Where’s Superman when you need him?
Richard Spencer came up with the term “alt-right” some years ago in an attempt to provide a cool-sounding euphemism to describe a bunch of people who might otherwise have been labeled “f*cking Nazis.”
This past weekend, Spencer and roughly 200 other “alt-rightists” put on suits to attend the annual conference organized by Spencer’s innocuous-sounding National Policy Institute and held in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. And Spencer apparently forgot the number one rule of alt-right club, which is: Don’t talk about Adolf Hitler, at least not anywhere where non-alt-rightists can hear you.
Spencer didn’t literally bring up Hitler by name, but his evocation of the old man was not what you’d call subtle. After most journalists had left the premises, Spencer gave a speech the Atlantic describes as “dripping with anti-Semitism” and blatant racism, declaring the United States a “a white country” that rightfully “belongs to us.”
“Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory,” Spencer called out, raising his right arm in what looked more than a little bit like a Nazi salute. Many in the audience responded with Nazi salutes of their own, no ambiguity about them.
Here’s video of the whole embarrassing spectacle, courtesy of The Atlantic.