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Peter Brimelow

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Peter Brimelow
Born (1947-10-13) October 13, 1947 (age 77)
Warrington, Lancashire, England
CitizenshipUnited States
EducationUniversity of Sussex, B.A. (with honors), 1970
Stanford University, M.B.A., 1972
Occupation(s)Financial journalist, columnist, writer
Employers
Known for
Opposition to immigration
Movement
Children5
Awards

Peter Brimelow (born October 13, 1947) is an American white supremacist writer.[1][2][3][4] He is the founder of the website VDARE, an anti-immigration site associated with white supremacy,[5] white nationalism,[6][7][8][9][10] and the alt-right.[11][12][13]

Brimelow was previously a writer and editor at National Review, and columnist for Dow Jones' MarketWatch.[14] Brimelow founded the Center for American Unity in 1999 and served as its first president. He describes himself as a paleoconservative.[15] Brimelow has also been described as a leader within the alt-right movement.[16] In January 2021, a judge dismissed a lawsuit Brimelow brought against The New York Times, ruling that his being called a "white nationalist" was not defamatory.[17] According to the New York Times, Brimelow had a direct reporting relationship with Rupert Murdoch at Fox News.[18]

Early life and education

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Brimelow was born in 1947 in Warrington, Lancashire, England, the son of Bessie (née Knox) and Frank Sanderson Brimelow, a transport executive. Brimelow (and his twin brother) studied at the University of Sussex (BA, 1970) and Stanford University (MBA, 1972).[19]

Career

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After working as a securities analyst, he moved to Toronto to work as a business writer and editor at the Financial Post and Maclean's. From 1978 to 1980, he was an aide to US Senator Orrin Hatch. In 1980, Brimelow moved to New York and worked for Barron's and Fortune.

In 1990, Brimelow and Leslie Spencer's article "The Litigation Scandal", written for Forbes, won a Gerald Loeb Award in the "Magazine" category.[20]

Views and publications

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Brimelow opposes both illegal and legal immigration,[21][22] despite having immigrated to the United States himself, and has referred to Spanish-speaking immigrants as "completely dysfunctional".[21] He said California used to be a "paradise" but was "rapidly turning into Hispanic slum".[21] Brimelow has been described as a white nationalist[23] and a white supremacist.[24] In 2020, Brimelow sued The New York Times for labeling him a "white nationalist".[25] In 2022, Brimelow called for a reversal of Brown v. Board of Education, a 1954 Supreme Court decision that directed an end to segregated schools.[26]

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has described Brimelow's website VDARE as a hate group,[9][27][28] that was "once a relatively mainstream anti-immigration page", but by 2003 became "a meeting place for many on the radical right". The SPLC also criticized VDARE for publishing articles by white nationalists Jared Taylor and Sam Francis.[29] It has been called "white nationalist" by the Rocky Mountain News.[30] It has also been described as white supremacist.[31] VDARE has also been described by the Anti-Defamation League as a racist anti-immigrant group.[32][33] The book Anti-Immigration in the United States summarized Brimelow's position as being that whites had built American culture and should defend it against non-whites who would try to change it.[6]

Brimelow has appeared as a guest on The Political Cesspool, a "pro-white" talk radio show. Following the 2008 presidential election, Brimelow advocated that to win, the Republican Party should focus on "white votes".[34][35][36]

As of 2010 he was a senior contributing editor at Alternative Right, a website edited by Richard Spencer, according to the SPLC.[37] He has spoken at events hosted by the National Policy Institute run by Spencer, according to the SPLC.[38]

Brimelow appeared on a panel discussing multiculturalism during the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC 2012), and gave a talk titled "The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity". In the face of condemnation from MSNBC and PFTAW, Al Cardenas of the American Conservative Union denied knowing Brimelow.[39]

Larry Auster, also a prominent immigration restrictionist, was a fierce critic of Brimelow's approach to the issue. For example, Auster criticized Brimelow's promotion of the views of antisemitic conspiracy theorist[40][41] Kevin MacDonald in the following manner: "The views of Alex Linder are not fundamentally different from those of Kevin MacDonald, who is published by Peter Brimelow and Richard Spencer. The only real difference between Linder and MacDonald is that Linder explicitly touts his goal of removing all Jews from the earth, while in MacDonald's case the same goal is implicit."[42]

Alien Nation

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External videos
video icon Booknotes interview with Brimelow on Alien Nation, June 11, 1995, C-SPAN

Brimelow's book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster criticizes U.S. immigration policy after 1965.[43]

A review in Foreign Affairs acknowledged that the book raised a number of persuasive objections to contemporary American immigration policies, but criticized Brimelow for "defining American identity in racial as opposed to cultural terms", and for the "extreme character" of his proposals.[43]

The SPLC described it as an "infamous anti-immigrant book", and pointed to Center for Immigration Studies executive director Mark Krikorian's positive review of the book as evidence his organization had close ties to white nationalists.[44]

The Worm in the Apple

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External videos
video icon Presentation by Brimelow on The Worm in the Apple, February 24, 2003, C-SPAN

The Worm in the Apple discusses public education and teachers' unions, considering unions as "highly destructive".[45] David Gordon summarizes Brimelow's view in his review of the book in The Mises Review: "to attempt so far-reaching a goal as universal high school education is foolish."[46] John O'Sullivan[47] praised the book. For the Hoover Institution journal Education Next, public policy consultant George Mitchell wrote: "Brimelow... demonstrates how collective bargaining for teachers has produced labor agreements that stifle innovation and risk taking. He makes it clear that the dramatic rise in influence enjoyed by the teacher unions has coincided with stagnant and unacceptable levels of student performance." However, in the same journal article, education consultant Julia E. Koppich took a more critical angle: "Brimelow uses a variety of linguistic devices to drive home his points. But his over-the-top language soon grates on the nerves... His argument is not that teacher unions are destroying American education, but that they labor long and hard to preserve the status quo... But this book contains so little about education-virtually nothing about classrooms, schools, or districts-even that point gets lost." Koppich called the book "an anti-public school polemic".[48]

The Patriot Game

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In an article in Maclean's which was published in 2011, John M. Geddes says that Brimelow's book The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities "offered a bracingly of-the-moment conservative critique of Canada," and said that it was instrumental in shaping the thought process of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.[49]

Personal life

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Brimelow's first wife was Margaret Alice "Maggy" Laws, a native of Newfoundland, Canada who worked for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research when they met in New York. They were married until her death on February 6, 2004, from cancer.[50][51] Brimelow had two children with Laws, Alexander and Hannah Claire. As of June 2021, Hannah is a blogger for political commentator Tim Pool's website Timcast.[52]

In 2007, Brimelow married Lydia Sullivan; at the time, Lydia was 22 and Peter was 59. While Lydia officially claims to have started working for VDARE in 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that Lydia had likely published numerous articles on the VDARE website between 2005 (while she was in college) and June 2014 under the pseudonym "Athena Kerry", and tax documents associated with the VDARE Foundation listed her as a business partner as early as 2008. As of 2020, she is the president of the VDARE Foundation and the publisher of VDARE.com.[53]

Writings

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  • The Wall Street Gurus: How You Can Profit from Investment Newsletters (1st ed.). New York City: Random House. 1986. ISBN 0-394-54202-9. LCCN 85028153.
  • The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Key Porter Books. 1986. ISBN 1-55013-001-3. LCCN 86228891.
  • The Enemies of Freedom. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform. 1990. LCCN 92219523.
  • Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (1st ed.). New York, NY: Random House. 1995. ISBN 0-679-43058-X. LCCN 94012478.
  • The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education. New York, NY: HarperCollins. 2003. ISBN 0-06-009661-6. LCCN 2002027586.

References

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  1. ^ "The Scourge of White Supremacism, And Why It Matters". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. November 30, 2016. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  2. ^ Small, Jim (February 26, 2022). "Wendy Rogers said white nationalists are 'patriots' and called for hanging political enemies". Arizona Mirror.
  3. ^ Hayden, Michael Edison; Squire, Megan. "How Cryptocurrency Revolutionized the White Supremacist Movement". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
  4. ^ Fernandes, Deepa (2011). Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration. New York City: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 9781583229545. Retrieved June 3, 2017.
  5. ^ Frizell, Sam (July 21, 2016). "GOP Shows White Supremacist's Tweet During Trump's Speech". Time. Archived from the original on June 11, 2017.
  6. ^ a b Arnold, Kathleen (2011). "VDARE". Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 89. ISBN 9780313375224. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
  7. ^ Folk, Holly (2017). The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. p. 64. ...the white nationalist website VDARE.com.
  8. ^ Sussman, Robert W. (2014). The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. New Haven, Connecticut: Harvard University Press. p. 299. ISBN 9780674660038.
  9. ^ a b Phillips, Kristine (January 26, 2017). "Resort cancels 'white nationalist' organization's first-ever conference over the group's views". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 7, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
  10. ^ Michel, Casey (November 18, 2016). "Steve Bannon's dangerous campaign to rebrand racism as American "nationalism"". Quartz. Archived from the original on June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  11. ^ Beirich, Heidi; Potok, Mark (Winter 2003). "'Paleoconservatives' Decry Immigration". Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on December 19, 2019. Retrieved January 10, 2020.
  12. ^ Stephen Piggott (December 21, 2016). "Ann Coulter Attends VDARE Christmas Party – Her Second White Nationalist Event in Three Months". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on February 25, 2020. Retrieved January 10, 2020.
  13. ^ Gais, Hannah (December 11, 2016). "Cucking and Nazi salutes: A night out with the alt-right". Washington Spectator. Archived from the original on August 9, 2019. Retrieved January 10, 2020 – via Newsweek.
  14. ^ "Peter Brimelow". MarketWatch.com. The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved January 11, 2020. Peter Brimelow has been an editor at Barron's, Fortune and Forbes and is the author of 'The Wall Street Gurus: How You Can Profit From Investment Newsletters'.
  15. ^ Beirich, Heidi; Potok, Mark (Winter 2003). "'Paleoconservatives' Decry Immigration". Intelligence Report (112). Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
  16. ^ "Four lessons from the alt-right's D.C. coming-out party". The Washington Post. September 30, 2016. Archived from the original on November 16, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
  17. ^ "Court Rules that Being Called a White Nationalist is Not a Defamatory Statement of Fact". JD Supra. Hodgson Russ LLP. January 12, 2021.
  18. ^ Confessore, Nicholas (April 30, 2022). "How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable". The New York Times.
  19. ^ "Ruth Cheney Streeter Weds". The New York Times. January 19, 1986. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved February 13, 2012. ... John Brimelow, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank S. Brimelow of Birkenhead, Merseyside, England... Peter Brimelow was his twin's best man.
  20. ^ Olson, Walter (September 1, 1990). "Award-Winning Journalism". Manhattan Institute. Archived from the original on February 13, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  21. ^ a b c Caldwell, Leigh Ann (February 11, 2012). "Immigration speaker sparks controversy at CPAC". CBS News. Archived from the original on June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  22. ^ Hawley, George (2017). Making Sense of the Alt-Right. New York City: Columbia University Press. p. 39. ISBN 9780231546003. Archived from the original on June 21, 2019. Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  23. ^ Obeidallah, Dean (February 1, 2018). "Trump's Mainstreaming of 'Chain Migration': A White Supremacist's Dream". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on December 7, 2018. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  24. ^ Thielman, Sam (May 9, 2019). "The fascist next door: how to cover hate". Columbia Journalism Review. New York City: Columbia University. Archived from the original on August 6, 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  25. ^ Gerstein, Josh (January 9, 2020). "Anti-immigration author sues NYT over 'white nationalist' label". Politico. Archived from the original on January 13, 2020. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
  26. ^ Perez Jr, Juan (May 9, 2022). "Will Brown v. Board of Education be next to fall?". POLITICO. Retrieved February 22, 2024.
  27. ^ "VDARE". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on October 8, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  28. ^ VDARE Archived July 12, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  29. ^ Beirich and Mark Potok, Heidi. "'Paleoconservatives' Decry Immigration | Southern Poverty Law Center". Splcenter.org. Archived from the original on November 5, 2014. Retrieved March 22, 2012.
  30. ^ Flynn, Kevin (July 15, 2006). "Funding questioned; Critics say some Defend Colorado money tainted". Rocky Mountain News. p. 4.A.
  31. ^ Sam Frizell (July 21, 2016). "GOP Shows White Supremacist's Tweet During Trump's Speech". Time. Archived from the original on June 11, 2017. Retrieved June 3, 2017.
  32. ^ "Brenda Walker and Dan Amato Inject Anti-Immigrant Fervor into the Blogosphere" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 11, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  33. ^ "Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 11, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  34. ^ "VDARE: GOP Should Focus on Whites". Intelligence Report. No. Spring 2009. Southern Poverty Law Center. February 16, 2009. Archived from the original on April 21, 2020.
  35. ^ VDARE Foundation – SPLCenter.org Archived February 11, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
  36. ^ "VDARE". Intelligence Files. Southern Poverty Law Center. July 2011. Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  37. ^ "Paleocon Starts New Extreme-Right Magazine". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
  38. ^ "Peter Brimelow". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
  39. ^ Caldwell, Leigh Ann (February 11, 2012). "Immigration speaker sparks controversy at CPAC". CBS News. Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
  40. ^ "Kevin MacDonald" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. November 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 9, 2018. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  41. ^ Blutinger, Jeffrey C. (Spring 2021). "A New Protocols: Kevin MacDonald's Reconceptualization of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory". Antisemitism Studies. 5 (1). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press: 4–43. doi:10.2979/antistud.5.1.02. JSTOR 10.2979/antistud.5.1.02. S2CID 234772531.
  42. ^ Auster, Larry (September 21, 2011). "Exterminationist Anti-Semites". View From The Right. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
  43. ^ a b Hendrickson, David C. (July 7, 1995). "Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster". Foreign Affairs (July/August 1995). doi:10.2307/20047239. JSTOR 20047239. Archived from the original on February 11, 2020. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  44. ^ Piggott, Stephen; Amend, Alex (May 23, 2017). "More Than An Occasional Crank: 2,012 Times the Center for Immigration Studies Circulated White Nationalist Content". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  45. ^ Leef, George (November 4, 2004). "No. 155: Worm in the Apple: Teachers Unions Operate Like Mafia". Carolina Journal. Archived from the original on September 29, 2011. Retrieved July 16, 2011.
  46. ^ "A Monopoly of Ignorance". The Mises Review. Winter 2003. Archived from the original on October 24, 2008.
  47. ^ O'Sullivan, John (May 20, 2003). "Blame pain-in-the-neck unions for education bow tie". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on May 22, 2003.
  48. ^ Mitchell, George; Koppich, Julia E. (Spring 2004). "Teachers Unions". Education Next. Archived from the original on October 9, 2011. Retrieved July 16, 2011.
  49. ^ Geddes, John (August 4, 2011). "That best political book contest: but what about real influence?". Maclean's. Archived from the original on January 10, 2018. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  50. ^ "Paid Notice: Deaths BRIMELOW, MAGGY LAWS". The New York Times. February 12, 2004. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  51. ^ Frum, David (February 8, 2004). "Maggy Laws Brimelow | David Frum". davidfrum.com. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  52. ^ Silverman, Robert (August 3, 2021). "How 'Coward and Phony' Tim Pool Became One of the Biggest Political YouTubers on the Planet". The Daily Beast.
  53. ^ "Lydia Brimelow". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
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