Never Thought I Would See This in My Lifetime: Fascism in America
The New York Times depicted an extraordinary spectacle: the gathering of a group of people wearing swastikas and giving the Nazi salute, convening in a federal office building to celebrate the election of the new President.
They call themselves the “alt-right.” But when people give the “sieg heil” salute, when they babble about the racial inferiority of nonwhites, when they use German expressions, they are neo-Nazis at best.
Their leader, Richard B. Spencer, spoke in familiar terms:
But now his tone changed as he began to tell the audience of more than 200 people, mostly young men, what they had been waiting to hear. He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were “awakening to their own identity.”
As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. Mr. Spencer called out: “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and then, “Hail victory!” — the English translation of the Nazi exhortation “Sieg Heil!” The room shouted back…
Mr. Spencer’s after-dinner speech began with a polemic against the “mainstream media,” before he briefly paused. “Perhaps we should refer to them in the original German?” he said.
The audience immediately screamed back, “Lügenpresse,” reviving a Nazi-era word that means “lying press….”
“America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Mr. Spencer thundered. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”
But the white race, he added, is “a race that travels forever on an upward path.”
“To be white is to be a creator, an explorer, a conqueror,” he said.
More members of the audience were on their feet as Mr. Spencer described the choice facing white people as to “conquer or die.”
Of other races, Mr. Spencer said: “We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.”
This is America. There is free speech for all, even for the speech we deplore. But let’s get the terminology right. “Alt-right” is a weasel word. Just call them fascists.Never Thought I Would See This in My Lifetime: Fascism in America | Diane Ravitch's blog:
