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VDARE

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VDARE
Type of site
Far-right politics[1]
OwnerVDARE Foundation
Founder(s)Peter Brimelow
URLvdare.com
Launched1999; 25 years ago (1999)

VDARE is an American far-right[1] website promoting opposition to immigration to the United States.[6] It is associated with white supremacy,[7][8][9] white nationalism,[17] and the alt-right.[18][19][20] Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia describes VDARE as "one of the most prolific anti-immigration media outlets in the United States" and states that it is "broadly concerned with race issues in the United States".[21] Established in 1999, the website's editor is Peter Brimelow, who once stated that "whites built American culture" and that "it is at risk from non-whites who would seek to change it".[21]

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes VDARE as "an anti-immigration hate website" that "regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists, and anti-Semites", including Steve Sailer, Jared Taylor, J. Philippe Rushton, Samuel T. Francis, John Derbyshire[6] and Pat Buchanan.[22] Brimelow acknowledges that VDARE published writings by white nationalists but has said that VDARE is not a "white nationalist Web site".[23][24]

In July 2024, it was announced that VDARE would be suspending operations after 25 years of operation. Peter Brimelow also stepped down as president of the VDARE Foundation.[25]

History

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Postage stamp depicting Virginia Dare (child in middle), the namesake of the website.

Peter Brimelow, who edits VDARE, is a former editor at the National Review[26] and Fortune.[21] The English-born Brimelow founded the website in 1999 under the auspices of the Center for American Unity, a Virginia-based organization that he also founded[22] in 1999.[18] VDARE was founded as an outgrowth of Brimelow's anti-immigration activism and the publication of his book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster.[12] The website says it is concerned with the "racial and culture identity of America" and "honest consideration of race and ethnicity, the foundations of human grouping, that human differences can be explained and their social consequences understood, whether those differences are philosophical, cultural or biological."[27]

Brimelow was president of the center,[18] which funded VDARE.com until 2007, when the center announced an intent to focus on litigation.[22] The VDARE Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, was formed by Brimelow to take the place of the center as the website's sponsor.[22] Brimelow's wife, Lydia Brimelow, is VDARE's advancement officer.[12]

The name VDARE and the site's logo, the head of a white doe, refer to Virginia Dare, the first child born to English settlers in the New World in the late 16th century.[18][28] Dare disappeared along with every other member of the Roanoke Colony.[21] Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia explains that "For Brimelow, Anglo-Saxon Americans and their culture are in danger of disappearing like Virginia Dare; he writes that he considered adding a fictional vignette at the end of his book Alien Nation (1995), in which the last white family flees Los Angeles, which had been overrun by the crime and pollution caused by its non-white residents."[21]

Brimelow has written on the site that United States immigration policy constitutes "Adolf Hitler's posthumous revenge on America". In a radio interview with Alan Colmes, he said he wished to return to the US immigration policies before 1965, when restrictions to non-whites were lifted, as "the US is a white nation."[27]

New York Attorney General investigation

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The castle in West Virginia

In February 2020, the VDARE Foundation purchased the Samuel Taylor Suit Cottage (also known as the Berkeley Castle or Berkeley Springs Castle), a Medieval-style castle located on a hill above Berkeley Springs, in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, for $1.4 million.[29] New York Attorney General (NYAG) Letitia James alleged that VDARE had violated New York law by misusing non-profit resources while residing on the castle grounds since March 2020.[30][31]

In March 2024, a New York state judge found the VDARE Foundation in civil contempt for failing to turn over evidence related to the investigation. The organization is required to pay a $250-per-day fine until it complies with a subpoena issued by the NYAG in 2022.[31] In July, it was announced that VDARE would be suspending operations, with Brimelow resigning as president of the VDARE Foundation. A spokesperson for the attorney general's office said that the website's closure would not affect their investigation.[25]

Hate speech and white nationalism

[edit]

Designation as a hate website

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks extremist groups in the United States, wrote that VDARE was "once a relatively mainstream anti-immigration page" but had become "a meeting place for many on the radical right" by 2003.[18] The SPLC describes VDARE as "an anti-immigration hate website" which "regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites".[18] The SPLC cited examples such as a column concerning immigration from Mexico that warned of a "Mexican invasion" where "high teenage birthrates, poverty, ignorance and disease will be what remains", and an essay complaining how the U.S. government encourages "the garbage of Africa" to come to the United States.[18]

The SPLC has described VDARE's contributor list as "a Rolodex of the most prominent pseudo-intellectual racists and anti-Semites. They include people such as Jared Taylor and Kevin MacDonald.[18] Taylor (who Brimelow acknowledges is a "white nationalist")[22] once wrote that black people are incapable of sustaining any kind of civilization, while MacDonald is a retired professor who wrote a trilogy claiming that Jews are genetically driven to undermine the Christian societies they live in. Another former contributor, Sam Francis, was the editor of a newspaper published by the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group.[18] Francis died in 2005.[22]

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) similarly concludes that "VDARE posts, promotes, and archives the work of racists, anti-immigrant figures, and anti-Semites".[32][33]

Attempted domain name delisting

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In June 2020, the domain registrar Network Solutions announced plans to terminate the account for VDARE. An attorney for Network Solutions cited a policy prohibiting customers using its domains from "display[ing] bigotry, racism, discrimination, or hatred in any manner whatsoever", and stated that VDARE had until June 26 to transfer its domain name to a different registrar before it would be deleted.[34][35] An update to its WHOIS data was made on June 26, 2020.[36] As of 2023, the domain exists under a different registrar.[37]

Social media presence and bans

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In August 2019, VDARE's YouTube channel was banned. The ban was later reversed.[38] The channel was permanently banned in August 2020 for violating YouTube's policies against hate speech.[39]

In November 2019, The Guardian identified VDARE as one of several white nationalist websites which had remained active on Facebook, contrary to Facebook's stated intention to ban such material.[40] In May 2020, VDARE and the similar website The Unz Review were banned by Facebook. According to Facebook, the sites formed a network of "coordinated inauthentic behavior" intended to influence the 2020 election via fake accounts.[41][42]

As of October 2023, VDARE operates a verified Twitter account.[43]

White nationalist writings

[edit]

VDARE is regarded as a white nationalist website.[17] David Weigel wrote in 2010 that the site "is best known for publishing work by white nationalists while maintaining that it is not a white nationalist site".[44]

Brimelow "denies that the organization itself is white nationalist, but he admits that VDARE.com provides a forum for a variety of viewpoints, including white nationalism".[21][23] Of individuals like Taylor, Brimelow has written they "aim to defend the interests of American whites. They are not white supremacists. They do not advocate violence. They are rational and civil." As immigration from the developing world increases, he believes "this type of interest-group 'white nationalism' will inexorably increase."[22] Brimelow has participated on panels multiple times with Taylor and Richard Spencer on the aims of the alt-right.[27]

References

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  1. ^ a b [2][3][4][5]
  2. ^ Tischauser, Jeff; Musgrave, Kevin (May 26, 2020). "Far-Right Media as Imitated Counterpublicity: A Discourse Analysis on Racial Meaning and Identity on Vdare.com". Howard Journal of Communications. 31 (3). Routledge: 282–296. doi:10.1080/10646175.2019.1702124. S2CID 213418152. Archived from the original on November 4, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021 – via Academia.edu.
  3. ^ Kaiser, Jonas; Rauchfleisch, Adrian; Bourassa, Nikki (March 15, 2020). "Connecting the (Far-)Right Dots: A Topic Modeling and Hyperlink Analysis of (Far-)Right Media Coverage during the US Elections 2016". Digital Journalism. 8 (3). Routledge: 422–441. doi:10.1080/21670811.2019.1682629. S2CID 211434599.
  4. ^ Caiani, Manuela; Della Porta, Donatella; Wagemann, Claudius (February 16, 2012). Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States. Oxford University Press. pp. 218, 227. ISBN 978-0-19-964126-0. Retrieved February 9, 2021 – via ResearchGate.
  5. ^ Baele, Stephane J.; Brace, Lewys; Coan, Travis G. (December 30, 2020). "Uncovering the Far-Right Online Ecosystem: An Analytical Framework and Research Agenda". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 46 (9). Routledge: 1599–1623. doi:10.1080/1057610X.2020.1862895.
  6. ^ a b Thielman, Sam (May 9, 2019). "The fascist next door: how to cover hate". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on August 6, 2019. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  7. ^ Mudde, Cas (October 25, 2019). The Far Right Today. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-5095-3685-6. Archived from the original on February 17, 2024. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  8. ^ Sam Frizell, GOP Shows White Supremacist's Tweet During Trump's Speech . Time, July 21, 2016
  9. ^ Arnold, Kathleen (2011). Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 89. ISBN 9780313375224. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
  10. ^ Holly Folk, The Religion of Chiropractic: Populist Healing from the American Heartland (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), p. 64: "the white nationalist website VDARE.com."
  11. ^ Robert W. Sussman, The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea (Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 299.
  12. ^ a b c Kristine Phillips, Resort cancels 'white nationalist' organization's first-ever conference over the group’s views Archived November 7, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, The Washington Post (January 26, 2017).
  13. ^ Alan Rappeport, Hillary Clinton Denounces the 'Alt-Right,' and the Alt-Right Is Thrilled Archived June 19, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times (August 26, 2016), A11: "The white nationalist website VDare..."
  14. ^ John Woodrow Cox, The financial secrecy behind white-nationalist group known for 'Hail Trump,' Nazi salutes Archived February 18, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, The Washington Post (December 1, 2016): "Three white-nationalist nonprofits similar in size and mission — the VDare Foundation, the New Century Foundation and the Charles Martel Society..."
  15. ^ Caitlin Dewey, Amazon, PayPal and Spotify inadvertently fund white supremacists. Here’s how Archived August 11, 2017, at the Wayback Machine. Washington Post (March 17, 2015): "VDARE, a radical white nationalist site"
  16. ^ Flynn, Kevin (July 15, 2006). "Funding questioned; Critics say some Defend Colorado money tainted". Rocky Mountain News. p. 4.A. Archived from the original on July 19, 2009.
  17. ^ a b [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i Beirich, Heidi; Potok, Mark (Winter 2003). "'Paleoconservatives' Decry Immigration". Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on December 19, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2017.
  19. ^ Stephen Piggott (December 21, 2016). "Ann Coulter Attends VDARE Christmas Party – Her Second White Nationalist Event In Three Months". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on February 25, 2020. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  20. ^ Hannah Gais (December 11, 2016). "Cucking and Nazi salutes: A night out with the alt-right". The Washington Spectator (republished by Newsweek). Archived from the original on August 9, 2019. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  21. ^ a b c d e f Rebecca Nelson Jacobs, "VDARE" in Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia (ed. Kathleen R. Arnold, Vol. 1: A-R), pp. 481-82.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g "Extremist Files: Groups: VDARE". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on October 8, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  23. ^ a b Brimelow, Peter (July 23, 2006). "Speakout: VDare.com is no 'white nationalist Web site'". Rocky Mountain News. p. 5E. Archived from the original on May 12, 2008.
  24. ^ Michael Kunzelman, White nationalists raise millions with tax-exempt charities Archived July 18, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, Associated Press (December 22, 2016): "Brimelow has denied that his website is white nationalist but acknowledged it publishes works by writers who fit that description "in the sense that they aim to defend the interests of American whites."
  25. ^ a b Gais, Hannah (September 18, 2024). "White Nationalist Website VDARE Suspends Operations Amid Legal Scrutiny". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  26. ^ Sanneh, Kelefa (July 24, 2013). "A Sermon on Race from National Review". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on December 2, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  27. ^ a b c Coaston, Jane (September 24, 2018). "Peter Brimelow and VDare, the white nationalist website with close ties to the right, explained". Vox. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
  28. ^ "Why VDARE.COM/The White Doe?". VDARE.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved March 22, 2012.
  29. ^ Hayden, Michael Edison (March 19, 2020). "West Virginia Tourist Hub Rejects VDARE's 'Negative' Message". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on February 22, 2021. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  30. ^ Newton, Creede (May 24, 2023). "Experts: VDARE's Real Estate Deals May Cost Group Nonprofit Status". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on May 3, 2024. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  31. ^ a b Gais, Hannah (June 20, 2024). "What We Know About the VDARE Legal Situation That They Say 'Finished' Them". Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  32. ^ Brenda Walker and Dan Amato Inject Anti-Immigrant Fervor into the Blogosphere Archived August 11, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Anti-Defamation League (2012).
  33. ^ Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream Archived August 11, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Anti-Defamation League (2008), p. 11: "VDare, a Web site that publishes racist, anti-Semitic, and antiimmigrant articles."
  34. ^ Kunzelman, Michael (June 23, 2020). "Online registrar threatens to drop anti-immigration website". Associated Press. Archived from the original on June 27, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2020.
  35. ^ Kunzelman, Michael (June 23, 2020). "Online registrar threatens to drop anti-immigration website VDARE.com". The News Journal. Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  36. ^ "DomainTools WHOIS History". Archived from the original on February 26, 2023. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  37. ^ "DomainTools WHOIS". Archived from the original on February 26, 2023. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
  38. ^ Holt, Jared (August 30, 2019). "YouTube Reverses Course, Apologizes to Far-Right Channels & Unbans Them". Right Wing Watch. Archived from the original on March 22, 2023. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  39. ^ Holt, Jared (August 10, 2020). "White Nationalist VDARE Suspended From YouTube. This Time It's Permanent". Right Wing Watch. Archived from the original on April 28, 2024. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  40. ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (November 21, 2019). "White nationalists are openly operating on Facebook. The company won't act". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 23, 2022. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  41. ^ Sommer, Will (May 5, 2020). "Facebook Bans Anti-Immigrant Group VDARE for 'Inauthentic Behavior'". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on May 29, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  42. ^ "April 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report". About Facebook (Press release). May 5, 2020. Archived from the original on May 11, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  43. ^ Darcy, Oliver (October 6, 2023). "Elon Musk's X faces advertiser backlash after placing marketing for major brands on notorious white supremacist account". CNN Business. Archived from the original on October 19, 2023. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  44. ^ Weigel, David (June 18, 2010). "An immigration restrictionist chart at Mint.com". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 31, 2013. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
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