By Hayden Daniel ’19 and Nathan Richendollar ‘19

Introduction:

With the success of the Special issue of the Spectator this past September and the continued controversy regarding the content of those articles, we decided to delve deeper into the events that took place in Charlottesville in August 2017 and the ideology that drove the Unite the Right Rally, which ended in widespread violence and a death. On October 8, 2017, the Spectator sat down with Richard B. Spencer, founder of the National Policy Institute (NPI) and the current face of the alt-right movement in America, for an in-depth interview on the events in Charlottesville, his motivations for holding the Unite the Right Rally, and his perverse ideology.

In preparation for our interview with Mr. Spencer, we visited Lee Park, the epicenter of the events that took place in Charlottesville, and the intersection of Fourth Street and Water Street, the location of a cruel attack by James Fields that ended with the death of Heather Heyer. Even several months later, both places echo with the events that took place. Lee Park now bears the name of Emancipation Park and the statue of Robert E. Lee astride his horse Traveller is shrouded by a black tarp. Wilted flowers and scrawled messages of sympathy mark where Heather Heyer was fatally injured and 19 others were wounded. After visiting both sites, our determination to discover the motivations behind these horrendous events only strengthened. 

Richard B. Spencer was born on May 11, 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in Dallas, Texas and attended St. Mark’s High School. During his college search, Spencer briefly visited W&L; his observations here helped to mold his future views on race and identity before he attended Colgate University. He finished his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia, received his Master’s from the University of Chicago, and conducted his doctoral work in European History at Duke University.

After leaving higher education, Spencer founded his vehicle for expounding his white supremacist views, the National Policy Institute. Based in Arlington, VA, the National Policy Institute acts as both a think tank and a lobbying agent for white supremacist and white nationalist ideologies. It was at an annual NPI conference soon after the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States that Richard Spencer first entered into the national consciousness when he ended his speech with the chant, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!”

While Mr. Spencer’s political beliefs are somewhat complex, as will be seen in the proceeding interview, he simply describes himself as an identitarian, whose main interests lie in racial identity, group identity, and culture rather than the usual issues-based political ideology of conservatives and liberals. Mr. Spencer advocates for the creation of “ethno-states,” nations completely made up of members of a particular ethnic group who have an unlimited right of return, similar to the right of return for Jews to Israel. In essence, Mr. Spencer desires a world divided along racial and cultural lines in which all whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have their own monoracial states. Mr. Spencer identified himself as white, but more specifically a mix of English and German when pressed. Despite not considering any details as to the creation and governance of such a state, he believes that he does not have to worry about such details since the effort to create such a world will only be achieved long after his death. Mr. Spencer ostensibly denies the use of violence to achieve such a global system.

Mr. Spencer’s desire for an “ethno-state” and his activism to protect what he considers white culture brought him to Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 for the Unite the Right Rally. Spencer’s group of protesters, along with protesters from other organizations ranging from the KKK to the Neo-Nazi movement, descended on Lee Park to give an impromptu rally and a round of speeches. Mr. Spencer was ultimately prevented from delivering his speech as both counter-protesters and Virginia State Police arrived to break up the proceedings. Violence soon broke out between the protesters led by Spencer and the counter-protesters. By the time order was restored, Mr. Spencer had been attacked with mace, a man had discharged a firearm at a counter-protester who was trying to use a can of spray paint as a flamethrower, and James Fields had plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer.

This in-person interview was conducted in Washington D.C. We believe that discovering why this event took place and the ideological motivations behind is pivotal in understanding the event and preventing another like it from taking place, so we sat down with Richard Spencer to learn more about the events in Charlottesville and the motivating ideology behind events like this.

To be clear, the Spectator does not condone or endorse the opinions expressed by Mr. Spencer in this interview. His views are his own and they do not reflect the views or opinions of the W&L Spectator or its staff.

Charlottesville:

Spectator: 

Could you briefly describe the events in Charlottesville from your perspective?

Richard Spencer:

Well, I’ve tried to get my perspective out there, and it has gotten out there a little bit. That initial narrative has definitely changed, and there have been many critical voices, including liberal critical voices, against the city of Charlottesville. I think, and I’ll be perfectly frank, that Mike Signer (mayor of Charlottesville) is a really terrible human being, and I would probably say the same thing for Terry McAuliffe. This might even sound like Alex Jones or something, but I think the mayor and the governor were trying to inspire violence, and by allowing and effectively encouraging a melee to take place. I think they were willing to have the Anti-fa sacrificed because they expected the alt-right and company to start firing on Anti-fa. I don’t think this because I am into conspiracy theories or so on, I am not. Also, my general tendency is to trust police authorities and things, you know, I am in contact with police departments when we do rallies and demonstrations, and they have always run well.

I think of this because of my personal experience. We got up fairly early and we went and got breakfast at a diner. The around 10:00 A.M. or so we met up around McIntire Park, and there were many people congregating there. Then we were driven into…near Market Street, and we walked from Market Street to Lee Park. Everything was definitely on edge, there was just this…scent of adrenaline was in the air. People were on edge. When we entered the park, the police were not securing the entrance, so I was maced as we were entering the park. Someone just saw that we were entering and jumped up and sprayed mace on us. But, you know, mace is only temporary so it’s not a huge deal. So, we were there, and we were waiting, and they were not allowing us to take the stage and the police had that blocked off. The whole park was on edge but there was absolutely no violence. There was no confrontation at all. Then we learned that the governor had declared a state of emergency. This was before anyone was able to speak. It was declared arbitrarily for no good reason. I mean, it was declared long before there was any kind of violence. So, they informed us about the state of emergency and these militarized police started marching out of this area where they had assembled and formed this line, like a phalanx. They then commanded everyone to leave he field. I said, “we are not going anywhere, we have a permit.” That obviously went nowhere. No one ever spoke, no one said a word at the Unite the Right Rally. They were slowly just pushing us off the field, and I was standing my ground. So, we were being pushed out and the police were pushing us back with their shields and hitting us with their shields. I was then maced in the face again, which was not fun, and I retreated to the margins of the field. Luckily there was someone who acted as a medic who put soap on my face and so on. Then there were these other police officers who were not militarized, and we were talking with them. They led us to Market Street and they were pushing us out onto Market Street. I told them, “you know they are going to kill me,” and this guy you could see this sinking feeling in his face. I am almost positively sure that they were ordered to clear the park and force everyone onto Market Street. There was no other escape route. Everything had been roped off.

Spectator:

Do you think proportional amounts of people were arrested and the charges were more trumped up for the alt-right?

Spencer:

Yeah, where are these Antifa in prison that are the analogies to these Alt-right or Unite the Right people? I mean I don’t see them. They’ve all been released or given fines. Yes, it was obviously radically unfair. The other thing about James Fields, on that Saturday there was talk in the media about terrorism investigations of the alt-right, but that’s been dropped. Basically, James Fields was convicted, and the black police chief came out, he said something like, ‘We had to call a state of emergency because of the violence,’ or something like that. I mean, he’s lying, he’s deluded, I don’t know what it is, but it’s the opposite of the fact. The fact is there was no violence when the state of emergency was called, and then the melee was allowed to take place and then there was violence. Then secondly, he said, ‘This is a premeditated act.’ I don’t know what happened exactly. That’s a weird form of terrorism he engaged in. He slammed into another car and that caused the ruckus. No one died, as we know now, no one died due to the getting hit by the vehicle, and no one died getting hit by his car. There were certainly injuries and that’s terrible. I don’t condone that in the least, but Heather Heyer died of a heart attack witnessing it, and that’s a terrible thing, but this is not the equivalent of an ISIS terrorist driving through Nice or wherever driving trucks into people or something like this. It’s just not the equivalent at all. Again, I don’t know exactly what happened. I think Fields will probably serve substantial time no matter what, and some of that is fair, some of that is unfair. I don’t think he’ll be able to receive a fair investigation or trial. That’s very sad, but did he panic and engage in something that might be manslaughter or something like that? Perhaps. But I don’t think he’ll be given a fair trial.

Spectator:

Where do you see another Charlottesville-like event happening next? Do you see it remaining localized to this region, or do you think it will be farther afield?

Spencer:

 I think it will be on the East Coast. I think the next thing that would be historical, that would go in the history books, that is something I hope that we could do this summer or next summer, whether 2018, or perhaps maybe we want to wait a year, but I think we should just be aggressive, is to do some kind of rally in the District of Columbia. And we can do things in DC that we can’t do elsewhere. Like the police in DC, whatever you want to say about them, you can trust them to maintain order. The police in DC are not going to allow a melee to take place you know, steps from the White House or Congress. If something like Charlottesville occurred in DC, then other countries are gonna start then re-thinking their nuclear strategy and start re-negotiating trade policies because they would say, ‘The United States is a failed state.’ It would be that extreme. So, there is now way that the mayor, even if he wanted a Charlottesville, even if he wanted to portray us like Mike Signer did, he would be overruled. The Secret Service would not allow that to happen. The Army would not allow that to happen. I mean, it’s just not happening. And so yeah, I think that is the place we need to use federal property.

Commentary:

The most factually erroneous portion of Mr. Spencer’s rendition of the events in Charlottesville is his account of Heather Heyer’s death. According to the coroner’s report, Heather Heyer died of blunt-force trauma to the chest, not from a heart attack, as Mr. Spencer claimed. Additionally, whether anyone died directly as a result of James Fields’s car or being crushed by another car that he impacted is completely irrelevant. All the injuries incurred that day, and the death, would not have occurred but for James Field’s decision to plow his car into the crowd, an action that clearly had murderous intent. Spencer’s question, “Did he commit manslaughter? Perhaps,” understates the severity of Fields’s crimes and the charges he will be forced to answer. He clearly committed manslaughter and probably murder, whether in the first or second degree. Furthermore, it is highly troubling that Mr. Spencer, whose vision of a white “ethno-state” depends on the collapse of the United States’ authority over his desired homeland (Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas), wants to stage a rally in the District of Columbia that he knows has the possibility to incite violence. In either situation, Spencer wins. If he is subjected to violence and chaos breaks out in the capital, as he says, the United States government will lose some confidence, though the effect would likely not be as drastic as he predicts. If not, he gets a free rally with no opposition, not to mention a probable national spotlight.

History:

Spectator:

Do you think you actions in Charlottesville have aided the efforts to keep the statue of Lee in place at Lee Park?

Richard Spencer:

No. If I’m honest it’s the opposite. I think it has accelerated the efforts to take it down. But maybe that had to happen. It certainly made millions and millions of people more aware of this issue, and it has revealed the effectively Bolshevik attitude of these people covering up Robert E. Lee. You know, you really can’t stop at statues if you are these people, you have to tear down every brick of the University of Virginia campus. I mean, it was conceived by a racist slaveholder. Everything about it is tainted from the liberal perspective, you’ve got to do it. 

Spectator:

So how far should students go to protect statues on campus, such as the Recumbent Lee at W&L or the statue of Thomas Jefferson at UVA, or protect their school traditions?

Spencer:

I think we should do what we’re doing. I am not going to recommend anyone do anything beyond that. I understand if someone wants to chain themselves to a statue or tear off the tarp. I understand why someone would be moved to do that, but I can’t recommend that. But, I think so much of politics is symbolism. I mean, I care about those statues, I really do. I remember the statue of Robert E. Lee when I was a student and I want us to remember our past. I like the fact that you attend a university dedicated to the first president and to Robert E. Lee, but a lot of politics is finding that symbol that is powerful. So, it’s not just about the statues, and a lot of liberals would say, “they don’t really care about the statues,” and in a way, they are right about that. I obviously care more about our people more than I care about statues, and these statues are a symbolic vehicle for this political battle. Politics has to manifested in some way, and this is the way it is happening. I think this issue is a great thing for people who are identitarian to jump on. Conservatives ultimately won’t stand for this stuff, they’re obsessed with other things like tax cuts. They don’t have the balls. They don’t want to fight these battles, conservatives want to limit the battles that they are fighting. So, they’re fighting over taxes, and mortgages and healthcare. They don’t want to fight over symbolism, but I do.

If you look at this from one standpoint and say, ‘Oh, well Charlottesville one and Charlottesville two and Charlottesville three were all total failures,’ sure. More statues were taken down after these events than before and you could say, ‘Oh it’s a failure,’ but no, it’s not a failure because we revealed the animus in the heart of the regime and what they want to do. At some point, the American regime is going to tear it all down. Nothing will remain. I mean it’s what I was saying last night, I don’t know if you’ve seen that clip, but I got really riled up. But I was saying ‘tear it down, tear down every brick of this college. Why are you tearing down just this statue?’ You need to attack Jefferson himself. You need to attack everything he built. You need to take away every brick of that campus if you want to remove the stain of slavery. It’s absolutely logical. So, we’ve revealed that aspect of the regime, so I think all these things are great. Charlottesville two was certainly a mixed bag in the sense that there were good things and bad things and weird things. After Charlottesville two, I felt really angry; I felt betrayed by the police and by the mayor. I’ve never really been betrayed in that way by authorities. It was almost like the police were trying to get us killed as opposed to protecting us, so I was very angry but, at the same time, when I look back on it, it had to happen that way, it’s in the history books, I mean, it’s Charlottesville. People can just use just that one word and not even qualify it.

Spectator:

Going back to the history point and Charlottesville being in the history books. You said, and correct me if it’s wrong, that ‘Before the last generation, or the last two generations, this country was by and for white people.’ Does that at all contradict Lost Cause ideology and what is your opinion of Lost Cause ideology about the Civil War?

Spencer:

And how would that contradict Lost Cause ideology? Lost Cause ideology in the sense of?

Spectator:

Of the war being about states’ rights and not racism or slavery.

Spencer:

Oh, I see. Well that’s obviously a bunch of hooey. The Civil War is about slavery and race. Liberals are right. One theme you’ll probably notice, liberals are more accurate when it comes to history. Conservatives want to sanctify history, probably comes from the religious instincts or they want to build up continuity, liberals are more accurate when it comes to history. I mean you can find quotes, I’m not a Civil War scholar, but you could find plenty of quotes of active leaders saying, ‘We’re not doing this for the tariff.’ Then if you look at the Confederacy itself, it’s wildly centralized. In a way, it wasn’t centralized enough in order to win the war, but it was centralized. It inducted an income tax, it did all of these things. It was not a battle over libertarianism, it was a battle over the Negro question, which is a deep, difficult, and complicated question. It involves whether free blacks are going to go compete with white labor or go influence communities in the North. It was about all of these things. It was about the status of an aristocratic slaveholding population within this American system. That’s what it was about. It wasn’t about states’ rights. It was about states’ rights to the extent that those were about slavery.

Spectator:

At your rallies you’ve discouraged the use of Nazi iconography. Would you extend that to Confederate iconography?

Spencer:

No, I wouldn’t. That’s more rooted within our country and I might not do it myself, but I certainly wouldn’t have any problem with someone who wanted to bring a Confederate flag, a Confederate battle flag or something to the rally. It doesn’t bother me.

Commentary:

First of all, and perhaps most importantly for W&L, Mr. Spencer and his movement do not care about statues or traditions as long as their removal helps them to achieve their goals. He considers the removal of Confederate statues, and those of Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson, necessary losses as long as his group gets attention protesting their removal. He would even brook the removal of statues of the Founding Fathers if it accomplished his ends. He freely admits that his presence does not help the cause of preserving those statues and that his presence actually accelerates the removal of statues. Mr. Spencer says that conservatives will not fight over statues, but neither is he. He is fighting for attention and his moment in the limelight. True, establishment Republicans are often reluctant to engage in such battles, as they could be detrimental to their re-election chances, but conservatives who care about history and heritage do fight for the preservation of statues. It is only after people like Mr. Spencer show up that statue removal becomes inevitable. As a side note, Spencer revealed that he does not care about statues the day after he returned to Charlottesville for a follow-up rally that garnered national headlines.

In fact, Mr. Spencer is a part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He claims that he wants to preserve the statues, but once he enters the fray to prevent their removal, all chance of actually succeeding in that endeavor vanishes. Mr. Spencer acknowledges this, but he just doesn’t care because ultimately, he gets on T.V. and his movement gets free publicity to spread its message. Mr. Spencer boasts, somewhat disturbingly, that his rally in Charlottesville, during which one person died, will be “in the history books.” Shockingly, Spencer didn’t seem to know what Lost Cause ideology was until pressed on the issue. His view on the Civil War, disguised in the clever language of academia, is essentially that all Southerners were racists fighting to oppress blacks….and that they should have emerged victorious. This view is radical even among neo-Confederates.

Though he professes to lament the removal of statues, all of it is in the name of the movement. Mr. Spencer would probably tear them down himself if doing so helped his movement, or if not for any other reason than removing the inconvenient truth that white people have not always been nor are the single, unified bloc that he believes them to be. His movement is not unlike every other progressive crusade, in the vein of the Russian Revolution, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, or Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea, which aims to bring about a glorious new future in utter disregard to the past. But like every one of the utopian ideologies that preceded it, it has one iron rule: history is an enemy and tradition is a menace.

Colleges:

Spectator:

Have you seen any colleges that are disproportionally supportive of the alt-right movement?

Richard Spencer:

No, I don’t quite see that because where we are right now in terms of how culture is being disseminated, it’s being disseminated through the Internet and globally through networks and the alt-right isn’t like other ideologies in that with conservatism you could look at Oklahoma and say that it is a very dark red state. The alt-right is a little bit different. I am sure there are some very supportive alt-right people at Stanford and the University of Alabama and things like that. So, it is a very different phenomenon. In truth I don’t know the answer to that, I don’t know where everyone who resonates with it is. Also, as I understand it and as I want it to be, the alt-right is a sort of vanguard movement. So, it is challenging, we are not here to console people, like conservatives who say that “America is the greatest country in the world. You the American people are the most intelligent and wisest population that has ever lived.” We are never going to say anything like that. The alt-right is challenging and it’s not for everyone, I don’t want it to be for everyone.

Spectator:

Have you found that you’ve had a disproportionate amount of support from college students?

Spencer:

In early winter 2015 we did a conference called “Beyond Conservatism.” I spoke, and Jared Taylor spoke, and when we were there not many people were there, you know, 85 people or so. But I asked people to raise their hand if they were under the age of 40, and well over half the people raised their hand. I then asked them to raise their hands if they were under the age of 30, and we probably had a third of the group raise their hand. Me and a friend of mine were talking to each other afterward and we were like, “something is really changing because these are new people who are coming to us for the first time.” They are new people, they are edgier. That was winter 2015 and that was when I first noticed. I had been to numerous other conferences like the H.L. Mencken Club or American Renaissance where I was the youngest person there by decades. At H.L. Mencken Club it was all gray-hairs and their wives. It was an older event, now we are getting to this point where it’s mostly young people. Sometimes it’s all young people. At Charlottesville 1.0, which was in May, we did an event there, we had a torchlight rally and a normal rally. Effectively every single person was under the age of 40. I was the old guy there. So, there has been a huge change. I just think that this movement speaks to a younger generation.

Spectator:

During the Unite the Right Rally did you notice a lot of people participating who were from UVA?

Spencer:

People mostly came from the outside. The fact is, I don’t really know, since at this point in my career when I do something like Unite the Right, I am isolated. We are not talking to anyone, we are not just walking around campus talking to students. The first rally we did in May, we got there early, and I went walking around campus with some friends. But with Unite the Right that was so intense. We drove in the day before and we went to our hotel room, we did not talk to anyone, I stayed alone, it was a weird situation. We went to this diner for breakfast and I was even a little bit worried about that. So, I did not meet anyone there. People were coming in from miles and miles away. I don’t know how many students participated and I think that students may have been a little bit afraid to go because they were publicly associating with this “terrible rally.”

Spectator:

On affirmative action, usually the conservative pushback is that we shouldn’t be favoring minorities and that it should be more of a meritocracy in college admissions. Under your idealized system that would be the case, or if there would be a kind of reverse affirmative action?

Spencer:

Yes, I would say that it would be more of the latter. I certainly understand the pushback against it in that it seems very unfair. I also get the idea of an ideal meritocracy, but I also don’t get it. I think we all make choices that are not purely determined by SAT scores, so many people apply to colleges that you couldn’t really make a choice based on SAT scores. If Harvard wanted to fill up its entire class with kids who made above XYZ, they could fill up their entire class and more based on people who scored high enough. So, you can’t use pure GPA or pure SAT scores as criteria for admissions. And even then, touchy-feely liberals have a point that we aren’t pure numbers. Your personal makeup says something about you. When I was at St. Mark’s in Texas my GPA was fine, it wasn’t really off the charts, but I also played sports and I also participated in drama and even put on my own drama production. I was very clearly a self-starter. I would create my own projects and do them. I was a unique person. You can’t always make decisions based on a pure meritocracy. I think that’s impossible. If you look at the history of affirmative action, the liberals also have a point when they say that affirmative action was used to be for whites. When one of the certainly Ivy League colleges wanted to… there was definitely a WASP elite at these schools, whether it was UVA or Washington and Lee or Princeton.

Colleges engage in geographic affirmative action. You are far better off coming from Montana applying to Harvard or Stanford or W&L than you are living in New York state or California or probably for W&L living in Virginia. If you apply from Wyoming I bet that if you’re pretty good, you’ll get in. That was a program by the WASP elite to bring in more whites. It was an anti-Ashkenazi Jewish policy. No one thought Jews were dumb. They thought (The WASPs) these kids are wickedly smart, and we want people who are more like us, maybe from the hinterlands. So, I think, beyond being a conservative or a liberal or a libertarian, a meritocracy is a limited concept, and I don’t want a world in which we are numbers. So, I don’t think there is ever a pure meritocracy. It is impossible and undesirable.

So, yes, in an ideal world, I would want us [whites] to benefit ourselves, and I would even take that a little further. Every society needs an elite. It is going to need not the elite we have now who are sociopathic or globalist, interested in God knows what. But we do need an elite that wants to protect our people and they are going to have certain duties that are different from the duties of a middle-class shopkeeper or a laborer. There is going to have to be elitism, there is going to have to be snobbery, and there is going to have to be some nepotism. But we do want an elite class that is going to protect us, that is a martial class that is going to rule the realm. Should we kind of nepotistically, through these schools and through these networks, maintain that good healthy elite that protects the realm, like the king? These people are subjugated to him. People are subjugated to the king but we shouldn’t indulge in some liberal fantasy of whip-master or something like that, no. He has duties to them too just as much as they have to him. We need to have an elite like that, so I would be for affirmative action, if you would call it that, for us [whites]. You know, within any elite there must be a little bit of meritocracy too. Elites grow decadent, elites grow soft. You might need to shake things up. You might need a little bit of fresh blood. But it is all done within that sense of maintaining order.

Spectator:   

What has been your previous experience with W&L? Have you ever visited the campus?

Spencer:

I have visited. So, this would have been in 1996 or maybe ‘97 I did visit. It is a very good school and a very difficult one to get into because it’s small. It’s a coveted place. My freshman year I went to Colgate University, another small liberal arts college. I was really into the small liberal arts colleges, but it wasn’t for me, so I transferred to UVA my sophomore year, and I was very happy there.

Spectator:

What stuck out the most about W&L in your mind?

Spencer:

I remember going to a fraternity party. It was pretty gentlemanly. They were better behaved than UVA fraternities. That’s not saying much, but I remember going to one of the fraternity parties. I was not racially conscious at that point, I would say racially unconscious. You know, I understood these things on sort of an unconscious level, but I wasn’t thinking through them clearly and if someone said, “Oh, are you a racist?” I would have said, “No, of course not, that’s terrible.” But I remember going to that fraternity party and they were all white and they were playing hardcore gangster rap music and they were rubbing, and I was disgusted by it. I really reacted to it, it was kind of an extreme reaction, but it was like these people are just terrible, and I think they were. It was funny because what struck me was the all whiteness of the party but then they were all indulging in the stupidest, worst aspects of African American culture. They weren’t even taking some of the redeeming aspects.

Commentary:

Despite the intense media coverage and vocal presence on the Internet, Mr. Spencer’s movement remains pitifully small. By his own account, attendance to every conference that he has organized has been less than one hundred, and the turnout for rallies such as Unite the Right in Charlottesville has been dwarfed by the number of counter-protesters. The reason for Mr. Spencer’s increase in influence and notoriety has been the obsession that the mainstream media has developed over far-right groups, no matter how small, and the power of social media. The voices of a few racist malcontents can be magnified a hundred-fold through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and a week-long blitz of 24-hour news coverage by the major news networks can make it seem as if someone like Richard Spencer is actually a major force in American politics.

Ideology:

Spectator:

Was that when you started to achieve some sort of racial consciousness? Or when did you start to develop that consciousness?

 Richard Spencer:

I don’t think that was a turning point, but for a weird reason that did stick with me. I really remember that. It wasn’t a turning point, but I was definitely thinking through these things very critically. You know, if I were say 18, and I saw that I probably would have been like oh yeah, let’s go do it. But at 20 or 21, I was kind of sneeringly looking at it. So, I was becoming aware. In college I was a bit different. I was more into radical thought of all kinds. I had a great interest in the Left and critical theory like the Frankfurt School. I was really into theater, I have always been interested in theater. If you had asked me what had wanted to do when I was 21 I would have wanted to direct avant-garde opera productions. Sort of a modernist, chic but shocking rendition of Wagner’s Ring.

Spectator:

So, when did your “identitarian” ideology start to take shape? Was it while you were at UVA or did it develop later?

Richard Spencer:

Uh, it wasn’t really at UVA, I certainly did not hear the word identitarian while I was there. The Web was not very well developed. I remember when I was a freshman at Colgate we would use these email machines, basically. By 1999 to 2000 the Web had developed to a certain extent and you could go on and find a few websites. I was by 2003-2004 visiting all sorts of websites that I was curious about, occasionally listen to a William Pierce speech or something. Around that time, I started getting into American Renaissance and Jared Taylor. I listened to Jared Taylor quite a bit. So, by that time I was in that transition. But I don’t know when exactly I first heard the term identitarian, it was probably later, probably 2007-2008, but I do think that is the perfect term, the perfect base of a philosophy. I sort of slowly transitioned into it, so while I was doing my doctorate work in 2005 I was in a weird state. I had read a lot of radical stuff, I was very interested in Nietzsche, I was very interested in Schmitt, I was very against the Republican Party. I would say, and I have joked about it sometimes, that in some ways the origin of the alt-right is in the Bush Administration. I was very radically opposed to the Iraq War.

Spectator:

Could you give a short and concise definition of the identitarian ideology?

Spencer:

The way I’ve described it is: any political movement not only has to engage in politics but meta-politics. That is, it’s not just politics in terms of policy, it’s not just what your opinion is on the Iraq War or economics or etc. You have to have some sort of starting point in your philosophy. For the Left, it comes from some notion of a class war, from a sense of class struggle or of human equality. This diversity in some sort of post-human quality seems to be driving the Left. If you make fun of a tranny you’re literally Hitler, it’s quite bizarre. If you look at the Right and where is their meta-politics, where are they starting from? The start was free-market economics, individualism and liberty. And so there always has to be some meta-politics, and if you only start at the level of politics you’re going to miss a lot, you’re going to become just another organization in Washington, advocating for things like end the death tax or bring back prayer in schools. There is no guiding principle in these single-issue organizations.

With an identitarian, you start with that question of “who are we?” And, this is a question because it may be something that we might assume and rarely think through in any kind of detail. So those questions “Who am I?” and “Who are we?” are closely related questions, and the way an identitarian would think about it is concentric circles. You can think of something mundane, like “I like to drink bourbon, it is one of my favorite beverages.” My grandfather did too, and he probably passed it on to me. That is totally elective but that says something about me. The fact that I mentioned my grandfather connects me to it, to the history. I was born in Massachusetts and I grew up in Dallas, that also tells something about me. I am a U.S. citizen, I hold a passport, but you can get a deeper meaning from all of this. I was born into a family, that is where it is totally un-elective, you can’t choose who your parents are. You can get even deeper, I am part of a regional culture, I speak the English language, and even though I may not seem like it I do have a Southern identity of sorts. It is certainly not as strong as others, but it is certainly part of me. Even these little things tell you something about me. I would say at the foundation of all those things that you can’t get away from and can’t choose and that is race. Race is the foundation of identity. It is something you are born into, it is this deep foundation of how you think, what your elective affinities are, who your family is, and etc. So, for an identitarian, identity is the beginning, and identity isn’t just race, and it shouldn’t be-those two things should not be equated, but race is the foundation of identity. But also, identitarianism raises some interesting questions, in a way, identitariansim is a response to nationalism, because for these Catalonian nationalists, really? That is your identity? You need to just separate from Spain and you need to separate from the Mediterranean region? There is also a lot of overlap as well, you know, a Mediterranean culture overlaps with many different nation-states. A Tyrolian culture is German, but it is also sort of Italian. There is the question, “What is Germany in itself?” there are multiple linguistic and religious differences. So, identitarianism makes you question the nation-state, and hyper-ethnic nationalism, which is quite a radical thing to do. That is my starting point. Policy comes later as I would think about it. My foreign policy serves that end, I am not a libertarian whose starting point is the non-aggression principle and this “do no violence” stuff. I guess you could consent to violence under some radical libertarian doctrine. Their starting point is that non-aggression principle, so they have the answer before they ever get asked the question. However, with identitarianism a lot of those questions are left open. “What is the economic system that you support?” Well, I am flexible on that, I am not a diehard free market person. Do I want the government to own the entire economy? No, of course not, but is there a role for the government to play within society, should some people be taken care of by the government? Maybe. Should the interests of businessmen override our interests as a race? No, absolutely not. In foreign policy, I have been against every war that the U.S. has gotten into in my lifetime, but am I against war? No, of course not, and I don’t say that just as defensive war. It’s just a question of whether this is expanding our people and our civilization. So, that is what I would think about and that is what identitarianism is from my standpoint.

Spectator:

So, would both liberals and conservatives be welcome in the identitarian movement and your ideal “ethno-state?”

Richard Spencer:

Unquestionably. This obsession with politics, and we are radically polarized when it comes to politics, we are polarized racially, and white people are polarized radically along political lines. If you were to judge me based on what political ideology I match, you may very well say that I am a liberal. In terms of my sentiments and tastes I probably have a lot in common with liberals, and obviously in some ways I may have a lot in common with conservatives. So, sure, there are some things that drive me crazy, but I don’t hate liberals in the way that some conservatives do, like it’s their identity, like “God, I hate those people.” I agree with liberals on a lot of things, and I certainly don’t hate them.  So certainly, an “ethno-state” would be for the whole family both liberal and conservative. There would be a state that would be above these polarizing tendencies. We would have liberals, we would have conservatives. There would be Christians, there would be atheists.

Commentary:

Mr. Spencer’s ideology leaves no room for free will or human agency. He believes that he enjoys scotch whiskey because of his grandfather’s love of scotch, not because Mr. Spencer himself likes scotch. In Mr. Spencer’s view, one’s personal likes, thought processes, and beliefs are entirely determined by one’s race. This leaves no room for the concept of free will. One’s life is entirely determined by attributes entirely out of one’s control, namely race.

Spencer also openly welcomes both liberals and conservatives into his movement, and remains purposefully ambiguous on policy points. He wants an “ethno-state” in which white people live in harmony with each other, but he totally disregards political divides that would result from inviting both liberals and conservatives into his movement. Almost all liberals and conservatives would not only remain incompatible in a movement such as identitarianism, but they would also both undermine the movement from within. The guiding principles of both liberals and conservatives are diametrically opposed to the sort of ideology that Mr. Spencer and his movement espouses.

The Ethno-State and its Government:

Spectator:

What are the end goals of your ideal society?

Spencer:

Well, the ultimate end goal is this new type of country that is an “ethno-state.” It’s something there is no precedence for. It’s different than an “ethno-state” in the sense that Sweden was an “ethno-state” until the 1990s. It was mono-cultural, mono-religious, mono-ethnic, had a unified culture, but obviously you can’t say that anymore about Sweden. The bigger countries, like France, you probably couldn’t call them quite ethno-states. They had different ethnicities, they had some religious differences. Germany is an accumulation of different principalities and so on. So, it’s not like that. It’s not a big nation-state like France, Germany, Great Britain, or Russia. It would be a place for all whites, so it is kind of as revolutionary an idea as Bolshevism.

I recognize what I’m saying when I say that. It’s a new idea. You have some precedents like the State of Israel and so on, but it would be an empire and it would have to be big. I understand that we could have some kind of white diasphoric community where we’re white people living in nonwhite countries, but we’re still connected and networked, similar to the Jews in Europe for centuries. But I ultimately think we need a land of our own. So yeah, it would be an ethno-state for all whites, it would be a homeland for all whites, so every white person would have a right of return no matter where in the globe they were born. So that is a radical idea, it’s a new type of order. So that would be the ultimate ideal. In terms of some other things that I’m thinking about, you can hear this a little bit in my podcast, but I came at this through a lot of the anti-war stuff, so I was anti-American empire. And I do think the American empire, I don’t like it, should be changed. I think we might have to take up the white man’s burden. I have to be honest.

I don’t think nonwhites are ultimately capable of civilization without us. And unless we want an eternal state of rebellion by these people, we’re gonna probably have to take care of them. So, I have been open to the idea of what I’ve called, ‘linen-clad, gin-swilling imperialism,’ so we’d have to control most of our hemisphere, and we’d create states for other peoples. So, whether it’s in Cuba or in Haiti, we could go to a number of different places. We’d create a state for African-Americans. They don’t have to go back to Africa. That’s kind of unrealistic. We’d create something for them, and we’d probably take care of them forever in an imperial relationship. It would be an imperial relationship where we would not be exploiting them, they’d be exploiting us, but we’d take care of them, because I don’t think there’s any other way around this basic fact: if blacks are in charge of something, it’s going to look like Detroit within a generation or two. We have to take on that burden, so I’m not a nationalist, I’m not an isolationist. You know, empire is kind of a dirty word, but I’m not afraid of it. It’s probably what we’re going to have to do. Something like our relationship with Puerto Rico is not really a bad one, this idea that these people can’t vote, they’re not true citizens, but they certainly do benefit from being a part of our realm and that we also, in a hemispheric way, we want to have a large territory that’s for us. We’re probably going to have to return to these kinds of relationships.

Spectator:

Do you view the American Founders as intending to only include whites, like the Stephen Douglas view, or do you think they meant “all” when they said “all men” in the Declaration or the Constitution?

Richard Spencer:

I think they only considered whites to be created equal. They only allowed citizenship in the 1790s for white men of good character. They used, because of their time, rhetoric of the Enlightenment.

Spectator:

There seems to be a divide in the alt-right, from what I can see, between those who claim the mantle of the Founders and those who flatly state, like John C. Calhoun did, that Jefferson was wrong.

Spencer:

I’m obviously one of the latter in terms of what I’ve written. It’s a difficult situation. I wrote a recent piece, my response to Ben Sasse, which took up a lot of these ideas. I’ve written a lot about being against the Revolution, being against the Founders, being against the Declaration, and I certainly don’t want a renege of anything that I’ve said. We’re in a complicated situation right now where those symbols have become so white and so explicitly white that they are being torn down by our enemies, which include white people. In a way, they’ve almost been forced upon us. We’re the last ones who will take them up. I think that this country was flawed from the very beginning, that it unleashed certain ideas that maybe had to end up where they are right now. So, I do think that if one founds a country on the Declaration of Independence, and yes, I get it, it’s not the Constitution, it’s not binding law, but the symbolism is so potent that we almost had to have ended up where we are today.

Spectator:

And of course, Madison does explicitly say, ‘I never used the word slave to eliminate the wrong idea that you can have property in man,’ so it’s not as if the Constitution is antagonistic to the Declaration.

Spencer:

Not at all. It’s also a kind of foundation. The English don’t need a constitution. The idea you’re going to construct this soulless legal mechanism as the basis of your society, that’s the fundamental flaw.

Spectator:

George Washington didn’t see it that way at all. In Washington’s Farewell address, he explicitly says he wants to speak to the souls of Americans. He understands that the mechanisms have to be there to preserve liberty and to make people happy and to have those tangible things that you talk about but, yes, the souls of the people need to obey the laws, they need to accept some sense of order, they need to have religion and morality. The basic question is: what is your view of the American Founding and the alt-right’s orientation toward it?

Spencer:

I’d say there certainly is a difference of opinion, but my view is one of profound ambivalence. This was in some ways the greatest country and in some ways the worst country at the founding. I think there are deep, profound flaws. Even if the Founders didn’t ultimately want this, and they certainly didn’t, that doesn’t mean they weren’t setting things in motion that had their own logic. And they were also dealing with the fact that they were creating something new on the frontier. How do you do that? You almost had to retreat to Enlightenment principles and abstract republicanism and so on. If we’re going to found an order in the future, we’re not going to reproduce the constitution. I would never in a million years think to do that. Alexander Stevens, said, “the cornerstone of the Confederacy is that we recognize that Thomas Jefferson was wrong.”

Spectator:

Now Lincoln would shoot back, and he did after the Dred Scott decision came out, and of course, Stephen Douglas said that the government was founded on the white basis, but Lincoln observes that if you didn’t have property and you were a white man, you couldn’t vote until Jackson, so the founders didn’t set all whites equal. In your ideal ethno-state, are all whites on an equality with one another, or is it more Nietzsche’s idea of an Ubermensch?

Spencer:

Okay, let’s put aside Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. That’s a very peculiar concept that would lead me to go off on a tangent. I’m not terribly excited about voting generally. I also don’t think we should put equality as some great goal that we should achieve, that everyone in society should be equal or that they should be just the same, which is even worse. We need elite classes, guardian classes essentially, and they’re going to have different rights.

Spectator:

You referenced an aristocracy that would be a “Guardian class,” do you think that the consent of the governed is a legitimate basis of human government?

Richard Spencer:

Yes and no. On one basic level, unquestionably in the sense that…there are two things, and this is where I am deeply influenced by Carl Schmitt: there is power but there is also legitimacy, and it is true that to a certain extent that legitimacy is derived from the barrel of a gun, that is a very cynical statement. But it carries a lot of truth. But it is also not true at some level. There are regimes that lose legitimacy, rulers that abdicate, they will crumble, they might shatter, they will be dragged out into the streets by feral mobs. We’ve even seen it in recent times. Ceausescu and his wife were dragged out into the street and murdered in an alleyway. That’s pretty brutal. A regime can totally lose legitimacy at some level, so it does have to have that consent. Now, is that consent something we have to have elections every two or four years and conduct endless referenda? No, obviously that’s not what I am talking about. It is a sort of magical thing as well. It’s not so much that the people have these interests and we can measure the interest through public opinion polling, it’s more like is the United States government legitimate? I would say that it is, but I would say that the true legitimacy of the government has waned even over the course of my lifetime. The distrust of it, the cynicism towards it, the cynicism towards the people in power who are thought of as doofuses or evil has undoubtedly increased in my lifetime. So, at some point the U.S. is going to face a legitimacy crisis, and it might not suffer a power crisis. It’s going to maintain nuclear weapons, it’s going to maintain an army, but it may very well suffer a major legitimacy crisis.

Spectator:

Do you see religion as a dividing factor or a unifying factor in a state?

Spencer:

It can be both, obviously. We don’t have the kind of religious strife we had in the Wars of Religion. I would say that now white people have a generic Christianity where no one can really imagine Lutherans being at war with Catholics, or even Orthodox. There are differences of course, but there aren’t fighting differences. I don’t know what to say about the religious questions. Speaking personally, I want to awaken the Greco-Roman gods, but that’s a very provocative thing to say. I do think Christianity is fundamentally problematic. It can be a source of community for people of course. But less so now, as time goes on. I mean, Christianity is moving into becoming a nonwhite religion, or at the very least, a truly universal religion that is not connected to any white nation. It is problematic. It’s certainly problematic in its Jewish qualities.

Spectator:

Are there are any states currently in existence that maybe if they don’t fit your bill of a perfect ethno-state that you have in mind to use as a model for an ethno-state?

Spencer:

I’d say Israel is an interesting model because it is the homeland for all Jews. Every Jew has a right of return to Israel, which is very remarkable. No other state that I know of is like that. One could look at Japan and say, “That’s a good state we want to model because they have very restrictive immigration,” but my idea of the ethno-state is more revolutionary than that. It is something new. This idea we’d create a homeland for all white people, it has never really been tried. By very necessity it would have to be imperial and quite large. I think we can take certain things from existing states, but I don’t think one of them is an exact model for what we want, and I’m not a conservative in the sense that I just want to protect and defend these existing states. I think they’re all going to get bulldozed by these humungous threats. I mean I’m glad that Poland is holding out against the refugees and Islam and so on, but there are all these forces that are going to overwhelm the nation-state. Hungary is another example, and I obviously support them in that. Russia is interesting because Russia’s economy is kind of embarrassing. It has the economy of Italy. People forget this. But it has nuclear weapons and an imperial bad-ass tradition. I mean, Russians are rulers. Kind of like the difference between the English and the Irish. Sorry if I offended anyone, but the Irish are never going to rule anyone, but the English will. German nationalism is much scarier for the establishment than Catalonian nationalism or Irish chauvinism. No one thinks those people are going to do anything. But Germans, holy shit. If Germans get going, then they can rule. Russians are similar. They have that imperial tradition. But I don’t want to just defend these current states. These current states are ultimately going to be bulldozed. So, we need something as big and powerful as the nation-state against it.

Spectator:

What is the threshold for whiteness to gain admission into the “ethno-state” and what European ethnic groups would qualify as white in your mind?

Richard Spencer:

In an ethno-state, it really would be for European people. That would include Germans, or Germanics. That’s a larger group than just Germans. Mediterraneans, Slavs, Celts, the English who are quite Germanic, it would be for our whole race. We would recognize that common aspect among us. Of course, there are all sorts of contentious questions within this. Who is white? Are the Armenians white? Would the Persians be considered white? In my ethno-state probably not, but these are questions for a later date and we are getting into really divisive almost tedious questions. I don’t think we really need to get into those right now.

There are also other questions surrounding the mixed people. I am not a geneticist, but genetics obviously matter, but I am not deeply obsessed with it. You know, if a half-Asian person really identified with the white race, but these are a very minor part of the population, so it’s not a big deal.

Spectator:

Do you see the inclusion of Jewish people in the white ethno-state?

Spencer:

Absolutely not. No. That is a non-negotiable. No.

Spectator:

Even those who are largely white?

Spencer:

At least aesthetically?

Spectator:

Sure. You’ve talked about looking into your grandfather’s face and seeing your own people. In situations like that where you can see, on the surface, and you identify with them, does that heritage still outweigh their Jewish heritage?

Spencer:

I would say this. I’m not like a biological extremist in the sense that if someone, if we looked at someone’s 23 and Me and we saw some Jewish ancestry, I wouldn’t be obsessed with them, like ‘kill them immediately.’ I’m not like that at all. But the fact is Jews understand themselves as Jews. It’s a different consciousness than understanding yourself as, “I’m a Swede,” or “I’m a white American,” or “I’m a German,” or “I’m a Russian.” It’s a very different consciousness.

Spectator: So as long as they identify, as long as they have that sense of being united by a Jewish state, then that would be ineligible?

Spencer:

“It’s a total non-starter. I mean Jews are certainly under threat to a very large degree. Jewish-Americans are certainly being out-bred. I think it’s about 50% of Jews take gentile spouses. Amongst those, will their children identify as Jews? It becomes questionable, and as that generation goes down, it gets weird. So, there does get to a point where that Jewish consciousness is attenuated to nothing, but in terms of people who truly do identify as Jews, they identify with Israel, even if they’re atheists, they identify with Israel, they identify as Jews. That is a major problem. They have a different being, a different way of understanding themselves, and they have a different way of understanding themselves within another culture. It can’t work.

Spectator:

Thinking back to the early 1900s. There was a lot of the animosity toward Catholics, partly because of the question of allegiance to the United States, is that sort of along the same lines as what you’re getting at with Jewish people?

Spencer:

It’s not totally dissimilar to that. But it’s not just an allegiance to Israel. Jews understand themselves as existing within a society without really being a part of it, and Jews will often act that way. I mean the Jewish question is so difficult. Jews will often feel like they are more comfortable to be Jews within a society that does not have a sense of racial feeling. That is a threat to the “ethno-state.”

Spectator:

In a world of ethno states, do you think it is possible for a multicultural state to exist?

Richard:

A multicultural state could be maintained, but in an imperial way. If you had a system of federalism, these things can be maintained. In terms of integrating two races into a single state–nations are not imperial in that sense.

Spectator:

Supposing that the ethno-state is created, not worrying about the specifics, what kind of government are you looking for it to have? Is it more of a republic, more on the authoritarian side?

Richard:

Obviously more on the authoritarian side. I do not know exactly what form of government it will take, but I do think there needs to be certain societal aspects that are different from what we have now. The exact form I am flexible. I am not excited about reproducing anything that we have today. The mass democracies where every two years we have these big elections. You know, these presidential elections now are effectively two years apart. Next year is going to be midterms, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then by about February the presidential election of 2020 is going to have begun. It’s crazy. It’s an endless reality show really. It seems like a colossal waste of time, money, and resources. So I am not a great fan of democracy. I mean, maybe I am a fan of democracy in kind of a deeper sense where the elite will protect the people. Carl Schmidt gave this difference between democracy and parliamentarism. Democracy means rule by the people effectively, is that best expressed through a representative body? A dictator? An oligarchy? That can be expressed in all kinds of way. I think we can be democratic in a deeper sense in that we have a regime for our people, but how that takes shape exactly is up to debate.

Spectator:

You said you would like the elite to protect society, protect them from what?

Richard:

We’d obviously protect them from events such as a so called refugee crisis. We would protect them in terms of the foreign policy realm. From other states. Obviously. That’s the fundamental responsibility of a government. I think we would maybe protect them from themselves, I don’t know if you can look at the American public right now, and say these are the most intelligent and wise people, and that I am so glad that they get to choose. Elites have a role to play in the creation of culture and setting the tone and direction that society goes in. I’m not a libertarian. The elite would have to help guide.

Spectator:

Of all the places you’ve lived in the United States, which would you consider home?

Spencer:

Wow. That’s a good question. I would say now I really like going back to Whitefish [Montana]. Dallas is still home to a certain degree even though I don’t have contacts there. For better or for worse, so many of my friends now are international. I’m connected to people who are part of this movement who aren’t my neighbors. I am the rootless cosmopolitan that I speak out against.

Commentary:

Mr. Spencer’s ideology and his vision for an “ethno-state” are both self-contradictory in pivotal points. He wishes for a brotherhood among all white people, but he also desires a ruling class to protect the people form themselves. If white people are so naturally amicable with each other and are naturally superior, then why do they need to be protected from themselves by a ruling aristocratic class? Though he believes them to be destined for an imperial state, he still believes that they need to be protected from themselves by autocratic rulers.

 He also considers some white people, such as Germans and Brits, as superior to other white people, such as the Irish. In Mr. Spencer’s view, some white people are more equal than others. He also advocates for a whites-only “ethno-state” in which white people can live with their own race and avoid the racial strife that Mr. Spencer believes to be poisoning the white race, yet he wants the white “ethno-state” to be an imperial state that lords over non-white “ethno-states.” If your goal is racial purity, then why would you want to add imperial possessions that are comprised of non-whites? One cannot help but notice that Mr. Spencer is extremely vague or noncommittal when it comes to specific polices, such as the exact nature of the “ethno-state’s” government, and he does this for a reason. Mr. Spencer does not want to divide his already small base of support by taking a definitive stance on a policy issue.

Beyond this, however, Mr. Spencer seems dreadfully apathetic or ill-informed about why we have a government in the first place (beyond protection from foreign enemies). Asked what the end goal of his dream nation would be, his answer was, in so many words, “To have a country.” But that’s not why we have countries. We have countries to further visions, to promote the individual happiness and rights of citizens (which Spencer seems “profoundly ambivalent” about recognizing), and to pursue the “good” as the Greeks said. Spencer does not know, beyond having all white people surrounding him, what his idea of “good life” looks like—is it Dallas? Montana? Virginia? A country filled to the brim with gun-toters? A country with disarmed citizens at the mercy of the state? A Christian nation? A broadly religious one? An atheist one? Spencer only cares about the answers to these questions insofar as they effect the only principle he truly cares about, white unity and white nationhood.

His response on whether he’d let Jews into his ideal nation, combined with his off-the-cuff reference to the “Jewish question” needs no explanation or further expounding. It’s astoundingly despicable by definition.

In closing, there are an endless number of factual and logical arguments that could be made to refute nearly every facet of Mr. Spencer’s ideology. However, the simplest, and perhaps most effective argument against the ideology of Mr. Spencer is its own visceral shallowness. In Mr. Spencer’s view, as long as he can look at you and see himself and his people, then you are worthy of being admitted into the “ethno-state,” no matter your actual genetic makeup or heritage. It is disgustingly vain and shallow to judge one’s entrance into a state based on looks alone. There is something within the human spirit, call it logic, reason, faith, or simple human decency, that recoils at summarily judging someone or a whole race based solely on something as arbitrary as skin color, nose shape, and eye color. The ideology behind this extreme fragment of the alt-right matches the current influence of the movement: it is only skin deep.