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National Policy Institute

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Not to be confused with Council for National Policy.
National Policy Institute
AbbreviationNPI
Formation2005; 19 years ago (2005)
FounderWilliam Regnery II
Dissolved2020
Type
HeadquartersAlexandria, Virginia, U.S.
Leader

The National Policy Institute (NPI) was a white supremacist think tank and lobbying group based in Alexandria, Virginia.[1][2][3] It lobbied for white supremacists and the alt-right.[4] Its president was Richard B. Spencer.

It has been largely inactive since late 2020,[5] and its website has been inactive or dead since then.[a] In 2022, Spencer confirmed that the organization was defunct.[6]

Activities

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Richard B. Spencer, Peter Brimelow, and Jared Taylor at a press conference on November 18, 2016

The NPI was founded in 2005 by William Regnery II.[7] Louis R. Andrews was the chairman until 2010. Andrews said that he had voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election because "I want to see the Republican Party destroyed, so it can be reborn as a party representing the interests of white people, and not entrenched corporate elites."[8] When Andrews died in 2011, he was replaced by Richard B. Spencer.[9] According to George Hawley, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama, NPI was "rather obscure and marginalized" until Spencer became its president in 2011, at which point Spencer's website, AlternativeRight.com, became an NPI initiative.[10]

The group was based in Augusta, Georgia, at its founding, but by 2013 had relocated to Montana.[11] Spencer divides his time between Montana and Virginia;[12] in 2016, the group was based in Arlington, Virginia.[13][14] By early 2017, the NPI had leased a townhouse office space on King Street in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, where it maintains its headquarters today.[15][16] City leaders in Arlington and Alexandria acknowledged the NPI's right to operate, but denounced the group's views.[14][16] The group's presence in Alexandria has prompted several protests.[16]

In December 2013, NPI launched a website, Radix Journal, which describes itself as "a periodical on culture, race, metapolitics, critical theory, and society".[17] The NPI received a grant from the Pioneer Fund, a racist pseudo-scientific organization.[2][18]

In 2016, Twitter suspended the accounts of the NPI, its leader Richard B. Spencer and others under its terms of use. Spencer said that "digitally speaking, there has been execution squads across the alt-right"[19] and accused Twitter of "corporate Stalinism".[20] However, Twitter's suspension was not based on the content of Spencer's posts, but rather on Twitter's rule barring multiple accounts with overlapping uses.[20] Spencer's personal Twitter account was reinstated several weeks later; the NPI's remained suspended.[20]

Spencer was the headline speaker at a 2016 NPI conference held in Washington, D.C., and celebrated the election of Donald Trump as "the first step towards identity politics in the United States"[21] and "the victory of will" (a reference to Triumph of the Will, the Nazi propaganda film).[22] Spencer "railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German". Spencer finished his speech by yelling "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!" as audience members responded by standing up and making the Nazi salute.[22][23] The United States Holocaust Museum issued a statement condemning the "hateful rhetoric" of the conference.[24] Other speakers included Scotland-based YouTuber Millennial Woes.[25]

In July 2017, Evan McLaren became executive director.[26] He resigned in April 2018.[27] As of January 2020, he has not been replaced.[28]

The NPI was banned from YouTube for not following the platform's policies on hate speech in June 2020. Spencer announced he would appeal the ban.[29]

In 2021, a federal judge ordered the NPI to pay $2.4 million to a man injured at the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[30]

Fundraising and status

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According to the Associated Press, NPI "raised $442,482 in tax-deductible contributions from 2007 through 2012".[31]

NPI's tax-exempt status was revoked in 2017 by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for failing to file tax returns.[32] The group had not filed a Form 990 since 2013.[33] In March 2017, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), which regulates the operation of charities in Virginia, removed the NPI's entry from its public database of nonprofits and announced that it was reviewing the group's status.[32] The NPI raised $50,000 in late 2016 and early 2017 from an online fundraising drive and has solicited donations to be sent to its Arlington, Virginia post office box, but in February 2017 VDACS had listed the group as "not authorized to solicit in Virginia."[32] As of August, 2019, mail sent to the address was being returned as "undeliverable".[28]

Views

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NPI's website says that "the dispossession of White Americans will have catastrophic effects for the entire world, not just for our people". The organization has produced a series of reports on affirmative action, race and conservatism, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a report edited by VDARE contributor Nicholas Stix.

The NPI has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a white supremacist organization.[34] Marilyn Mayo, the co-director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, said that the group "basically was founded to be kind of a white supremacist think tank".[11]

The NPI is regarded as part of a group of white nationalist organizations that, according to The New York Times, "try to take a more highbrow approach, couching white nationalist arguments as academic commentary on black inferiority, the immigration threat to whites and other racial issues."[35] Other groups that advance similar strategies include the New Century Foundation (and its publication American Renaissance,[7][35]) the Charles Martel Society (and its website the Occidental Observer),[7][11][35] and the Pioneer Fund, all of which have been described by the SPLC as playing leading roles in the promotion of "academic racism".[7]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Archive.org has records of the website as of October 27, 2020:
    • "National Policy Institute". Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
    From then until May 2021 entries linked to a blog for the "Geopolitical Studies Institute" which has not been updated since February 2020. Entries after that date no longer load.

References

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  1. ^ "Meet the new think tank in town: 'Alt-right' comes to Washington to influence Trump". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2016-11-20.
  2. ^ a b Wines, Michael; Saul, Stephanie (July 5, 2015). "White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites". New York Times. Retrieved October 3, 2016.
  3. ^ "How 2015 Fueled The Rise Of The Freewheeling, White Nationalist Alt Right Movement". BuzzFeed News. 2015-12-27. Retrieved 2015-01-18.
  4. ^ "Richard Spencer rose as foremost voice in alt-right movement". ABC 13 Eyewitness News. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  5. ^ "Once a Political Force, Richard Spencer and National Policy Institute Go Quiet".
  6. ^ "'Unite the Right' 5 Years Later: Where Are They Now?". Southern Poverty Law Center. 11 August 2022. Retrieved 2024-02-14.
  7. ^ a b c d "The Groups: In the world of 'academic racism,' four groups play leading roles". Intelligence Report (122). Southern Poverty Law Center. Summer 2006.
  8. ^ Washington, Jesse (June 11, 2009). "Gunman may reflect growing racial turmoil", nbcnews.com; accessed November 3, 2019.
  9. ^ Richard Bertrand Spencer, Southern Poverty Law Center; accessed November 19, 2016.
  10. ^ Hawley, George (2017). Making Sense of the Alt-Right. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 59. ISBN 9780231185127. OCLC 987742156. Despite the innocuous name, NPI has since its inception been a white-nationalist organization. The organization was rather obscure and marginalized until Spencer was chosen as its new president in 2011, at which point Alternative Right became an NPI initiative.
  11. ^ a b c Nick Baumann, Top Conservatives Run PAC That Funded White Nationalists, Mother Jones, January 29, 2013.
  12. ^ Michelle Goldberg, "Better Know an RNC White Supremacist: Richard Spencer", Slate, July 20, 2016.
  13. ^ Garrett Haake, White Nationalist group to hold conference on Trump in DC Saturday, WUSA (March 2, 2016).
  14. ^ a b Dick Uliano, White nationalist, alt-right group calls Arlington home, WTOP (November 22, 2016).
  15. ^ Rosie Gray, A 'One-Stop Shop' for the Alt-Right": The white nationalist leader Richard Spencer is setting up a headquarters in the Washington area, The Atlantic (January 12, 2017).
  16. ^ a b c Patricia Sullivan, The chocolatiers and the white nationalist, coexisting in Old Town Alexandria, Washington Post (February 17, 2017).
  17. ^ Burghart, Devin (June 27, 2014). "Who is Richard Spencer?". Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. Retrieved October 3, 2016.
  18. ^ Tucker, Maria Luisa (2007-06-30). "Warp and Woof". The Village Voice. 52 (22): 12. ISSN 0042-6180.
  19. ^ Andrews, Travis M. (November 16, 2016). "Twitter suspends prominent alt-right accounts, including Richard Spencer's". Los Angeles Times.
  20. ^ a b c Niraj Chokshi (December 12, 2016). "Twitter Reinstates Richard Spencer, White Nationalist Leader". New York Times.
  21. ^ Glueck, Katie. Alt-right celebrates Trump's election at D.C. meeting, Politico (November 19, 2016).
  22. ^ a b Goldstein, Joseph. Alt-Right Exults in Donald Trump’s Election With a Salute: 'Heil Victory', New York Times (November 21, 2016).
  23. ^ Lombroso, Daniel. "'Hail Trump!': Video of White Nationalists Cheering the President-Elect". The Atlantic.
  24. ^ McCaskill, Nolan D. (November 21, 2016). "Holocaust Museum condemns neo-Nazi conference". Politico. Retrieved November 22, 2016.
  25. ^ "Global reach of Scots racists and extremists is laid bare by Hope Not Hate". The National (Scotland). 13 February 2017.
  26. ^ Newton, Creede (September 7, 2017). "Richard Spencer's racist group has a new leader". The Intercept.
  27. ^ Barrouquere, Brett (April 25, 2018). "Executive Director of National Policy Institute resigns less than a year after taking over". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  28. ^ a b Barrouquere, Brett (January 10, 2020). "Once a Political Force, Richard Spencer and National Policy Institute Go Quiet". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  29. ^ Alexander, Julia (June 29, 2020). "YouTube bans Stefan Molyneux, David Duke, Richard Spencer, and more for hate speech". The Verge. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
  30. ^ "Right-wing think tank ordered to pay man hurt at rally $2.4M". Associated Press. 5 May 2021.
  31. ^ "White nationalists raise millions with tax-free charities". Enterprise-Journal. McComb, Mississippi. December 22, 2016. p. A7. Retrieved October 24, 2017 – via Newspapers.com. Spencer's group raised $442,482 in tax-deductible contributions from 2007 through 2012.
  32. ^ a b c Pearce, Matt (14 March 2017). "IRS strips tax-exempt status from Richard Spencer's white nationalist nonprofit". Los Angeles Times.
  33. ^ Michael Wyland (December 6, 2016). "Why Isn't This White Supremacist Nonprofit Required to File 990 Returns?". Nonprofit Quarterly.
  34. ^ Potok, Mark (April 8, 2008). Immigration report being released today linked to white supremacists, Hatewatch, Southern Poverty Law Center.
  35. ^ a b c Wines, Michael & Stephanie Saul. "White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites", nytimes.com, July 5, 2015.


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