White nationalists salute Trump at alt-right gathering in Washington, D.C.

(Image credit: YouTube.com/TheAtlantic)

published 22 November 2016

More than 200 attendees at the National Policy Institute's annual conference Saturday in Washington, D.C., listened as alt-right leader Richard B. Spencer spoke of the United States as being "a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity" that is "our inheritance, and it belongs to us."

The National Policy Institute describes itself as an "independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world." The Atlantic is finishing a documentary on Spencer, due out in December, and their cameras were rolling when Spencer — who has said his dream is a "new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans" — launched into a 30-minute speech after dinner, calling the mainstream media the "Lügenpresse," a term used by the Nazis to attack their critics in the press, and declaring that whites are "children of the sun," whatever that means.

Spencer said to "be white is to be a striver," and non-whites "need us and not the other way around." He concluded with a shout of, "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" with several listeners responding with cheers, applause, and Nazi salutes. Spencer told NBC News on Monday the alt-right movement is "not a neo-Nazi movement," and there is an "ironic exuberance to it all. I think that's one of the things that makes the alt-right fun, is that we're willing to do things that are a bit cheeky." Watch The Atlantic's video below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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