Weekend Read: The radical right is thriving inside the White House. Outside, it's falling apart.
He crisscrossed the country. He fought in court. But white nationalist Richard Spencer has a simple explanation for why he will no longer give speeches on college campuses to spread the racist ideology of the so-called “alt-right.”
“They aren’t fun anymore,” he said Sunday.
Spencer’s explanation — as though white nationalism has ever been, or should ever be, “fun” — was a harbinger of what was to come from the radical right this week.
Less than 48 hours after Spencer posted his announcement to YouTube, the leader of the neo-Nazi Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP), Matthew Heimbach, was arrested and charged with battery of his wife and his father-in-law, Matt Parrott, himself TWP’s chief spokesperson.
Parrott announced his resignation from the TWP just hours after Heimbach’s arrest.
“I’m done. I’m out,” Parrott told our Hatewatch staff on Tuesday. “SPLC has won. Matt Parrott is out of the game. Y’all have a nice life.”
The next morning, Dylann Roof’s 18-year-old sister, Morgan, was arrested after bringing two weapons to school, authorities said. She also posted that she hoped students participating in Wednesday's walkout to protest gun violence would "get shot." She suggested that only "black people" would be participating in the walkout.
It's been a chaotic news cycle for the radical right — one that suggests that the fringe is, perhaps, unravelling.
But in the White House, where more than one hate group is enjoying unprecedented access to power, elements that were once considered fringe are being woven ever more tightly into the fabric of our government.
On Tuesday alone, as TWP appeared to be in crisis, President Trump cited one hate group in a tweet and appointed a secretary of state with close ties to another.
“According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the $18 billion wall will pay for itself by curbing the importation of crime, drugs and illegal immigrants who tend to go on the federal dole,” Trump tweeted.
Just hours earlier, he had announced that Mike Pompeo would replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, playing right into the hands of the radical anti-Muslim movement in the U.S. and abroad.
“Rep. Mike Pompeo has been a steadfast ally of ours since the day he was elected to Congress,” said Brigitte Gabriel, leader of the anti-Muslim hate group ACT for America, as she presented Pompeo with the group’s National Security Eagle award in 2016.
Since Trump entered the Oval Office a little over a year ago, we have seen him welcome extremism into the White House time and again.
Even extremists once associated with Trump administration are enjoying access to power in a way that they never did before their time in the White House.
“Let them call you racists,” Stephen Bannon, former Breitbart editor and Trump chief strategist, told the French far-right on Sunday. “Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor.”
Honor? There’s no honor among racists. This week, if anything, proves that.
The Editors.
P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable:
- For black motorists, a never-ending fear of being stopped by Michael A. Fletcher for National Geographic
- A Dreamer’s life by Charlotte Alter for TIME
- A leaked message board shows what white supremacists think of the police by Jackson Landers for ReWire
- After “Open Casket:” What Emmett Till teaches us today by Siddhartha Mitter for The Village Voice
SPLC’s Weekend Read is a weekly summary of the most important news reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequality, and hate and extremism. Sign up to receive the Weekend Read every Saturday morning.
