‘Hail Trump!’ speech prompts Nazi salute at white nationalist conference
A HATEFUL video has emerged showing an “alt-right” leader in the US being met with Nazi salutes after shouting, “Hail Trump!”
A DISTURBING video has emerged showing an “alt-right” leader in the United States being met with Nazi salutes after shouting, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
Richard Spencer, the leader of a white nationalist party, can be seen in the video addressing more than 200 attendees at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute in Washington, D.C on Saturday.
In the video, taken by The Atlantic, Mr Spencer delivers a hateful speech to his followers as they celebrate President-elect Trump’s victory inside the conference held at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building.
He refers to white people as “children of the sun” and the mainstream media as “Lugenpresse” (German for “lying press”), “leftists and cucks”.
“To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and a conquer. We build, we produce, we go upward,” Mr Spencer, 38, says.
“America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”
Mr Spencer’s chilling comments are met with cheers, applause, laughter and enthusiastic Nazi salutes as he receives a standing ovation from the crowd of mostly young men.
His speech was just one of several delivered during the National Policy Institute’s conference on Saturday.
The National Policy Institute (NPI), is a think tank that is part of the so-called “alt-right” movement that includes Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites.
The non-profit group describes itself as “an independent organisation dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”
Mr Spencer, the current president and director of the NPI, claims to have coined the term “alt-right” to describe his movement.
The “alt-right” movement came to the fore during the US presidential election, with the NPI latching onto the Trump campaign. Its leaders have been energised by the Republican candidate’s stunning victory and some have claimed his win has given their group a boost.
Richard Spencer mobbed by die Lugenpresse pic.twitter.com/egsikLRNZu
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) November 19, 2016
President-elect Trump has faced criticism for naming Steve Bannon, former head of Breitbart News, a website linked to the alt-right, as his chief White House strategist.
In a statement responding to the racist video from the National Policy Institute conference, the Trump transition team said that the President-elect “has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American”.
“To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds,” Trump-Pence Transition spokesman Bryan Lanza said in the statement.
Responding to the widespread outrage from the “Hail Trump!” video, Mr Spencer told NBC News that his comments were meant to be “cheeky,” “exuberant” and “ironic”.
“There’s an ironic exuberance to it all,” he claimed. “I think that’s ... one of the things that makes the alt-right fun, is that we’re willing to do things that are a bit cheeky.”
On Friday night, the day before the white nationalist group convened in the federal building, just a few blocks from the White House in the nation’s capital, the organisation met at a Northwest Washington restaurant called Maggiano’s Little Italy.
Among the group was former MTV reality TV star Tila Tequila, who posted a picture of herself to social media performing a Nazi salute alongside two men. She captioned the photo, “Seig Heil.”
Her Twitter account has now been suspended.
The restaurant has since issued an apology, telling CNN that it would donate $10,000 to the D.C office of the Anti-Defamation League.
In a statement on Facebook, the restaurant’s management said the booking was made at the last minute on Friday and under a different name than the organisation. It said it had no idea its guests were part of the pro-white National Policy Institute until Tila Tequila’s tweet caught their attention.
“After the event, an attendee sent a tweet in which she made a ‘Sieg Heil salute’ in support of Hitler and white supremacy,” the Facebook post reads. “This expression of support of Hitler is extremely offensive to us, as our restaurant is home to Teammates and Guests of every race, religion and cultural background.”
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum also released a statement condemning the “hateful” rhetoric at the conference, held a few blocks from the Museum.
“The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric,” the statement reads.
“He [Mr Spencer] implied that the media was protecting Jewish interests and said, ‘One wonders if these people are people at all?’ He said that America belongs to white people. His statement that white people face a choice of ‘conquer or die’ closely echoes Adolf Hitler’s view of Jews and that history is a racial struggle for survival.”
The Museum then called on American citizens and leaders to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech.
Twitter suspended several accounts linked to the alt-right last week, including Mr Spencer’s.
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