The Far Right in America
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What do the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, tell us about the strength of the far-right in America? What should the government do to combat domestic extremism?
In this week's programme David Aaronovitch asks if there is a white nationalist revival in the United States and what that means for the country's politics.
CONTRIBUTORS: J.M. Berger, author, analyst and consultant on extremism. Sandy Hausman, WVTF radio. Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi who is now an anti-extremism campaigner. Leonard Zeskind, a researcher of the American far-right and director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights Asha Rangappa, former special agent, FBI and now lecturer at Yale Law School.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:03.0 | In this week's programme, I'll be asking just who are the American far right, and how important are they? |
| 0:16.4 | It was a huge moral victory. |
| 0:19.1 | That was how Richard B. Spencer, one of the leaders of America's far right, |
| 0:23.2 | described the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. |
| 0:26.2 | Last weekend, the sight of hundreds of men, many heavily armed, |
| 0:29.8 | others adorned with Nazi insignia on the streets of a usually tranquil city, |
| 0:34.9 | shocked America and the world. |
| 0:37.4 | It all ended in violence, and the death of 32-year-old anti-racist protester Heather Hire. |
| 0:46.3 | We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. |
| 0:57.0 | On many sides. |
| 0:58.0 | It's been going on for a long time in our country. |
| 1:01.0 | Racism is evil. |
| 1:05.0 | And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, |
| 1:14.6 | and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as America. |
| 1:22.6 | I will tell you, Sean, I watched those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it. |
| 1:29.0 | And you have, you had a group on one side that was bad, |
| 1:33.0 | and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. |
| 1:40.2 | Today I'm asking some very specific questions about the far right in America. |
| 1:45.3 | Who is in it? What do they want? |
| 1:47.6 | Is it a real threat to American society? |
| 1:50.1 | And what should the response be? |
... |
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