Alt-Right leader and white supremacist Richard Spencer made an interesting and eye-opening admission during his podcast from last month.
As Right Wing Watch points out, the right of “free speech” has been a rallying cry for Spencer and his far-right ilk — a rallying cry that helped boost Spencer to the national platform that currently enjoys.
Spencer and other alt-right advocates have argued for years that their ideas should be given platforms and unwarranted credibility under the guise of free speech. Their free speech argument has earned the alt-right column after column in national news publications and has been used as a bludgeon to argue that universities should be required to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to guarantee alt-right activists’ security on campus. The free speech argument has served as the alt-right’s admission ticket into mainstream politics, but Spencer’s recent statements seem to indicate the alt-right’s appeal to free speech is disingenuous.
Speaking to his podcast co-host Gregory Conte last month, the two were discussing why they favor government regulation of social media in light of Alt-Right and white supremacist figures being de-platformed. Although Conte said he supports government regulation of speech in the short term he wasn’t so sure about the long term. Then he had another question:
“Are we even pro-free speech?” he asked Spencer.
“No, of course not,” Spencer said before going on to vaguely admit that the Alt-Right’s righteous indignation about free speech is just a ruse.
“So, we’re being radically honest, here?” Conte asked.
“Yes, radically pragmatic,” Spencer replied.
Watch the video below, via Right Wing Watch:
Featured image via screen grab/YouTube