Today, I interviewed Jared Taylor, the founder of the white nationalist group “American Renaissance.” Taylor, who describes himself as a “racial realist,” is one of the three men behind a new strain of robo-calls, which peppered it’s way across the landlines of Iowa voters this past Saturday.
“We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump,” said Taylor on the message, which was paid for by the American National Super PAC.
When I spoke to Taylor, he seemed unsure whether his personal ideology fit in with Trump’s ideology. Of Trump, he said, “I don’t think Trump has any ideology. So far as I can tell, he has never consistently stuck to any kind of intellectual framework.”
The question I kept asking myself was, if you don’t think Trump is so bright, or even a great candidate— what is the appeal? The answer seems to be right there on the answering machine.
I had originally pitched the piece to the Boston Globe, but the conversation was long and windy, and ultimately turned down. I have done my best to pick out some highlights.
https://soundcloud.com/rodwebber/jt-re-dt
2min:35 “The people who will integrate best to the United States are well educated, English-speaking white people.”
2min:50 Traditionally dressed Muslim woman Rose Hamid and fellow protester, Marty Rosenbluth discussion.
15min:50sec “I don’t think Trump has any ideology. So far as I can tell, he has never consistently stuck to any kind of intellectual framework. And I think he just has generally, healthy and normal instincts. Namely that he wants the country to be made up of productive people, law abiding people, and people who will maintain traditions that are distinctly American. And under those circumstances, the kind of illegal immigration that we’re getting— from all around the world, people as unlike ourselves as possible is not a good thing. He senses it on an instinctive level, rather than working it out on an intellectual level.”
25min: “I don’t even know what a white supremacist is… To call a person a white supremacist is the emotional equivalent of calling a black person the N-word.”
26min “White people want an America that’s American.”
30min RW: “How would you define hate?”
JT: “The New Black Panthers Party, they encourage people to kill crackers… If you have some group that encourages people to kill another group, that sounds hateful to me.”
RW: “Do any other groups come to mind, that are ‘hatemongers,’ as you say?”
JT: “No.”
33min:10 Re: BLM chanting bacon. “It’s a crude and unfair way of characterizing the police.”
34min: “Blacks on the campus of Princeton and Yale are blacks that are the most coddled and pampered blacks in the history of the world.”
35min:15 “Anyone who genuinely believes there’s entrenched white supremacy on the Princeton campus- again those people are living in a different reality than I am.”
39min:10 Trayvon Martin/ Michael brown shootings
39min:55 Michael Brown was high on marijuana, he just committed a strong arm robbery, he attacked officer Darren Wilson…. Darren Wilson had not behaved improperly. Why is it that that the BLM movement makes heroes out of these people? Why do they persist in acting as though these are cases of black racism? Why? It’s because they can get away with it. A great many of whites are unwilling to say this is nonsense. What happened is exactly what supposed to happen.
41:25 RW: “On the flip side of things, what do you make of the case of Steve and Scott Leader? They were the two South Boston men who beat Guillermo Rodriguez with a metal pipe and urinated on him in the name of Donald Trump
JT: Those people are miserable thugs, and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
RW: This is where I start to have problems with you getting behind Donald Trump. He responded, ‘my fans are enthusiastic.
JT: That’s far too casual a response. Obviously he should not have said— Just saying my fans are enthusiastic. No. It’s all well to have enthusiastic fans, but you absolutely don’t want them doing that and you should condemn those people in no uncertain terms.
RW: But why doesn’t he? Why do you get behind a a candidate who’s not immediately willing to condemn these kind of actions?
JT: Because I’m a one-issue candidate.
42min:40 “Donald Trump is capable of saying very thoughtless, impulsive things that probably do not speak to what he believes as a deep person. I think that he would certainly not have suggested don’t prosecute these guys. He would want to prosecute these guys. You think he would want them turned loose because they said Donald Trump while they were beating this guy?”
44min “The whole idea of a hate crime is an illegitimate thing.”
47min: “If you’ve beaten someone, if you’ve robbed someone, that’s what matters.”
*Note. I typed quickly to get this transcribed. I know it wasn’t done perfectly. Feel free to contact me with errors.
