Man at center of UF frenzy is out to change the world
Who is Richard Spencer, 39, the man whose speech Thursday at the University of Florida prompted Florida Gov. Rick Scott to declare a state of emergency?
In 2010, Spencer founded alternativeright.com, a space for white nationalist news and perspectives. He leads the National Policy Institute, which is described on its Facebook page as “an independent research and educational foundation.”
The “alt-right” is a loosely defined group of people who share a far-right ideology that breaks with traditional conservatism.
Spencer was born in Boston and grew up in an affluent neighborhood of Dallas.
He graduated from the University of Virginia in 2001 and got a master’s degree in humanities at the University of Chicago.
He’s married to a Russian Canadian woman, Nina Kouprianova, and has a young daughter.
Graeme Wood, one of Spencer’s childhood prep school classmates, wrote an Atlantic profile in which he said the racist and sexist views on alternativeright.com “were expressed with good grammar and a coherent view of the world.”
What is Spencer trying to accomplish?
He’s trying to change the world, he said in an Atlantic documentary.
He resists the label of white supremacist. “To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer and a conqueror. We don’t exploit other groups,” he told The Atlantic. “They need us and not the other way around.”
He said the Trump administration energized the alt-right movement. He’s ended speeches by wishing for Europeans to “be great again,” and his “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” remarks have been met with Nazi salutes.