The National Policy Institute (NPI) is a

white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-govern ...

and lobbying group which is based in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of downtown Washington, D.C. In 2020, the population was 159,467. ...

. It lobbies for white supremacists and the

alt-right The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...

. Its president is Richard B. Spencer. It has been largely inactive since late 2020, and its website has been inactive or dead since then.

Activities

The NPI was founded in 2005 by

William Regnery II William Henry Regnery II (February 25, 1941 – July 2, 2021) was an American white nationalist political activist and donor, and an heir to a multi-million dollar fortune. He was the founder of the National Policy Institute, a white national ...

. Louis R. Andrews was the chairman until 2010. Andrews said that he had voted for

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

in the 2008 presidential election because "I want to see the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa * Republican Party (Liberia) *Republican Party ...

destroyed, so it can be reborn as a party representing the interests of white people, and not entrenched corporate elites." When Andrews died in 2011, he was replaced by Richard B. Spencer. According to George Hawley, an assistant professor of Political Science at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the publ ...

, NPI was "rather obscure and marginalized" until Spencer became its president in 2011, at which point Spencer's website, AlternativeRight.com, became an NPI initiative. The group was based in

Augusta, Georgia Augusta ( ), officially Augusta–Richmond County, is a consolidated city-county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia. The city lies across the Savannah River from South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Geor ...

, at its founding, but by 2013 had relocated to

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

.Nick Baumann
Top Conservatives Run PAC That Funded White Nationalists
''Mother Jones'', January 29, 2013. Spencer divides his time between Montana and Virginia; in 2016, the group was based in

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...

.Dick Uliano
White nationalist, alt-right group calls Arlington home
WTOP (November 22, 2016). By early 2017, the NPI had leased a townhouse office space on King Street in

Old Town Alexandria Old Town Alexandria is one of the original settlements of the city of Alexandria, Virginia and is located just minutes from Washington, D.C. Old Town is situated in the eastern and southeastern area of Alexandria along the Potomac River. Old T ...

, Virginia, where it maintains its headquarters today.Patricia Sullivan
The chocolatiers and the white nationalist, coexisting in Old Town Alexandria
''Washington Post'' (February 17, 2017). City leaders in Arlington and Alexandria acknowledged the NPI's right to operate, but denounced the group's views. The group's presence in Alexandria has prompted several protests. In December 2013, NPI launched a website, ''Radix Journal'', which describes itself as "a periodical on culture, race,

metapolitics Metapolitics (sometimes written meta-politics) is metalinguistic talk about politics; a political dialogue about politics itself. In this mode, metapolitics takes on various forms of inquiry, appropriating to itself another way toward the discourse ...

, critical theory, and society". The NPI received a grant from the Pioneer Fund, a racist pseudo-scientific organization. In 2016,

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

suspended the accounts of the NPI, its leader Richard B. Spencer and others under its terms of use. Spencer said that "digitally speaking, there has been execution squads across the alt-right" and accused Twitter of "corporate Stalinism". However, Twitter's suspension was not based on the content of Spencer's posts, but rather on Twitter's rule barring multiple accounts with overlapping uses. Spencer's personal Twitter account was reinstated several weeks later; the NPI's remained suspended. Spencer was the headline speaker at a 2016 NPI conference held in Washington, D.C., and celebrated the election of

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

as "the first step towards identity politics in the United States" and "the victory of will" (a reference to ''

Triumph of the Will ''Triumph of the Will'' (german: Triumph des Willens) is a 1935 German Nazi propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl. Adolf Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; hi ...

'', the Nazi propaganda film).Goldstein, Joseph.
Alt-Right Exults in Donald Trump’s Election With a Salute: 'Heil Victory'
''New York Times'' (November 21, 2016). Spencer "railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted

Nazi propaganda The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...

in the original German". Spencer finished his speech by yelling "Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!" as audience members responded by standing up and making the

Nazi salute The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...

. The

United States Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...

issued a statement condemning the "hateful rhetoric" of the conference. Other speakers included Scotland-based YouTuber

Millennial Woes Colin Robertson, known as Millennial Woes or simply Woes, is a Scottish former YouTuber, white supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theorist. According to anti-racism and anti-fascism research group Hope Not Hate, Robertson is known for supp ...

. In July, 2017, Evan McLaren became

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

. He resigned in April, 2018. As of January 2020, he has not been replaced. The NPI was banned from

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

for not following the platform's policies on

hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...

in June 2020. Spencer announced he would appeal the ban. In 2021 a Federal judge ordered the NPI to pay $2.4 million to a man injured at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Fundraising and status

According to the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...

, NPI "raised $442,482 in tax-deductible contributions from 2007 through 2012". NPI's

tax-exempt status Tax exemption is the reduction or removal of a liability to make a compulsory payment that would otherwise be imposed by a ruling power upon persons, property, income, or transactions. Tax-exempt status may provide complete relief from taxes, redu ...

was revoked in 2017 by the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory t ...

(IRS) for failing to file tax returns. The group had not filed a

Form 990 Form 990 (officially, the "Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax") is a United States Internal Revenue Service form that provides the public with financial information about a nonprofit organization. It is often the only source of such i ...

since 2013. In March 2017, the

Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) is an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia that is responsible for promoting the economic growth and development of Virginia's agricultural sector. It also provides environmenta ...

(VDACS), which regulates the operation of charities in Virginia, removed the NPI's entry from its public database of nonprofits and announced that it was reviewing the group's status. The NPI raised $50,000 in late 2016 and early 2017 from an online fundraising drive and has solicited donations to be sent to its Arlington, Virginia

post office box A post office box (commonly abbreviated as P.O. box, or also known as a postal box) is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office. In some regions, particularly in Africa, there is no door to door delivery ...

, but in February 2017 VDACS had listed the group as "not authorized to solicit in Virginia." As of August, 2019, mail sent to the address was being returned as "undeliverable".

Views

NPI's website says that "the dispossession of White Americans will have catastrophic effects for the entire world, not just for our people". The organization has produced a series of reports on affirmative action,

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

and

conservatism Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...

, the

Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white ...

, and a report edited by VDARE contributor Nicholas Stix. The NPI has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a white supremacist organization.Potok, Mark (April 8, 2008)
Immigration report being released today linked to white supremacists
''Hatewatch'', Southern Poverty Law Center. Marilyn Mayo, the co-director of the

Anti-Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...

's Center on Extremism, said that the group "basically was founded to be kind of a white supremacist think tank". The NPI is regarded as part of a group of white nationalist organizations that, according to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', "try to take a more highbrow approach, couching white nationalist arguments as academic commentary on black inferiority, the immigration threat to whites and other racial issues."Wines, Michael & Stephanie Saul
"White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites"
nytimes.com, July 5, 2015. Other groups that advance similar strategies include the New Century Foundation (and its publication ''

American Renaissance The American Renaissance was a period of American architecture and the arts from 1876 to 1917, characterized by renewed national self-confidence and a feeling that the United States was the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance ...

'',) the Charles Martel Society (and its website the ''

Occidental Observer ''The Occidental Observer'' is an American far-right online publication that covers politics and society from a white nationalist and antisemitic perspective. It is run by the Charles Martel Society. Kevin B. MacDonald, a retired American pr ...

''), and the Pioneer Fund, all of which have been described by the SPLC as playing leading roles in the promotion of "academic racism".

Notes

References

External links