- Aug 20, 2000
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A 25-year-old graduate student named Patrik Hermansson went 'undercover' for a year to study the Nazis ("alt-right"); he wore a wire and/or a hidden camera for much of that, and this NYT piece includes a writeup as well as direct video footage of many leading American Nazis explaining their views of wanting to forcibly expel or place non-whites in concentration camps (they tend to avoid saying that to the mainstream press for obvious reasons).
A number of these Nazis claim that they've had association with the Trump White House and Steve Bannon in particular. That fact is currently unverified.
I'd click through to the link below to watch the actual hidden camera video footage. Their forthrightness about their goals is something not often captured on film.
The New York Times - Undercover With the Alt-Right
A number of these Nazis claim that they've had association with the Trump White House and Steve Bannon in particular. That fact is currently unverified.
I'd click through to the link below to watch the actual hidden camera video footage. Their forthrightness about their goals is something not often captured on film.
The New York Times - Undercover With the Alt-Right
Mr. Hermansson, who was sent undercover by the British anti-racist watchdog group Hope Not Hate, spent months insinuating himself into the alt-right, using his Swedish nationality (many neo-Nazis are obsessed with Sweden because of its “Nordic” heritage) as a way in. It wasn’t always easy. “You want to punch them in the face,” he told me of the people he met undercover. “You want to scream and do whatever — leave. But you can’t do any of those things. You have to sit and smile.”
...
Some of Mr. Hermansson’s most arresting footage comes from a June meeting with Jason Reza Jorjani, a founder, along with the American white nationalist Richard Spencer and others, of the AltRight Corporation, an organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among alt-right groups in Europe and North America.
Mr. Hermansson and Mr. Jorjani met at an Irish pub near the Empire State Building, where the baby-faced Mr. Jorjani imagined a near future in which, thanks to liberal complacency over the migration crisis, Europe re-embraces fascism: “We will have a Europe, in 2050, where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great. And Hitler will be seen like that: like Napoleon, like Alexander, not like some weird monster who is unique in his own category — no, he is just going to be seen as a great European leader.”
More shockingly, Mr. Jorjani bragged about his contacts in the American government. “We had connections in the Trump administration — we were going to do things!” he said at one point. “I had contacts with the Trump administration,” he said at another.
“Our original vision was the alt-right would become like a policy group for the Trump administration,” he explained, and the administration figure “who was the interface was Steve Bannon.” Unfortunately, he told Mr. Hermansson, the political establishment was “disconnecting us from the Trump administration, almost completely.” (In June, Mr. Bannon hadn’t yet left the White House and returned to Breitbart, the popular and ardently pro-Trump far-right outlet he had led before his time working for Mr. Trump.)
When I called Mr. Jorjani, he was cagier about his “connections” and “contacts” in the White House. All he meant, he said, was that he had been in touch with people who had a direct line to President Trump, though he wouldn’t say who. Asked to comment, a White House spokeswoman said, “We have no knowledge of any conversations or contact with this person.”
Either way, Mr. Jorjani said, with the ousters of Michael Flynn in February and then Mr. Bannon in August, he now views the alt-right’s efforts to carve out a place in the White House as having failed. (Mr. Jorjani resigned from the AltRight Corporation in August.)
If Mr. Jorjani wasn’t exaggerating to Mr. Hermansson, and he did have a relationship with White House officials, that would certainly be alarming. But even if he was exaggerating, it’s still important to understand how messages like his could travel from the far reaches of the right-wing internet and all the way into — or close to, at least — the White House.
...
...
Some of Mr. Hermansson’s most arresting footage comes from a June meeting with Jason Reza Jorjani, a founder, along with the American white nationalist Richard Spencer and others, of the AltRight Corporation, an organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among alt-right groups in Europe and North America.
Mr. Hermansson and Mr. Jorjani met at an Irish pub near the Empire State Building, where the baby-faced Mr. Jorjani imagined a near future in which, thanks to liberal complacency over the migration crisis, Europe re-embraces fascism: “We will have a Europe, in 2050, where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great. And Hitler will be seen like that: like Napoleon, like Alexander, not like some weird monster who is unique in his own category — no, he is just going to be seen as a great European leader.”
More shockingly, Mr. Jorjani bragged about his contacts in the American government. “We had connections in the Trump administration — we were going to do things!” he said at one point. “I had contacts with the Trump administration,” he said at another.
“Our original vision was the alt-right would become like a policy group for the Trump administration,” he explained, and the administration figure “who was the interface was Steve Bannon.” Unfortunately, he told Mr. Hermansson, the political establishment was “disconnecting us from the Trump administration, almost completely.” (In June, Mr. Bannon hadn’t yet left the White House and returned to Breitbart, the popular and ardently pro-Trump far-right outlet he had led before his time working for Mr. Trump.)
When I called Mr. Jorjani, he was cagier about his “connections” and “contacts” in the White House. All he meant, he said, was that he had been in touch with people who had a direct line to President Trump, though he wouldn’t say who. Asked to comment, a White House spokeswoman said, “We have no knowledge of any conversations or contact with this person.”
Either way, Mr. Jorjani said, with the ousters of Michael Flynn in February and then Mr. Bannon in August, he now views the alt-right’s efforts to carve out a place in the White House as having failed. (Mr. Jorjani resigned from the AltRight Corporation in August.)
If Mr. Jorjani wasn’t exaggerating to Mr. Hermansson, and he did have a relationship with White House officials, that would certainly be alarming. But even if he was exaggerating, it’s still important to understand how messages like his could travel from the far reaches of the right-wing internet and all the way into — or close to, at least — the White House.
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