On today's show, we discuss the sudden demise of VDare, and whether or not it's a good or bad thing. We also talk about immigration, and why we should be worried about it. Thanks to our sponsor, VaynerMedia!
00:01:47.580I remember when we watched that video, uh, maybe two months ago from the New York Times, they were discussing, like, the history of immigration.
00:01:55.300And they, they, they, the video said that Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush were having a sort of empathy competition for who could empathize with the immigrants more back in the 80s.
00:02:08.720And, uh, so it, it is, it is an interesting position to take to, um, be an immigration restrictionist and to care about these things.
00:02:20.920And, um, VDare, I guess it, it did start in 1997 and, um, that, that was a unique position to have a little webzine where you're talking about immigration restriction and so on.
00:02:34.260Um, um, I, I began to find VDare somewhat annoying, uh, just in the sense of repetition.
00:02:45.200Um, I just didn't find the right very intellectually stimulating and just to be frank, endlessly whining about immigrants.
00:02:59.420It's not, I do disagree with that actually in certain ways.
00:03:03.620And I also think it's naive in certain ways, like using their own terms.
00:03:10.660Um, that being said, it, it, it was, you know, I, I found myself agreeing with it to a large degree, uh, as well.
00:03:20.720And there were some interesting people.
00:03:22.060I mean, you could find Sam Francis articles, you could find, um, you know, Jared Taylor,
00:03:28.640or you could find, um, Steve sailor, the whole crew on VDare.
00:03:37.900Uh, they were engaging in just kind of this like endless fundraising, um, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to put up a webzine,
00:03:47.820which just, I don't know, it, it, it, it's a little bit suspicious or kind of strikes me as a misallocation of resources.
00:03:59.640Um, I mean, do we really need yet another article from like, you know, uh, down to earth American who lost his job to an immigrant?
00:04:14.000Um, the other thing is that I think over the years, um, other conservatives have kind of taken this issue and really taken ownership of it.
00:04:24.900So you, you definitely could find like pro immigration sentiments and national review.
00:04:31.520And at the very least, they kind of didn't want to go there.
00:04:34.820They didn't want to be too restrictionist because that was racist.
00:04:37.960And, you know, we can't have that after all, William F. Buckley supported segregation for a time.
00:04:43.560And we were, we're, uh, you know, to the degree that national review kind of defined the movement for many decades, you know, we've got to move past that.
00:04:51.660But now I think the situation is completely changed and the Republican party is obsessed with the border.
00:05:00.800They are even engaging in, in, in, in kind of theories like the great replacement and so on that are rather edgier than I would say most of the V-Day content.
00:05:14.980And it's just been something kind of interesting that that's happened in that way.
00:05:19.840I guess I've been following not the, um, the collapse or the suing or whatever happened, but yeah, V-Day, I've always been aware of them, but yeah,
00:05:29.580they've always done a lot of Amaran adjacent stuff, but yeah, it's, they're not really that relevant anymore.
00:05:35.240I mean, you have like Vivek Ramaswamy on the debate stage talking about the great replacement is not a conspiracy theory.
00:05:41.720Like, I feel like, yeah, they're, they're kind of outmoded at this point.
00:05:46.040Like who's going to, do you think, yeah.
00:05:49.240Do you think it's, do you think that no one would be talking about immigration if it weren't for V-Day?
00:05:56.060Do you think V-Day, like, I think V-Day probably.
00:06:40.480Also just kind of avoiding the real issue.
00:06:43.320I mean, like, as I've said at an Amaran conference, I guess, 12 years ago, like, even if you shut down all immigration, the demographic issue is going to happen anyway.
00:09:06.720Intermarriage rates are also very high, and they seem to indicate that there's a common culture, in fact.
00:09:14.140This just goes against the notion that, like, we're going to do the Southern strategy, but for Mexicans.
00:09:21.020Or, like, you know, they're – first off, Hispanic-white intermarriage is the most common.
00:09:27.060This notion that, like, they're taking over the culture or whatever.
00:09:31.080No, they're actually – they're intermarrying it in very kind of regular rates.
00:09:38.600Like, with Asians, for instance, it's, like, 80% of interracial marriages are a white man and an Asian woman.
00:09:49.180But with Hispanics, it's actually regular.
00:09:51.880And what I would suggest is that there's no little, like, fetish going on or there's no whatever.
00:09:57.520They're just – it's just happening regularly or normally.
00:10:03.240And they are increasingly Republican, et cetera.
00:10:08.080And, you know, they – people kind of like the idea of immigrant crime and taking over a community or whatever.
00:10:15.120But that's a bit distracting for the reality, which is that there really is a sort of common culture.
00:10:26.180Anyway, the other thing why I guess I have trouble taking V-Dare seriously is that they'll play these self-serving games like, you know, like, we're the only ones talking about this issue or something.
00:11:09.500But in a mood of total generosity, maybe I'd give them that one.
00:11:14.460But the notion that it's, like, doing some unique thing, it's just riding sidecar to Republican populism and alternatively claiming that, like, they're the only ones saying this thing, which is immigration equal bad.
00:11:33.300Or that they're somehow, like, deeply influential and winning.
00:11:39.420I mean, there was a kind of notorious fundraising email of when immigration got shut down during COVID.
00:13:54.700The people of the state of New York by Letitia James, Supreme Court.
00:13:59.560So, let me just read a little bit of this alleged facts.
00:14:07.520Respondent is a New York charitable, not-for-profit corporation that incorporated in New York in 1999.
00:14:13.660In 2000, Respondent, then known as the Lexington Research Institute, applied for and received recognition of its tax attempt status, 501c3, blah, blah, blah.
00:14:23.880Primary purpose is creating a publication, a web page, a magazine, with editorial content focusing on foreign domestic policy issues.
00:14:32.760In 2009, Respondent reported a six-fold increase in revenue from $700,000 in 2018 to approximately $4.3 million in 2019,
00:14:43.700and including a $1.5 million lump donation from a donor-advised fund.
00:14:48.520In early 2020, Respondent spent $1.4 million of these newly received funds on the purchase of the Berkeley Springs Castle and medieval-style castle located in West Virginia.
00:15:18.520And, you know, another thing is if they're running out of money, if I were Peter Brimlow, I'd probably look at the tax statements and I'd say, hmm, $60 for coffee, $50 for running the website server, and, oh, yeah, all this money we spent on this castle.
00:15:37.280What's the first thing we should do to fix the money problem?
00:15:45.240Although, $1.5 million – now, was that a – did they pay for the castle in total, or did they put that down as a low – as a down payment?
00:15:59.640I don't know what it's like in Berkeley, West Virginia, but, you know, there are a lot of, like, condominiums that are selling for $1.5 million.
00:16:13.300Public postings by respondent chairman Peter Brimlow and others indicate that he and his family have used the castle as their primary residence since at least March 2020.
00:16:23.660Well, I understand the temptation, although, yeah, you're basically just buying yourself a new castle in suburban West Virginia.
00:22:10.540Well, I guess – I guess the social Darwinist view would be to say a fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.
00:22:21.360So, I mean, good on him for paying for his castle.
00:22:23.820But, yeah, he's clearly – he's clearly not going anywhere.
00:22:31.500Yeah, I just – I don't know what to say.
00:22:37.260And then just not, like, the way it's described, it's as if it's this, like, attack on them.
00:22:44.980Like, think of all these other organizations that are more impactful for good or for ill.
00:22:51.520Like, why doesn't Gavin Newsom go after the Claremont Institute?
00:22:57.320I mean, they were directly involved in the attempt to overthrow the government.
00:23:02.600Like, why don't you – why is that – why don't the communists go after those institutions?
00:23:08.260The reason is, is that I imagine they're not run as, like, a personal charity.
00:23:13.800And then just comparing yourself to Christ, I mean, this is like – I don't know.
00:23:40.440So, in 2020, Peter Brimelow sued the New York Times for a 2019 article that accused him of being a white nationalist.
00:23:54.260So, just think about this for a little bit.
00:23:57.880So, you're suing the New York Times for libel.
00:24:02.260You're claiming that they accused – they called you a white nationalist and that that is just utterly damaging to your reputation and thus you deserve damages, you know, to the tune of millions.
00:24:18.720First off, like, white nationalist is a fairly reasonable or neutral term.
00:24:28.260I mean, I know it's salacious, but it's almost as kind of, like, reasonable as you could get.
00:24:37.620It's certainly more reasonable or neutral than white supremacist or evil racist or something.
00:24:44.380It's basically saying you're a racial nationalist and you're white, you're a white nationalist.
00:24:48.300Secondly, Peter Brimelow has spoken at Amran events.
00:24:56.860He's, like, spoken at alt-right events.
00:25:00.560He clearly – I mean, he does stuff – I won't go into this, but if you just look at, like, his article on the Buffalo tragedy,
00:25:09.240did the great replacement cause the Buffalo shooter, and then he shows a graph of, like, the white percentage in Buffalo going down and thus the shooter is sort of, kind of justified.
00:25:29.740It's the worst way of talking about these issues.
00:25:33.440And, like, yeah, it's not that surprising that people are going to accuse you of being a white nationalist.
00:25:44.840And if you're a public figure, they can call you a white nationalist.
00:25:49.520Not the New York Times, but I'm sure tons of places, like the Daily Beast, have called Tucker Carlson or Vivek Rameshwamy a white nationalist.
00:25:58.180So, when you're a public figure, it's kind of fair game.
00:26:03.480Like, you've got to really prove something to win a libel or slander suit.
00:26:09.640Like, you've got to – the New York Times would have had to accuse him of being, like, a child molester or involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
00:26:19.160Like, you would have to go really far to justify that against a public figure.
00:26:26.240But, thirdly, like, do you see the demoralizing way in which getting, like, uppity about this is very bad for their own movement?
00:26:38.720You know, like, there's nothing worse than being called a white nationalist.
00:26:43.280Well, most all of your writers are white nationalists.
00:26:47.700A ton of your readers are white nationalists.
00:26:50.040A ton of your readers are just racist if we're just being blunt about it.
00:26:56.240And you're, like, afraid of your own shadow.
00:26:59.320You're, like, demoralizing the very notion of racial nationalism by suing the New York Times for libel.
00:27:06.200You don't sue someone for libel who call you handsome and intelligent.
00:27:10.980Like, that – you don't – you're like, no, I'm not.