On Saturday, Richard Spencer, the white supremacist who popularized the term “alt-right,” began an address to 200 attendees of the National Policy Institute—a new “think tank” that promotes white nationalism–by declaring, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” Spencer has also called for “a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans,” and “peaceful ethnic cleansing.”
On Monday, CNN aired a segment about Spencer, specifically about him asking if “Jews are people or instead soulless golem.”
Here is the segment. That chryon. These times. pic.twitter.com/5vXn5GM7ll
— Colin Jones (@colinjones) November 21, 2016
The chyron could charitably be described as inadequate, while the ensuing debate, which focused largely on how Trump’s response to his large and hateful base of followers would affect the size of his coalition, generally played by the rules of cable news discussion. It focused on horse-race implications, and seemed incapable of addressing just how hateful this all is.
This segment captures what we’ve known for some time: that the media is not prepared to deal with the horrific forces that Trump has unleashed.