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Dec. 10, 2021 - RadixJournal - Richard Spencer
08:36
Richard Spencer CNN Interview (12/10/2021)
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Spencer.
We've interviewed him a couple times since he's been back in Charlottesville for the lawsuit.
Always in a different location because he was initially too scared to stay too close to town.
Do you understand, like, piling on someone when they're facing a lawsuit is probably...
Well, I would dispute the characterization of piling.
I mean, what you don't want me to ask you about is, like, the most interesting thing.
What?
Like, did you do it on purpose and do you feel bad about it?
Are you talking about Charlottesville or some other thing?
Yeah!
And the whole thing.
The whole movement itself.
Did you do it on purpose?
Or did you not care?
I didn't create the movement.
You named it.
You became the face of it.
I was trying to unite everything where it would be simply me.
And it would have been better if they had f***ing bent the knee and shut the f*** up.
The whole 2016-2017 experience was quite something, wasn't it?
I was making headlines every week.
Trump was also reaching people online.
And the alt-right became a kind of advertising wing.
And the alt-right's anonymous.
I am not anonymous.
If I dare say so, I think I'm interesting.
You mean you were a symbol of a broader movement that didn't have a face?
Exactly, yeah.
And people could kind of freak out.
And love to hate me and maybe hate to love me.
Are you like the hipster version of the neo-Nazi movement?
There was the punch of Richard Spencer in 2017.
So that's kind of when, like, political violence, it's back, baby, and Antifa is real.
Then it was almost like the alt-right and the alt-light were kind of fighting back.
And so you had, like, Nathan D 'Amigo punch that Goldilocks or whatever.
Goldilocks!
I feel like I was attached to all these people that want to come hang out and be alt-right.
Yeah, I mean, I was too old.
I was slumming.
I don't know.
Did you think there'd be any consequences to your slumming?
To my slumming with those guys?
To your word.
Did I predict this kind of lawfare or whatever?
No.
What about the violence?
I feared that there was going to be some kind of violence at a lot of those rallies.
That was becoming present.
I think I underestimate, and I think I underestimate about a lot of people, I think a lot of people wanted to be me.
One of the big things of the alt-right was, I want to be Spencer, I want to be in the headlines.
It created a tremendous amount of jealousy.
So you knew you would attract attention if you went to this rally?
To Charlottesville?
Mm-hmm.
Well, yeah, and I wanted attention, yeah.
It was almost like a concert tour or something.
Richard Spencer's here.
This is our speaker for the night.
This is why we're here, everybody.
We own these streets!
We occupy this ground!
We won!
Did you plan to follow the law in Charlottesville?
I did follow the law.
I don't know what to say.
Did I plan to follow the law?
What do you mean?
If you're willing to be arrested, you're going to get arrested.
We have a permit for this.
We are staying 100%.
There's no way I'm leaving.
A few days before the rally, before your permit for the park was reinstated, you told me that if it wasn't reinstated, you guys would march to the park anyway and try to get arrested.
Hmm.
I don't remember saying that, but what's your point?
That, one, you were planning the rally.
The spectacle.
And two, you were planning to disobey the city orders.
I was planning Charlottesville because of that thing that I told you?
You were certainly planning part of it.
LAE.
This is just nonsense.
It's like you're trying to press me and press me and press me until I say something like, yeah, I did Charlottesville and we wanted the violence.
Yeah!
That's what it was all about because I'm a sick freak.
Give me a break, Ali.
We're going to f***ing, visualistically humiliate them!
I am coming back here every f***ing weekend if I have to.
They f***ing lose!
That's how the world f***ing works!
They don't f***ing kites!
They get ruled by people like me!
Little f***ing oxen runes.
I f***ing my ancestors f***ing enslaved those pieces of f***ing shit.
I rule the f***ing world.
Those pieces of shit get ruled by people like me.
They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them.
I'll probably never live down this rant from that day of I rule the f***ing world and whatever.
Yeah, people like you look up their faces like me.
Yeah, we know what I'm talking about, okay?
I felt like at that moment everything was kind of closing in.
After Charlottesville went in the way it went, there was no way to transfigure...
This movement.
I mean, on some level, this movement was about, like, 4chan people and computer programmers and basement dwellers and incels and whatever.
But it was like, there was this energy and opportunity around Trump where it can be transformed into something that I want.
And certainly after Charlottesville, that was impossible.
This is what happens when you really, truly unite the right.
At the end of the day, unite the right means putting me next to, like, Asmodore.
Who's just disgusting and gross.
I mean, he should just be...
I hate...
I don't like ugly, stupid freaks.
It should have always just simply been about Richard Spencer.
I'm not going home.
I look back on all of it, and I kind of cringe a little bit.
There was maybe some good aspects of it, but a lot of things I regret.
Looking back on Charlottesville, I think it's remarkable that it wasn't worse in terms of casualties, to be honest.
So what exactly do you regret?
Oh, it's a big question.
The problem is we don't have time machines, and talking about them is just kind of speculative.
So you can't name one thing you regret?
Well, what could I have done that could have say...
I guess you could say that not only would I have not agreed to go to Charlottesville, but I would have tried to just stop Charlottesville and then Heather Heyer would be alive today.
Outside of that, of shutting down the whole thing, which is probably something that I could not have actually done.
You said you had many regrets.
Can you name one of them?
Yes.
I regret...
I ultimately regret being a part of that whole crowd.
All of that juvenile, ironic Nazi humor, it's just so over.
And I cringe when I even think about it now.
I think I've said this a couple times, but you have said you have regrets.
But every time I ask you to...
Explain those regrets.
I have explained those.
It's framed in terms of I was hanging out.
I made those decisions, Ellie.
With losers.
I made those decisions.
You're like, I let myself get dragged down by this filth.
But those were your people.
Those are your guys.
Why don't you take responsibility for them?
I have.
If they wanted to be you and they went into the street and beat people up.
What does that say to you?
Well, you seem to just want to...
Your entire point here is just to prove that I'm like a piece of shit and why don't you just accept it?
I mean, look, Ellie, I don't...
I'm not here to be insulted.
Maybe when someone's actually honest and expresses a regret, you should probably allow them to do that as opposed to jumping on their f***ing back.
You know?
Do you regret injecting such explicit, intense racism into American politics?
I did not inject that in there.
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