CNN: White Power on Trial & Richard Spencer
I cringed.
The most charitable way to read this is that Spencer is obviously talking about Jason Kessler and Nick Fuentes. It is true that Spencer had rivals in 2017. In retrospect, it is also true that this clash of egos within the movement explains why the Unite the Right rally was held in the first place and why it was such a disorganized mess, but no one who watches this is going to see it that way.
For those who are unfamiliar with the backstory, there had been a previous flash rally in Charlottesville in May 2017 which had gone about as smoothly as a large rally in the People’s Republic of Cville could possibly have gone. There was no real reason to go back there except that it was Jason Kessler’s hometown. Kessler came up with the Unite the Right rally and Spencer signed on to be a speaker because it was swelling into such a large event. The two despised each other in private and fought behind the scenes over who would get credit for the event. The feud has gone on for five years and dominated the trial.
It is even worse than that though. The Spencer college tour was modeled on the MILO college tour. Richard Spencer complains that Jason Kessler and Nick Fuentes wanted to be Spencer, but the truth is that Spencer was trying to replace MILO. It was also MILO who leaked that “I rule the f***ing world” tape. You could say that the entire movement was brought down by ecelebs with huge egos fighting with each other.
Why do you want to play the role of a narcissistic Bond villain on CNN?
NO ONE IS WATCHING YOU. You’re not going to persuade anyone of anything. The only people who are watching are radicalized Boomer cat ladies with post-grad degrees who are partisan Democrats.
Anyway, this interview with its overwhelming focus on “me” and wanting to become famous explains a lot. I don’t think the audience was ever focused on Richard Spencer, but rather the set of issues and interests that Spencer was talking about. In Charlottesville, it happened to be civil liberties and Confederate monuments and the larger issue of the plight of Whites in 21st century America.
Note: In 2017, Richard Spencer saddled up with Jason Jorjani, who had an even more ludicrous fantasy of harnessing the Alt-Right as his base in American politics and the Trump administration launching an invasion of Iran which would restore the pre-Islamic Persian Empire.
Source: https://occidentaldissent.com/2021/12/06/cnn-white-power-on-trial/