‘Absolutely Repugnant’: Biden Endorsed By Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer

Finance

Richard Spencer, a prominent neo-Nazi who coined the term “alt-right,” said on Sunday that he plans to vote for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

“I plan to vote for Biden and a straight democratic ticket,” Spencer tweeted on Sunday. “It’s not based on ‘accelerationism’ or anything like that; the liberals are clearly more competent people.”

Shortly after, Biden’s campaign forcefully disavowed Spencer’s endorsement.

“When Joe Biden says we are in a battle for the soul of our nation against vile forces of hate who have come crawling out from under rocks, you are the epitome of what he means,” tweeted Andrew Bates, the rapid response director on the Biden campaign. “What you stand for is absolutely repugnant. Your support is 10,000% percent unwelcome here.”

Spencer was an outspoken Trump supporter during the 2016 election and made headlines when he shouted, “Hail Trump!” at a Washington event for a white supremacist think tank shortly after Trump was elected and was greeted with cheers and Nazi salutes.

The think tank, National Policy Institute, is spearheaded by Spencer and describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of  people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”

Spencer has repeatedly called for the “peaceful ethnic cleansing” and a “new society, an ethnostate that would be a gathering point for all Europeans.”

Spencer was also a featured keynote speaker at the racist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. The rally devolved into chaos and violence when a neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters and killed a 32-year-old woman named Heather Heyer.

Trump initially refused to explicitly condemn the rally’s white supremacist roots and said there were “very fine people” on both sides.

After facing harsh blowback, Trump more forcefully denounced “racist violence” at the white-nationalist rally from “the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

Spencer brushed off Trump’s denunciation, telling reporters afterward that the president’s comments were “kumbaya nonsense” and that “only a dumb person would take those lines seriously.” He also pointed out that people in Trump’s inner circle like immigration hardliner Stephen Miller and then-White House adviser Steve Bannon were “connected to the alt-right.”

Trump lost Spencer’s support earlier this year, however, after he ordered the assassination of Iran’s top military general, Qassem Soleimani.

“I deeply regret voting for and promoting Donald Trump in 2016,” Spencer tweeted at the time.

Related Posts