There’s already been substantial coverage of yesterday’s CPAC panel on multiculturalism featuring not one, but two, prominent white nationalists – Peter Brimelow and Bob Vandervoort. That may have just been the warm-up act for tomorrow morning.
Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera, both Republicans from the Miami metro area, are scheduled to appear on stage at CPAC with Vandervoort on an immigration panel entitled “High Fences, Wide Gates: States vs. the Feds, the Rule of Law & American Identity”:
Vandeervoort is currently the head of ProEnglish, which supports making English the official language of the US, but previously he was the leader of the white nationalist group Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance. As the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights has reported:
Vandervoort was at the center of white nationalist activity during his time in Illinois. While he was in charge, Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance often held joint meetings with the local chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The group held events featuring numerous white nationalist figures. Vandervoort also made appearances at white nationalist events outside Illinois, for instance participating in the 2009 Preserving Western Civilization Conference.Started as a modest newsletter in 1990, American Renaissance has grown into an important vehicle for white nationalist ideas. American Renaissance first described itself as a “literate, undeceived journal of race, immigration and the decline of civility.” It claimed that “White people” had lost their voice and that the United States was in danger of losing its “national and cultural core.”
American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor wrote in the magazine that “the greatest threat to whites today comes from immigration.” He continued: “Racial preferences, guilt-mongering, anti-Western education, even anti-white violence are manageable problems compared to a process that is displacing whites and reducing them to a minority. With a change in thinking at the right levels, anti-white policies and double standards could be done away with practically overnight, but that would still leave us with nearly 100 million non-whites living in the country.”
Vandervoort’s extremism hasn’t gone unnoticed by conservatives who don’t share his bigoted ideology, including fellow panelist Alex Nowrasteh, who suggested today that Vandervoort is a racist:
The conservative Daily Caller also noted the explicit white nationalism of American Renaissance and put the conference organizers on the defensive:
The American Conservative Union, CPAC’s organizer, is keeping its distance.“This panel was not organized by the ACU,” CPAC spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told The Daily Caller, ”and specific questions on the event, content or speakers should be directed to the sponsoring organization.”
But let’s recall that the American Conservative Union was fully in control when it came to GOProud, the conservative gay rights group that it banned from CPAC this year. Evidently, they can keep gay groups out but are powerless when it comes to white nationalists.
Which brings us back to tomorrow’s panel featuring Vandervoort, two Republican members of Congress, and Kris Kobach, Secretary of State of Kansas. Do Reps. Diaz-Balart and Rivera and Secretary Kobach really think it’s appropriate to appear on stage with a white nationalist? Will they denounce white nationalism and say it has no place within the GOP and conservative movement?
Tune in tomorrow morning to find out.
