Congressional Candidate Paul Nehlen Reads Neo-Nazis’ ‘Favorite Academic’
Paul Nehlen, the Republican politician seeking to unseat Speaker of the House Paul Ryan from Congress in 2018, has been increasingly flirting with the online “alt-right” by posting memes and appearing on white nationalist podcasts. On Tuesday night, he proudly shared one of the books currently on his shelf: a title by an author known as the “neo-Nazi movement’s favorite academic.”
Currently reading ? pic.twitter.com/8UVUeEn7PC
— Paul Nehlen (@pnehlen) December 27, 2017
“The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements” is the best known book by Kevin MacDonald, a retired professor of psychology widely praised in white nationalist circles for his writing about Jews and perceived Jewish power.
MacDonald, the editor of the “white identity” website The Occidental Observer, advances boilerplate white nationalist claims about Jews, seeing them as controlling and manipulating American institutions for their own ends. His work draws on his psychology background, and he casts Jewish behavior as a type of self-preservation “group evolutionary strategy.”
MacDonald is part of the academic-styled sphere of the broader white nationalist movement and has collaborated with “alt-right” figureheads like Richard Spencer.
To read more about Paul Nehlen, go here and here.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30