The New York Times has a piece near the top of their web page tonight: “Alt-Right Exults in Election With Salute of ‘Heil Victory’”
This details a speech by Richard Spencer from the National Policy Institute at their annual meeting in DC. The above excerpt from near the top of the article makes pretty clear what Spencer is all about. He is an unrepentant white supremacist Nazi. And he has deep links with Steve Bannon and Breitbart, as this Mother Jones piece from the summer makes clear:
The crown jewel of the alt-right's media universe, Breitbart News now rivals the New York Post for traffic. The site often flirts with overt racism, as when it used a picture of Harambe the gorilla to illustrate a story about President Barack Obama and birtherism. Former executive chairman Stephen Bannon long championed anti-Muslim extremists on his daily radio show, and Yiannopoulos has portrayed alt-right figures as "dangerously bright." Breitbart News also connects to Spencer's media orbit: The home page editor of Breitbart News, Katie McHugh, until recently dated far-right blogger Kevin DeAnna, who has written articles and appeared in podcasts published by Spencer. ("My relationship was never 'secret' but it's pretty funny it's newsworthy to a shitlib, meaning you," McHugh wrote to me when I asked her for comment.)
Trump is assembling a proposed cabinet and WH staff with the nastiest, most torture loving, racist bunch of white men we have ever seen in DC. Flynn, Bannon, Sessions, now Cotton. And orbiting nearby is this joker Richard Spencer who is a Nazi.
While the Times calls him out on this, what do other media do? The LA TImes tries to make him look somehow cool —
Inside a beige meeting room at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, the buttoned-down millennials, in their dark suits and ties, settled in for the long conference day ahead.
Like countless others who travel to Washington, they had come to position their interests at the forefront of the political agenda. Their sponsor had a wonky and nondescript name, National Policy Institute. They cradled cups of morning coffee.
We have to travel down the article, well past the lede, to discover this important statement from the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Heidi Beirich, who monitors hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said today’s nationalists are picking up where David Duke left off when the former Klan imperial wizard shed his robes to enter politics in the early 1980s.
“This is how you sneak these ideas into the mainstream,” she said. “The guys in the suits are the ones we have to worry about.”
Spencer looks like many young staffers on Capitol Hill. And Beirich noted that even the newer white nationalist label, alt-right, removes the reference to “white,” while positioning the nationalists on the “right” as part of the conservative movement.
“Beneath the benign-looking guy and the benign-sounding name, the purpose of the National Policy Institute is to push the idea that all men are created unequal,” Beirich said. “Sadly, in American history, there’s nothing new with that idea.”
There are plenty of people calling out this horrific normalization —
Folks, this is not normal. Resist. Call for the EC to dump Trump on December 19th. Call for past presidents to call on the EC to dump Trump on December 19th.
Support Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) who is calling for legislation against Trump’s business dealings.
Read up on the emoluments clause and demand Trump divest any holdings which could lead to undue influence by foreign powers before inauguration on Jan. 21. Call on the House Oversight Committee to hold immediate hearings on his unprecedented conflicts of interest and intentions to keep running up $ for Trump organization through his presidency.
Keep fighting against Bannon & Flynn, and insist they get full security clearances before ever setting foot in the WH.
Fight this abnormal orange stain (no offense Kos!) on our great nation robustly and repeatedly.
This is not normal.