#1164: Glenn Spencer

Glenn Spencer is a white supremacist known, in particular, for his anti-immigration activism. Though he used to be a standard KKK-style guy he seems to have realized, at some point, that wearing a sign saying “stupid bigot” wasn’t conducive to public sympathy – yet his current groups, American Border Patrol, Ranch Rescue, the Minutemen Project, and Voices of Citizens Together (VCT) have all been designated as hate groups as well.

Spencer is probably most famous for having bought a ranch a thousand feet from the Mexico/Arizona border, converting it to a hi-tech security zone complete with infrared cameras, aerial drones and motion detectors. The idea seems to have been to show the American federal government how easy it is to halt illegal immigration. Currently it serves as a base for American Border Patrol’s armed vigilante activities (covered here), which ostensibly take place on “private grounds”. There is a fine portrait of Spencer here.

According to Spencer he is countering what he seems to take to be Mexican plans to (literally) “reconquer” the U.S. Indeed, Spencer is (together with people such as Barbara Coe, who leads the hate group California Coalition for Immigration Reform), one of the main proponents of the Aztlan conspiracy theory, according to which there is a bona fide conspiracy endorsed and backed by Mexico and, in some versions, by most Mexican Americans to forcibly take over the US (“The dream of conquering Aztlan lies deep in the heart of the Mexican psyche,” says Spencer; “[t]his explains why some are willing to risk death. Their goal is more than jobs, it is conquest”).

And, oh, he has also written the article “Is Jew-Controlled Hollywood Brainwashing Americans?” Just to prove to people that he is an insane, paranoid conspiracy theorist. In the article, he assured readers that he had Jewish friends but added that he featred that “this small handful of patriotic Americans are far outnumbered by liberal Jews who now have total control over our media.” Obama isn’t doing a particularly good job either (“brainwashed Americans have just voted to commit national suicide” was his comment on the 2008 election).

Diagnosis: He does at least follow a rather standard pattern of rationality-related morbidity associated with paranoia and conspiracy theories, and there is little risk that his views will become mainstream anytime soon. But he has enough followers to make him dangerous.