Inside the Far-right Podcast Ecosystem, Part 2: Richard Spencer's Origins in the Podcast Network
A network of podcasts, including one which featured former President Donald Trumpâs eldest son as a guest in 2016, fueled the rise of one of the core leaders of the modern white nationalist movement.
Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist figurehead during the Trump era, was one of dozens of up-and-coming extremists who leveraged a network of far-right podcasts to mobilize followers and turn his movement into a household name. This movement, known as the so-called âalternative rightâ or âalt-rightâ for short, encompassed a loose set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals under the mantle of white supremacy. While early coverage of the alt-right emphasized its membersâ and leadersâ fluency with internet culture â specifically forums and social media â the role of podcasts as a vehicle for propaganda and leadership development has not yet been examined.
The Southern Poverty Law Center analyzed Spencerâs breakthrough into the upper echelons ofĚýthe white power movement through the lens of a web of 18 different podcasts popular with the extreme right between 2005 and 2020. The ĂŰĚŇ´ŤĂ˝ found that Spencerâs earliest efforts to market his movement to the broader extreme right were facilitated in large part by âThe Political Cesspoolâ (TPC), a podcast and radio show hosted by longtime white nationalist propagandist James Edwards. Though the show has featured a variety of far-right extremists from the United States and abroad, Edwards has brushed shoulders with members of the more mainstream right, including Donald Trump Jr.
This is part two of the ĂŰĚŇ´ŤĂ˝âs four-part report examining 15 years of podcasting data across 18 different shows produced by far-right extremists. While Spencer is but one of the 882 cast members who appeared on 4,046 different episodes of these shows, he figures prominently in the web of far-right extremist content makers.
Spencerâs role in the white power movement
Spencer emerged as one of the most prominent white nationalist figureheads during the flurry of extremist activity around the 2016 election, although his involvement in the white power movement extends well beyond the Trump era.
In 2008, Spencer began promoting the term âalternative rightâ while an editor at the paleoconservative online publication Takiâs Magazine. In December of that year, Takiâs published a speech from far-right political theorist Paul Gottfried outlining his vision for a new âindependent intellectual Right.â Though the speech itself , it was key to Spencer's nascent movement.
In 2011, Spencer became president of the National Policy Institute, a think tank founded by William H. Regnery II, a mega-donor to various white nationalist outlets. Under Spencerâs tutelage, the National Policy Institute, dedicated to ensuring the âbiological and cultural continuityâ of white Americans, rebranded age-old racial bigotries for a younger generation of extremists. It did so through a variety of media, including blogs, journal articles and podcasts. NPI also held dozens of conferences with other white nationalist figureheads. In the run-up to and aftermath of the 2016 election, these gatherings drew scores of younger attendees, in part because the institute offered discounted admission for those under 30.
Likewise, Spencer was one of a core cadre of white nationalist organizers behind the flurry of far-right rallies in the first half of the Trump era. This included the August 2017 âUnite the Rightâ rally, which brought hundreds of white supremacists and other far-right extremists to Charlottesville, Virginia. The event devolved into violent skirmishes, culminating in the murder of antiracist activist Heather Heyer by James Alex Fields Jr. A few months later, at Spencerâs Oct. 19 appearance at the University of Florida as part of his brief college tour, on charges of attempted homicide for allegedly firing at protesters.
Today, he is one of over a dozen defendants named as organizers of âUnite the Rightâ in the Sines v. Kessler civil lawsuit. NPI has remained largely dormant in the years following the fracturing of the alt-right in 2018. Spencer made at least two attempts to launch new podcasts, including âThe McSpencer Groupâ and âRadix Live,â named after one of NPIâs publications, Radix Journal.
Spencerâs breakthrough on âThe Political Cesspoolâ
On Oct. 24, 2009, less than a year after beginning to promote the term âalternative right,â Spencer made his first appearance on âThe Political Cesspoolâ (TPC), a podcast and radio show hosted by James Edwards. Over the course of Spencerâs next two dozen or so appearances on TPC, Edwards used his prominent platform within the broader far-right movement to promote Spencer as a core member of the white nationalist intelligentsia.
Edwards, a board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens and a principal member of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, started TPC in 2004 as a terrestrial radio show, though it has since branched out to internet broadcasting. TPCâs mission statement includes white nationalist rhetoric, claiming that it âstands for the Dispossessed Majorityâ and is âpro-White.â
As part of TPCâs five-year anniversary special, Spencer appeared alongside Paul Gottfried to discuss âthe failure of the conservative movement.â Edwards introduced Spencer as the âManaging Editor of TakiMag.comâ and an âintellectual heavyweight.â Within the first ten minutes of the interview, Spencer began promoting his vision for a new far-right movement.
âWeâve got to find a new tactic that isnât just about kicking the neoconservatives out of the [conservative] movement. I donât think thatâs possible or desirable. Weâve got to find a new right wing,â he said during the interview. Spencer added that he had begun to refer to this movement as the âalternative right,â âa collection of different groups or individuals who are basically not falling into that lesser-of-two-evils logicâ that he claimed was used by some far-right extremists to justify voting for Republican candidates such as the late John McCain.
The discussion was notable in two regards. First, Spencerâs efforts to introduce the âalternative rightâ as a concept to TPC listeners came long before the term had begun to take root among far-right extremists. Spencerâs TPC appearance came less than a year after Gottfried presented his vision for a nationalist, populist right-wing in a speech at the H.L. Mencken Club. Spencer published Gottfriedâs speech on Takiâs Magazineâs website, under the title â,â in December 2009. The term stuck, and over the course of the next year, Takiâs Magazine, under Spencerâs editorship, would publish several articles laying the groundwork for this âalternative right.â
Second, Spencerâs appearance on TPC allowed him to reach a broader constituency within the far right. Edwards, a Tennessee resident, had long tailored the show for a Southern white nationalist and neo-Confederate audience â two audiences that would become crucial partners for Spencer and other organizers during the 2017 âUnite the Rightâ rally. Throughout the episode, both Edwards and Spencer urged far-right activists to come together, with Edwards emphasizing that their âsurvival depended on it.â Likewise, throughout the segment, Spencer and, later, Gottfried sought to draw listeners to their causes. Spencer, Gottfried and Edwards encouraged listeners to attend the H.L. Mencken Clubâs second annual meetup.
Spencerâs subsequent appearances on âThe Political Cesspoolâ
Between 2009 and 2020, Spencer appeared another 29 times on TPC broadcasts. The bibliographical details of each appearance provide a timeline for his development as a white nationalist leader, as well as for the alt-rightâs rise.
- Six months after his appearance in October 2009, he was invited back â this time hawking his new blog, AlternativeRight.com. Edwards re-introduced him to TPC listeners as the âExecutive Editor of Alternative Right, a trendy new paleoconservative website that features a wide variety of intellectual writings from some of the greatest minds you'll find today.â
Ěý - In late 2010, TPC nodded to Spencerâs past career in more mainstream right-wing media. Spencer, Edwards said, was the âformer editor of the American Conservative magazine and is the founder of AlternativeRight.com.â (Spencer worked at the American Conservative, a paleoconservative magazine, briefly as an assistant editor after dropping out of his doctoral program at Duke University in 2007.) By 2011, TPC described him as the founder and co-editor of Alternative Right and Executive Director of the National Policy Institute.
Ěý - In 2012 Spencer added âExecutive Director of Washington Summit Publishersâ to his resume.
Ěý - By 2014, he became âPresident of the National Policy Instituteâ and âfounder and editor of Radix Journal.â
Ěý - After Hungarian police detained Spencer in October 2014 during NPIâs disastrous attempt to hold a conference in Budapest, he was described on TPC as an âinternational thought criminal and free speech martyr.â
Ěý - In 2015, TPC highlighted his educational achievement as âa doctoral student at Duke University before dropping out to pursue a life of thought-crime.â By 2018, this had softened to âhe was a doctoral student at Duke University before becoming a journalist.â
Most of Spencerâs 30 appearances on âThe Political Cesspoolâ pre-date his notoriety in the popular press by several years. Through âThe Political Cesspool,â he was able to use the airtime to establish himself as an intellectual leader within the broader extreme right, while also drawing listeners deeper into the world of far-right activism through attendance at in-person events. Spencer continued to organize, promote and attend white nationalist meetups and conferences, including infamously in 2016 when he catapulted into the public eye after yelling âHail Trump!â and âHail victory!â â an English translation of the Nazi chant âSieg Heilâ â during an event in Washington, D.C.
During this time, too, Spencerâs appearances on the show coincided with a range of notable guests. Representatives from the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist group with roots in the efforts to oppose school desegregation in the 1950s, were frequent guests, joining Edwardsâ show some 58 times between 2005 and 2020. It also featured a variety of racist thinkers who figured into the alt-rightâs growth during the 2016 election. These included Jared Taylor, editor of the white nationalist publication American Renaissance, who appeared on the show 52 times during this period; Sam Dickson, a former lawyer for the Ku Klux Klan who appeared 36 times; and Kevin MacDonald, a retired university professor and author of several antisemitic tomes. MacDonald appeared 35 times. Many of these figures had, like Spencer, nurtured a deliberately more mainstream image to hide their extremist views.
But Edwards also hosted politicians, from the United States and abroad. In 2012, Rep. Walter B. Jones, a Republican from North Carolina, went on the show to discuss troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. (He later claimed he was unaware of the showâs political leanings.) Rep. Nick Griffin, of the far-right British National Party, made multiple appearances on the show, joining Edwardsâ program five times. Finally, Edwards interviewed Donald Trump Jr. in March 2016 on a sister program, âLiberty Roundtable.â There, the two disparaged immigrants, particularly undocumented ones. Trump Jr. Edwards was âbrought into the interview without my knowledge.â
Growing the alt-right
While Spencer continued to appear on âThe Political Cesspoolâ throughout the 2010s, an array of newer white nationalist podcasts provided him a variety of different platforms from which to promote and grow the alt-right. These shows, many of which were produced by and for a younger generation of white supremacists, tended to appeal to a younger, more digitally savvy, audience.
Spencer became a regular fixture on The Right Stuff podcasting circuit in fall of 2015. On Oct. 13, 2015, Spencer joined âThe Daily Shoahâ for the first time. The show was recorded in the runup to NPIâs annual conference, held around Halloween of that year. It included a brief promotional segment, dubbed the âNPI Conference Haircut Contest,â where Spencer judged TRS listenersâ undercuts â a type of hairstyle where the sides of the head are shaved or buzzed, and the top is left at a longer length. NPI awarded the winner a free ticket to its annual conference, held that year in Philadelphia.
After this initial appearance on âThe Daily Shoah,â Spencerâs involvement with other shows in the podcast network grew. While Spencer appeared on 95 episodes of nine different podcasts from 2009â20, his appearances on five of these nine shows coincided with an upswing in street mobilization between 2016 and 2018 by far-right extremists throughout the country. Spencer used many of these appearances to either promote future events or shape the narrative after a high-profile event, such as âUnite the Rightâ or press conferences.
Some of these discussions brought together other prominent organizers as well. The diagram below shows Spencer's diverse set of co-appearances with dozens of cast members from multiple podcasts over an 11-year period, from 2009 to 2020.Ěý
In 2016, Spencer appeared with Andrew Anglin of The Daily Stormer on an episode of âBetween Two Lampshadesâ â a spin-off of âThe Daily Shoah,â named after the Zach Galifianakis talk show âBetween Two Fernsâ â to promote a speaking engagement at Texas A&M University. Following the deadly âUnite the Rightâ rally in 2017, Spencer joined two TRS podcasts to break down what happened in Charlottesville. In an episode posted Aug. 13, 2017, Spencer joined Matthew Gebert, then a State Department official and TRS organizer known in white supremacist circles as âCoach Finstockâ; fellow âUnite the Rightâ organizer Elliott Kline, who used pseudonym âEli Mosleyâ; and the rest of usual cast of âThe Daily Shoahâ to unpack what happened at âUnite the Right.â A few weeks later, on Aug. 21, 2017, Spencer joined the âFash the Nationâ podcast, along with âThird Railâ host Norman Asa Garrison III. In the first 10 minutes of the two-hour episode, Spencer and Garrison sought to shift the blame for the violence at âUnite the Rightâ from the far right to antiracist protesters.
Spencerâs extensive cooperation with other prominent alt-right podcasts declined in the aftermath of âUnite the Right.â In 2019, he launched âThe McSpencer Group,â a podcast and talk show. While the show has managed to attract a small number of rotating cast members, Spencer himself has appeared on just two other podcasts in the ĂŰĚŇ´ŤĂ˝âs data set between 2019 and 2020, signifying a retrenchment back into his own work and away from other figures in the movement.
Ěý