who wouldn't be able to express it.
But you see, can you describe to me a process when you see people really get into it and open up?
Right, I mean, it's very interesting because, you know, I'm a controversial figure.
But I'm not a controversial figure because I say things that are totally ridiculous.
I don't believe in aliens.
I think that we actually did land on the moon.
I think the world is round.
I don't, all of these hyper, you know, kind of funny...
Esoteric, weird opinions.
I don't hold any of them.
I'm actually really mainstream when it comes to most of my basic beliefs.
But I'm wildly controversial because I'm saying something that is sensational, but it's true.
I'm not saying that Hillary Clinton's in fact an alien, you know, come from another planet to rule over us.
You know, no.
All I'm saying is it's okay to be white.
We're white.
We've got to fight back.
And people look at that and it's shocking.
And I think we should be shocking.
I would never apologize at all for being bold, for taking risk and so on.
But it's shocking to them because they kind of know I'm right.
And they feel it too.
And so that's the right kind of shock.
It's not shock for shock's sake.
It's shock for a larger point.
So you see, actually, because if I try to get to this logic, you know, there are a lot of people with a sense of guilt.
And I think they could repair for it, you know, if they find a bad guy, so you service the bad guy, oh, and if I can't be against him, I'm redeemed.
By all the people who try to put me at the...
Absolutely.
I'm sure there are many liberals who, you know, I'm not Richard Spencer, these alt-right people, oh no, I'm one of the good whites, yeah, the good people.
But, you know, maybe we're gonna...
You're just taking it for making intercuts.
No problem, yeah.
Maybe we're gonna have to be villains before we become heroes.
And I'm willing to bear that burden.
I don't think that everyone's just going to like me.
Most of the time when people meet me personally, they do like me.
They find me charming and witty.
But there are many people who have never met me personally who hate me.
Who think that what I'm saying is absolute evil.
And so on.
But, you know, maybe we're going to have to bear that burden.
We're going to have to take it.
We're going to have to take these slings and arrows in order to get to the other side.
Because, you know, I don't go out to antagonize people, but I've never had the illusion that I wouldn't do that.
I always knew that what I was doing is a very steep road uphill and that this is going to be terribly difficult.
Because people, you know, really, I absolutely agree that people wouldn't like, you know, to hear you in length.
You know, just they need headline here and headline there and a bad guy.
Let's refer to it.
It's something that you said.
The "Hail Trump" speech.
Describe you to me.
What happened there?
What you said?
How was the interpretation?
Sure.
It was an intense moment.
And it was a moment of euphoria for us all.
And I'll say this.
I did think that Donald Trump was a breakthrough candidate.
And I did predict that he was going to win, but I was not sure about it.
You know, I was ready on that night in November to go home and be like, well, you know, we had a great time.
What a party.
You know, we burst onto the scene.
But what happened was a miracle, and it was a tremendous victory.
And Trump also, he wasn't just any other candidate, because it was a victory of nationalism, and also it was an alt-right victory.
It was our ideas were entering the mainstream for the first time.
And so I think it was a time to celebrate.
So I said, yeah, hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory.
I knew that that was going to be provocative, but I didn't quite know.
Just how provocative.
It would become a meme on YouTube and the internet and so on.
And I remember one time I was actually eating a casual dinner with a friend of mine and I looked up and at the bar there was a television and I was on the television.
Hail Trump!
Again, I raised a whiskey glass.
But it was surreal.
And I knew that nothing could ever be the same.
After that.
But you meant what you're saying.
Oh, I meant it, absolutely.
You're an intelligent person.
You know a lot of history.
You know the meaning of the word hail and what it relates, how it relates to people.
I knew it was going to be provocative, no question.
But I also don't apologize.
Why did you choose the word hail?
Because we should hail.
In America, we have the hail to the chief.
It's a sense of honoring someone.
And yes, of course, it has resonances with the Nazis, Hitler, etc.
Sure, I knew that I was being provocative.
But I won't apologize for saying hail.
Trump did achieve something that was miraculous.
Hail our people.
I'll always hail our people.
Hail victory might even be the most important one.
Because one should always hail victory.
We're not in this to play tiddlywinks.
And also, and I would say this, and this will probably be fairly controversial, we're not in this simply for the truth.
In the sense that I don't want to be, I don't want our people to be dispossessed and for people like me to be thrown into a thought prison or something like this and be like, well, you know, I was right.
You know, no.
I want to win.
Winning is everything.
If you enter politics and you do not want to achieve victory, you need to take up gardening.
I think it is a continuation of the idea that you don't have to...
Go along with a sense of guilt.
So if you win, this is it.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not about guilt.
Oh, we've overcome our terrible past.
Oh, no, no.
Throw that out the window.
We want to win.
We want whites to flourish in the United States.
I want a great future for my children and my children's children.
That is winning.
And even beyond...
You know, safety and human flourishing.
I want the white race to achieve greatness.
I want the white race to do what we're destined to do, and that is explore the universe, whether on the microscopic level or in the spatial realm.
And in the artistic realm.
Yeah.
By the way, no problem with that.
Absolutely.
I mean, but, you know, I recall the way people shared you.
And it was a Nazi salute.
Right.
It was a Nazi salute.
Yes.
It was very unfortunate, and I think where that's coming from with a lot of people, because you see this on Twitter, you see this elsewhere, of using crazy memes and so on, and evoking Hitler or whatever.
You have to understand where it's coming from.
It's coming from a lot of young people who have been told their entire life, That if they have any pride in who they are, if they have any sense of identity, that they're evil.
You're Hitler.
You're literally Hitler.
You're the Ku Klux Klan.
You're this, you're that.
And at some point, those young men want to throw it back in the face of their liberal detectors.
And basically, it's a big F you.
It's a big, yeah, so what?
Look, it's childish.
Again, it is rather...
Look, an aspect of it, it's euphoric, it's ironic, and it's also childish.
I agree.
And I think we need to get over it.
You saw it at the time?
You know, during the speech?
I didn't see it, actually.
First off, and I'm not making excuses because it doesn't matter.
There was lights coming at me.
And so I don't really see the audience.
And then the other thing is that I raised my whiskey glass and then I went and shook someone's hand.
And so I didn't know about it.
So when I saw it, when I saw the video, it was rather shocking.
But I don't...
Look, it was what it was.
These...
Look, if someone deeply cares about the ideas in my speech, if someone ultimately understands me, then I'm not, you know...
I might say, "Look, let's have better optics.
Let's have a better aesthetic." But that's my criticism.
I don't think anything's going to be gained by just pushing everyone away who is genuinely connected to the movement.
We need to set a better example.
We need to set the right tone.
I need to show people the way forward.
By the way, whether or are they still somehow any Jews in the movement?
In the alt-right?
Well, I mean, there's some Jews in the sense that you will find individuals who are interested in these ideas.
There's certainly Jews that I've collaborated with on book projects and so on.
But in the sense of what is the alt-right about, it is not purely about Trump or individualism.
It is about the white race.
But they have no place in the movement.
Because you think about creating a state.
This is the idea of the movement, and Jews cannot get in.
Ultimately, in a white ethno-state, it would be for us, sure.
But we're not there yet.
This is not going to happen tomorrow morning.
This is going to happen in the future.
But, you know, you could say that about every other political movement.
Do whites have a place in the Israeli nationalist movement?
Who knows?
But of course not.
You might have your average white who sympathizes with them.
You might have this religious right community that is wildly in favor of Israel.
There are quite a lot of Jews that will support the movement.
But once they're being excluded from the state, it's like, listen, you're inferior.
You cannot join in.
It doesn't mean inferiority.
It just simply means difference.
You're different?
Okay, fine.
It's interesting.
There are groups.
You're saying we are different.
But you don't say I'm better than yours.
Different.
I mean, look, I do think...
I think whites are better in the sense that they're me.
This is what I want.
When I look up at Notre Dame Cathedral, I resonate with that in a way that when I visited a mosque in Turkey, I did not resonate at all.
I...
I actually have visited Hagia Sophia, and I wanted to remove those minarets surrounding it, to be honest.
So I think, yes, a European sensibility, a mentality, that is better in the sense that it's me.
But there's no objective standard.
You know, on which one race is inherently better than the other.
There's just a simple difference.
And this is because again, we evolved in radically different environments.
And so on.
We became something different than one undifferentiated, individualized mass.
But people will tell you, okay, let's refer to the territory you want to build your state upon.
It is the United States, but again, like you're saying, people came from all walks of life, from very much different societies, countries, continents.
You took it.
You took it from Indians.
So they are the native...
So, you know, go figure.
You can go to another continent and have your state, but not in here.
Let me answer that.
I mean, first off, I think that the Indians or Native Americans do have a place in North America.
I actually have a great deal of sympathy for them.
I respect their culture, their cultures, really.
And I actually want them to have a place in North America.
I want them to have a truly Indian place.
I don't want them to be minorities in a white America.
I want them to have their own spot.
I want them to be themselves.
That being said, yes, we did take the continent from the Indians.
And this is the way the world works.
The world's sovereignty and peace are ultimately founded on conquest.
And that just is what it is.
It's not nice.
It's not moral.
It's pre-moral, you could say.
Because one has to establish a territory, often through violence, in order to establish morality as we know it.
So one must secure sovereignty.
The state must have power.
Or something must have power.
And then on top of that, we can have a consensual society where we're not carrying guns everywhere or at each other's throats.
We can have conversations.
We can disagree.
That's all fine.
But it has to be based on power.
And this is something that...
You know, people like Carl Schmitt recognized, Thomas Hobbes recognized this to a very degree, and certainly ancient thinkers, right?
They didn't even have to talk about it.
Of course, that's what it is.
I think in the contemporary world, we seem to want to get away from this.
We don't think that politics is about power.
We want to think politics is about, I don't even know, equalizing...
Your state will be here.
Your state.
I hope there would be an ethno state in North America.
But it could be anywhere.
The Jewish state as well.
In other words, an idea beforehand to do it in Uganda.
Right.
In Africa.
And not in the place we are now.
But you're being attacked a lot.
I mean, in the marches.
I mean, a lot of people come and attack you and your people.
I mean, were you beaten at times?
Were you...
Well, I was attacked in the street.
And that was very interesting.
That was actually on inauguration day.
And I was violently attacked by an Antifa member while I was simply talking to a journalist.
And that was a wake-up call, you know, in more ways than one, you could say.
And that was also a time when the movement went beyond the...
Meme war, you could say.
It went beyond the internet and it entered the real world.
And I would say a lot of the movement has never entered the real world.
A lot of the movement is still kind of stuck in that internet space.
But we're going to ultimately have to be in the real world and in the political realm.
So I was attacked in that way.
And in Charlottesville, I was maced first by an Antifa member and then by the police.
Can you describe what happened really in Charlottesville?
Sure.
When I was...
Charlottesville, again, this was a rally organized by a man named Jason Kessler.
He wanted to bring together almost everyone that we could, on the right, that we could unite around defense of these Civil War statues, memorials.
I was very excited about this.
I knew that it was building up an excitement.
I didn't quite...
I didn't expect it to be as big and powerful as it was.
But I was there to speak.
But when we got there, we were all funneled into Lee Park.
And the police were, from the outset, not really doing their job.
As I entered the park, I was maced by someone.
So I was simply walking down the street.
And someone jumped out and maced me.
And, you know, I recovered, obviously.
We were in the park, and we were waiting.
When are we going to be able to speak?
And the police were just dragging their feet.
Ah, that's later.
Then, before any chaos ensued...
The police came out, and again, we saw these militarized police officers marching up.
They came out and they announced, Virginia has declared a state of emergency, you need to all disperse now, and so on.
We were flabbergasted and utterly...
In the sense that we hadn't even said a word yet.
And there was no real violence.
There was just little things like maybe a scuffle here, I got maced, whatever.
Then the police, in this militarized fashion, cleared the field, Lee or Emancipation Park, and pushed us out onto Market Street.
Market Street...
In an utterly predictable fashion became a street of violence, mayhem, and chaos.
The police did the opposite of their job.
The police are supposed to protect people who are lawfully assembling and allowing us to speak.
Instead, the police utterly betrayed us and generated chaos.
And I don't say that lightly.
I don't want to criticize the police.
That's not...
My general M.O., but I have to in this case.
It was oppressive, and it was utterly immoral what they did.
So we were forced out onto Market Street.
I was able, I stood up to the police, and there's actually a photo that's now fairly famous of me kind of gritting my teeth with the police officers.
But then I was maced by the police right in the face.
I was totally discombobulated.
And then actually, Gregory, Conte and I, Gregory's actually in the other room now, we eventually exited.
We actually, as we were exiting onto Market Street, I talked to a police officer and I said, I was like, look.
I'm discombobulated right now.
I am a target for these people.
The Antifa, they might like to punch a Trump supporter, but they really want to attack Richard Spencer.
And again, some of my other friends, Baked Alaska was a really great guy.
He was viciously attacked with acid in his eyes.
He's luckily recovered, but it's terrible.
And I told them this.
I was like, look, what do we do?
What do we do?
and they just pushed us out onto Market Street.
Now, Gregory and I were able to escape effectively.
And in a way, I'm lucky to get out of there with my life.
While we were walking down or actually running down Market Street, people were throwing things at me.
Something actually hit my back.
No injury at all.
But, you know, this was extremely dangerous.
And it needn't have been so.
I can easily imagine alternative scenarios in which the police do their job.
And yeah, there's a scuffle here.
Yeah, some guy gets maced.
But no one really gets hurt.
But what ultimately happened in all that chaos is a woman was killed.
And again, with James Fields, who was the young man who was driving the car.
Look.
If he did maliciously drive a car into a crowd and that can be proven, then I will absolutely condemn that.
That has no place in the movement.
However, I am not convinced that that happened.
There is actually a professor recently, he talked about waving a gun at the car.
The car was attacked, not only after the event, but before.
Also, there's some strange aspects to this.
rammed into another car that then rammed into the crowd.
It is a strange event.
And I don't quite know what happened.
So I'm reserving judgment.
But the judgment that I won't reserve is against the mayor and the governor and the chief of police.
This is their job.
This is their job to maintain order.
And they did the opposite of their job.
They maintained care.
Donald Trump sent both sides to be blamed.
We said there were good people on both sides, too.
I think saying both sides to be blamed is a fair statement.
Were mistakes made on our side?
Sure.
There were a lot of mistakes on their side and on the other side.
And, you know, again, the vision of this event that's being put forward, say, in one case, in a lawsuit that has been filed against me in civil court, is this vision that we came to just, it was a secret attack.
People of the community and so on.
That's not my experience.
First off, I didn't organize the event.
But secondly, I was totally unarmed.
I never attacked anyone.
I was attacked on multiple occasions.
But so yeah, I was very proud of Donald Trump because at that moment of crisis, the mainstream media was just going into conniption fits of hysteria.
And Donald Trump's...
Have you ever met him?
I've never met him, no.
But the team represented someone who might push the country forward to fulfill your ideas?
Yes and no.
I didn't think that Donald Trump, I've never thought that Donald Trump was a true identitarian or alt-right or anything like that.
Could Donald Trump bring these ideas into the mainstream?
Yes.
Not totally.
He's not going to articulate things like I do.
Not even close.
But can he bring that idea of nationalism and even identity into the mainstream?
He did that.
He didn't...
Again, most conservatives talk about loving capitalism or loving bombing Muslims or whatever.
He talked about, I'm going to be your champion.
I'm going to use the government on your behalf.
You, the American people.
You're dreamers too.
I'm not worried about immigrants.
I'm worried about you.
This basic, heartfelt statements were unbelievable.
I had never heard those by any Republican in my adult lifetime.
And so the fact that he brought that into the fray was an amazing thing.
Now, you know, Trump in office.
Is Trump in office the same Trump who ran?
No, unfortunately not.
You're disillusioned?
You're disillusioned by him?
You know, when Trump is attacked by people who are very unfair and very wrong, I'll certainly support Trump.
And I think Trump has actually attempted things that are very good.
Even the DACA issue, we're now kind of forgetting about it.
Trump was attempting to end chain migration, to really change the paradigm, while offering an amnesty, effectively, for DACA, the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, what I believe it stands for.
That was an interesting deal.
I respect that deal.
I'm glad he seems to be building the wall, although I don't know.
But to be honest, in terms of the rest of his policies, I am not a fan.
The attack on Syria was unwarranted.
Thankfully, that didn't lead to a larger war.
The healthcare stuff was just a fiasco.
He had no vision.
He himself wants a national healthcare system.
He's written this in a book about how he wants something like Medicare for All.
He wants to have a system for everyone, that takes care of everyone.
Yet he's pursuing this Republican weird...
Half Obamacare, half free market, just incoherent nonsense.
He's pursuing that.
The tax cuts, I don't care about tax cuts.
Look, corporations have piles of money.
Rich people are doing fine.
I would much, much rather that he focus on an infrastructure plan.
Let's put people to work building the wall.
Let's put people to work building a major rail, light rail system around the country.
Let's put people to work...
In some other way, in some kind of environmental protection way, much like FDR built all these wonderful things with the national parks.
Why don't we do something like that?
Let's think outside the box.
Let's stop being conservatives.
Let's stop being Paul Ryan.
Let's stop being Mitch McConnell.
These people are doofuses and awful.
Let's be a real nationalist.
Take from the left.
Destroy the left.
They hate you.
So destroy them by taking all their good stuff.
Because a lot of white people vote for the left on the basis of environmentalism and infrastructure and non-insane foreign policy.
They don't like the anti-white stuff.
They don't like the Democratic Party as the people of color party, the mass immigration party.
They don't like that.
So take the good stuff from the left.
Don't take the bad stuff.
And defeat your enemies on both sides.
This was the path for Donald Trump, and this is what he didn't do.
So, you know, I want to be a Trump fan, but I can't.
I'm a critical person.
And he's under attack, and so I get it, but he's missed a lot of opportunities.
So if I finally talk about foreign policy in North Korea, talking about nationalism, how do you regard this idea of North Korea?
Well, North Korea is interestingly a very nationalistic society.
They have a sense of themselves as an ethnicity or as a race.
And whatever you want to say about that society, I don't want to live in North Korea, but whatever you want to say about it, there actually is a sense of national feeling there in their parades and public festivals and so on.
That's something to consider.
I'm not endorsing Kim Jong-un or communism, for God's sake, or anything like that.
But it is interesting.
That is a nationalistic community.
I don't want to have a North Korean economic system.
But that sense of themselves is something.
I think one should always find the virtue in something.
It's easy to bash North Korea.
Left and right, everyone bashes them.
It's a little more difficult to actually show some respect for who they are.
Now, in terms of foreign policy, I totally support Donald Trump's outreach.
I now think that he might have been playing a kind of madman game internationally, where he presented himself as unhinged lunatic with his finger on the button.
And but now, but in order to get a good deal later on, in order to then reach out to North to Kim Jong Un and engage in talks about de-escalation.
I think that ultimately North Korea should unify with South Korea.
I think we need to bring an end to that conflict.
There has been an armistice, but there has not been an end to the Korean War.
We need to bring an end to that conflict.
I would support reunification, as difficult as that might be.
And with the understanding that North Korea is going to be Do you think the U.S. got to leave the place?
I think certainly Japan.
Japan is an amazing society and Japan has a sense of nationalism and honor that can't be matched.
So I think Japan should rise rightfully to not just an economic power, but a military power.
And that we can ultimately outsource many questions in that region.
But America should go out from this region?
Generally speaking, this is not our place.
I would much rather that we focus on securing our realm, a larger, greater realm.
In North America, that this is a realm for our people that we're focusing here.
I think in terms of the Far East, there are going to be hegemonic powers, obviously China.
I think Japan can again rise to something like that and in a way balance it.
So I think this is what I would like to see.
I think taking the troops out would be a very interesting move.
That would create a new world order and one that's more productive.
I don't think we need to be opening ourselves up to any kind of Far East conflict.
And I would say this, more or less say the same thing about NATO.
I mean, Donald Trump criticized NATO, fascinatingly, during the campaign, but he hasn't really done anything.
He's just claimed, oh, we want Germany to pay more or something.
It's weird.
I mean, this is the question.
Do we want to continue to try to expand NATO at the expense of Russia's natural sphere?
Because look, the Westphalian system of individual nation states, that was probably always a little bit of an illusion, but it's not really operative anymore.
Certainly the Cold War was an imperial clash between an American and a Soviet empire, and that is more or less what we see today.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States made promises about not one more inch would we expand NATO.
We have not kept those promises.
We've expanded NATO into the former Soviet bloc.
In Ukraine, the Maidan and this kind of thing was obviously supported by the West as a way of encroaching on Russia's natural sphere.
I think Russia should have a natural sphere.
Russia is not just a nation, but it's an empire.
And we need to simply respect that.
I don't think there's any reason why we should be attempting to question Russian sovereignty, particularly in Ukraine, but really elsewhere.
Now, could NATO, in this fascinating dialectical move, could NATO become a kind of Ethnostate, you could say.
You know, the European Union, as I said earlier, is, you know, it is based on, if it's anything, it's based on a shared civilization.
And the white race.
If it's going to have any legitimacy.
Otherwise, it could just be a bureaucracy.
Why even use Europe in that word?
Why have a national anthem?
Why evoke Beethoven and the Ode to Joy and so on?
But it's kind of a bureaucracy in search of sovereignty.
So it is bureaucratic, but it's not really sovereign.
It doesn't have a military.
It doesn't really have a foreign policy outside of trade.
NATO is an interesting, it's an overlay.
So NATO is part of an American empire.
NATO is not really European.
I mean, let's be honest.
NATO is about keeping the Russians out of Europe.
It's about keeping America in Europe and keeping Germany down.
But could NATO transform into a kind of white military structure that would solve a lot of these problems?
So that NATO itself would be sovereign militarily.
There would not be internecine conflicts within the white race.
And that there could be a sphere, a European sphere, that would be friendly towards Russia.
But would it be Russia?
Would kind of guard...
Everyone should have his own place.
And when the North Koreans have their place, this is where you're speaking.
I'm okay.
I'm okay with it, yeah.
I don't want to live there, but I'm okay with it.
But again, we need to think also kind of bigger.
Because geopolitics isn't just about little nation states.
It's not just about Italy and its foreign policy.
It's about bigger things.
It's about NATO.
It's about China.
It's about Russia.
It's about big imperial.
Specifically for North Korea.
According to the alt-right.
We're fine with it.
I don't have any desire to go destroy North Korea.
The nuclear weapons situation, yes, all things being equal, it's better if another country doesn't have nuclear weapons.
But the fact is, North Korea is a vassal state of China.
It, in effect, already has nuclear weapons.
And also, I understand why North Korea would seek nuclear weapons when you have the mass media and presidents talking about bombing them back to the Stone Age.
I think, again, I think North Korea should be North Korea.
I think we can let it be itself.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just for you Israelis, you know, two very, very short, you know, in one sentence.
Sure.
I mean, people who say you are racist, what's your answer?
Race is real.
Race matters.
And race is the foundation of identity.
Racist is just a slur word.
It's just you're a bad guy is what it means.
But does race mean something to me?
Is it the foundation of my worldview?
Absolutely, yes.
anti-Semitic?
I'm not anti-Semitic.
I don't hate Jewish people or Semites.
I am aware of Jewish identity and Jewish influence.
So, you know, in the sense that I'm aware of Cuban identity and influence, I'm aware of Italian identity and influence.
Black?
Anti-black?
I'm not anti-black now.
Okay, and what is this?
They said no more wars for Israel.
Yes, that was a flyer that actually Gregory, he was handing those out at one point.
But it stands for what?
It was actually handed out during AIPAC.
And you can get a photo of that if you want to, to put in your documentary.
Yeah, no more wars for Israel in the sense that I respect Israel.
I don't question the basis of Israel in the sense of it is a Jewish state.
But Israel needs to have its own foreign policy.
I don't want any American fighting a war that is in support of Israel.
That is not who we are.
We need to fight wars that are in support of us.
So Israel can have its foreign policy.
If I were a president, I might agree with Israel here.
Disagree there.
I might actually agree with Iran here.
Disagree there.
But I'm not going to have this foreign policy that's almost maniacally pro-Saudi and pro-Israeli.
I think actually I would much rather have a balance in that world and try to find a way to say, we respect Syrian sovereignty.
We respect Assad.
We respect Iranian sovereignty.
We don't want to destroy Iran like some John Bolton or some of these...
Christian, Zionist fanatics.
We need to destroy Iran.
I don't want to destroy Iran.
I actually would prefer a balance of power in the Middle East and to have unilateral, individual relations with these big players.
Iran being one, Syria being another, Israel certainly being one.
So last one.
Adolf Hitler.
I don't think that you're adoring him.
I don't think that you think that he's a good guy.
No.
You think he had good ideas.
Some of his ideas were good.
Many of the ideas that Adolf Hitler had were not unique to Adolf Hitler.
The idea of German nationalism, of a certain German-ness and so on, that's not unique to Hitler.
And that is a good idea.
Some aspects of fascism were actually not unique to, and I do think National Socialism is fascism, generic fascism.
These ideas of dynamism, of combining modernity with tradition.
So having an Autobahn, but also having a beautiful view and a protection of nature while you're having these cars racing down it at 100 kilometers per hour.
That kind of fusion, futurism, which is at the heart of fascism.
Those are good ideas, but they're not unique to Hitler.
Lebensraum, for example.
Well, Lebensraum, now, what does that mean in the sense of a space for a community to live?
It's not just simply a good idea.
I mean, it's the way the world works.
That's a Norwegian flag.
As you know, it is very similar to the anti-fascist German movement.
Oh, interesting.
I didn't know that.
It is very similar.
I've just been to Germany to the Pegida movement.
You know the Pegida movement?
Yes, of course.
Their flags, you should see, is very, very, very similar to the Norwegian one.
And when I ask, you know, it has to do with the anti-fascist movement as if to show I'm the real national, I'm a good guy, you know, we were against Hitler.
You know, I get why they do that.
I don't...
Again, this goes back to what I was saying in the beginning of the conversation, that forgetfulness.
If you're just simply defining oneself as, I'm not Hitler, in a weird way, you make Hitler all-powerful.
You know, Hitler is a kind of negative moral center to the contemporary world.
Everyone wants to be not Hitler.
And if you do something that's a little too nationalistic, uh-oh, you're like Hitler.
This is childish.
We need to get over this.
And there were many other great figures who were utterly demonized in their day, Napoleon being one, Julius Caesar being one.
But in the long durée, when we're able to look back upon them, we can recognize great virtues in someone like Napoleon, even though at the time, yes, I think we should have a bit of a Napoleonic boldness to our movement.
You're not afraid for your life?
I am afraid for my life.
No question.
I have a different consciousness than I did five years ago.
Five years ago, if I were to walk into a restaurant, I'm an anonymous guy.
I just go in, sit down, and whatever.
When I walk anywhere, when I walk down the street, my antennae are up.
And I'm aware of, is someone looking at me?
When I walk down and I see someone who's dressed in all black...
Is this someone who might actually attack me?
Is this an Antifa member?
I protect myself.
I don't quite sleep with a Walter PPK under my pillow like James Bond, but I certainly do protect myself in that sense.
I do fear for my life, but at the end of the day, what we're doing is worth it.
It's not about me.
Look, I have an ego.
I want to be recognized.
Yeah, I want success.
Of course.
But it's not fundamentally about me.
I could have done a lot of things in my life.
If I had simply gone to law school like a good boy, if I had simply gone to become a banker or whatever like a good boy, I would have a lot more money than I have now and I would have less concerns.
I could walk anywhere without any concern at all.
I'm willing to sacrifice.
And one has to be willing to sacrifice in this movement.
One ultimately has to be willing to lay down one's life for the cause.
Now, that doesn't mean I want that or I seek martyrdom.
I don't.
I want to die happy in bed when I'm 95. But I am willing to risk my life for this cause.
And if one isn't willing to face death...
As Hegel talked about, to stare down one's opponent and be willing to die for something higher than one needs to take up gardening.
Richard Spencer, I thank you so much for your time, for this interview, and for your patience.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
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