Two blocks from the White House, members of America’s white nationalist movement gathered over the weekend to debate whether Jews are white, how the country could be divided along racial lines—and whether Trump is a savior.
It was something everyone in the room had clearly put a lot of thought into: Are Jews white?
“It’s an interesting question,” replied Richard Spencer, the 37-year-old University of Virginia grad and former journalist who’s become the de facto leader of America’s white nationalist movement. “I would say Jews are Jews.”
Spencer is the president of the National Policy Institute, a think tank “dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States and around the world.” And this was the NPI’s big shindig, its biennial Halloween conference in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C. This year, it was held at the National Press Club, just two blocks from the White House, where the nation’s first black president resides.
Spencer tried to phrase his thoughts on the whiteness of Jewish people carefully. “The Jews exist precisely because they were apart,” he said. “Precisely because they had a sense of apartness—perhaps you could say a little bit of paranoia, about trying to stay away. That’s a clear aspect of Jewish—”
Then he caught himself. Jewish paranoia is an old anti-Semitic trope, and Spencer didn’t want to come across to the press like some old Nazi. He’s young and articulate and handsome in a generic way, a bit like a local TV weatherman. His aim is to give fascism a human face.
“Please don’t quote ‘paranoia,’” he said with a nervous smile, as he glared at the three journalists who showed up at his press conference Saturday afternoon.
It has been a big year for Spencer and company, who said the Washington conference drew its biggest crowd ever. About 175 people were in attendance, almost all of them men and, according to Spencer’s estimate, roughly half of them under 35.
“Before, I felt like I knew everyone in the room,” Spencer said. “I knew most editors of everything. We went to cocktail parties together.” Now, he said, his ideas are everywhere. “I can’t keep up with it.”
Part of the reason why, in Spencer’s words, his views are “metastasizing” is Donald Trump, whom Spencer described as an “icebreaker” for the white nationalist (or, to use his preferred label, “identitarian”) cause.
“I think Donald Trump does have something to do with it,” said Spencer, who claims he doesn’t vote. “To be honest, I’m rather skeptical that he’s going to, by the power of his negotiation ability, make America great again.
“However, what I think he’s done is that he’s delegitimized—and I think he’s to a degree he’s humiliated—mainstream conservatives, the elite of the GOP, and certainly the kind of fuddy-duddy conservative movement types, the National Review. He’s delegitimized them, he’s humiliated them, and I think that opens a space for someone else… it’s not so much Trump per se. It’s not like we think he’s going to save the world. It’s like we finally felt like we’re breaking through, that something’s breaking out, and what comes after Trump is going to be interesting.”
White nationalists like Spencer insist that, unlike other and previous racists, they are not motivated by hate. They don’t wear brownshirts or Klan robes. They are not violent. But they do look forward to the eventual dissolution of the United States and the creation of a new all-white republic, which explains their fascination with who is and who is not Caucasian. And to bring that new country into existence, explained former Klan lawyer Sam Dickson, a speaker at the conference, America needs is its own Mikhail Gorbachev.
