The white supremacist National Policy Institute is not long for this world, and last weekend showed everyone why.

One People’s Project

WASHINGTON, DC—The National Policy Institute’s (NPI) second conference last weekend at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center was called “After the Fall: The Future of Identity, and that future was probably best illustrated by the fact that not only were the numbers of attendees might have been diminished from the paltry fifty that attended two years ago but also by how this year saw antifa making a more pronounced effort to oppose it.

Although NPI head Richard Spencer and some reports note that 100 persons registered for the conference, according to law enforcement on the scene, there were only 35 persons participating, only five of them women and some being reporters. Over the past year, NPI and Spencer has seen some media attention due to reports done by Rachel Maddow in the wake of the controversy surrounding former Heritage Foundation staffer Jason Richwine, who wrote a study on immigration for the right-wing think tank, when his associations with Spencer and his past anti-Hispanic writings came to light. Spencer was also profiled in a Salon.com article, just a few weeks after he announced the NPI 2013 Conference. Little, if any activity had been seen from NPI since its 2011 conference.

The conference included a dinner at the Club Quarters hotel, but the dinner was met by several members of the Washington D.C. Chapter of Anti-Racist Action and other associates who protested both inside and outside the hotel. At the Ronald Reagan Building the following day, the same antifa held vigil outside for the duration of the conference, which went on for the entire day. During the course of that day there were confrontations with the attendees, most of which was verbal sparring, although a shoving match did take place at one point.

Matt Parrott of the Traditionalist Youth Movement, who along TYM co-founder Matthew Heimbach participated in the Leif Erickson Day rally put on Oct. 19 in Philadelphia by the Keystone State “Skinheads”, attended the conference with Patrick Corcoran of Delaware. Heimbach chose to attend a conference in Pulaski, TN sponsored by Ku Klux Klan Pastor Thom Robb.

Richard Spencer later wrote on the NPI website that antifa are not a threat, ironically using a slogan from the civil rights era to make his point. “These “anti-racists” have, however, made themselves our enemy due to their obsession—what amounts to a strange kind of fandom—of us and our work,” he wrote. “We shall overcome.”

Ironically, it was attempting to overcome whom Spencer considered not a threat that brought him to the pricey Ronald Reagan Building in the first place. After the shutdowns of the American Renaissance Conferences in the Washington DC area and in Charlotte, NC, Spencer, who was associated with those events, had chosen the publicly-owned building because it could not shut its doors to the organization as easily a private business such as a hotel. However, the cost of the use of the building’s conference hall meant a rather steep cost of the conference at $189, and that might have contributed to a lower turnout. It is not known if NPI will have another conference in the future or if they will hold it at the Ronald Reagan Building again.

Other articles

Salon.com

Vice.com

Entering the Reagan Building (PHOTOS COURTESTY C.V. SMITH. RIGHT-CLICK TO ENLARGE)