Knowingly or Unknowingly, CIS Newsletters Promote the Work of White Nationalist Kevin DeAnna – Southern Poverty Law Center

But Hatewatchs analysis of CISs weekly email newsletters shows that for nearly a decade the centerhas been promoting material from Kevin DeAnna, one of the alt-rights most prolific propagandists. CIS newsletters from 2012 to present show the center has circulated at least 83 articles by DeAnna, former Youth for Western Civilization founder and current American Renaissance staff writer. A Hatewatch investigation revealed that DeAnna wrote for VDARE, a white nationalist website run by Peter Brimelow, beginning in 2011, under the pseudonym James Kirkpatrick. CIS circulated Kirkpatrick articles from The Social Contract, a journal established by CISs founder, John Tanton, in 1990. CIS cited Kirkpatricks work at both VDARE and The Social Contract.

Hatewatch reached out to both DeAnna and CIS for comment. DeAnna didnt respond, and CIS declined to comment.

Kevin DeAnna speaks at a 2010 conference of The Social Contract Press. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Hatewatch first detailed the proliferation of VDARE linksin CISs weekly newsletters in 2017, concluding that the anti-immigrant think tank had circulated over 1,700 VDARE articles over the course of 10 years. Krikorian arguedin The Washington Post in March 2017 that such findings were trivial. The center, he contended, linked to immigration commentary (from all sides) in its weekly email roundups; hence, it should come as no shock that some of the authors occasionally . . . turned out to be cranks.

In Kirkpatricks case however, the inclusion of material authored by DeAnna under a pseudonym bolsters already-existing evidence of the centers boosting of white nationalist talking points. DeAnna, under the pseudonym Gregory Hood, was a frequent and prolific contributor to a range of white nationalist sites, beginning in 2008.

CIS began including Kirkpatricks work in the think tanks newsletters in 2012. The number of times Kirkpatrick was cited rose, corresponding to DeAnnas growing involvement with Brimelows site, where he worked as both a writer and an editor. Hatewatch found CIS linked to Kirkpatricks stories three times in 2012; eight times in 2013; 11 times in 2014; 16 times in 2015; 11 times in 2016; eight times in 2017; 10 times in 2018; seven times in 2019; and at least twice in 2020. While most of these articles were focused on matters of immigration, Kirkpatricks role as a white nationalist scribe is barely veiled.

Many of the Kirkpatrick articles in CIS newsletters were riddled with common white nationalist tropes. Perhaps the most common theme involved the conspiracy of the great replacement. The concept originatedwith French far-right thinker Renaud Camus racist book of the same name, published in 2010. Though the term has, at times, been painted as a pseudo-intellectual version of the theory of white genocide, it has nevertheless inspired the same degree of racist violence, including at Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas, in 2019.

A 2018 English adaptation of Camuss original text titled You Will Not Replace Us referred to an ongoing genocide by substitution in both Europe and America. As an article in The Nationon Camus and the great replacement observed, Camus portrayed the so-called replacists that is, proponents of multiculturalism and immigration as soon to be devored [sic] by the replacees they invite in.

CIS linked to numerous pieces from Kirkpatrick that pushed replacement theory. At times, the articles named the racist conspiracy outright. One Sept. 7, 2015, newsletter links to an article titled The Great Replacement Is Killing The EU Long Live a Europe Of Nations! In it, Kirkpatrick refers to the ongoing immigrant invasion in Europe, implying that the continued existence of the European Union has made the replacement of European peoples possible.

In other places, Kirkpatricks references to replacement theory were subtler. CISs Feb. 13, 2016, newsletter promoted an article that blasted then-presidential candidate Marco Rubio for not being sufficiently anti-immigrant. DeAnna, writing as Kirkpatrick, bemoaned the sweeping demographic changes in Europe and the allegedly disastrous effect it would have on Western civilization. Another article, included in CISs Nov. 15, 2018, newsletter, penned by Kirkpatrick for Social Contract press referred to migration as punishment inflicted by a cadre of global elites.

On July 28, 2019, CIS linked to an article titled Say It, GOP! Or Just Give It Up: Open Borders Is TREASON! The Left Is ANTI-WHITE! In the piece, Kirkpatrick claimed the left had ensured that anyone who didnt want whites replaced in their own countries would be tarnished as far right. Furthermore, he noted, assertions that Native Americans or any other indigenous minority in Europe had a right to the land led to the logical conclusion that Westerners needed to be dispossessed. That sort of thinking culminates in genocide, Kirkpatrick told readers, implying the possibility of what white nationalists refer to as a white genocide.

Most of Kirkpatricks articles in CISs newsletter, however, focused on pushing the right to embrace more draconian restrictions on immigration. Like many other authors at VDARE, he lamented the power of what the site often referred as Conservatism, Inc. a stand-in for the right-wing media, think tank, and political establishment and blasted insufficiently anti-immigrant Republicans as traitors.

The first Kirkpatrick piece CIS linked to in its Jan. 27, 2012, newsletter titled South Carolina Shambles: Slippery Newt Massacres Milquetoast Mitt Agonizes Immigration Patriots blasted Newt Gingrich. In addition to supporting sanctions against apartheid South Africa during the Reagan years, Kirkpatrick contended that the Republican presidential candidate and former speaker of the Houses biggest moral failing was betraying whites.

Perhaps more than any other person in this country, Kirkpatrick argued, Newt Gingrich is responsible for the astonishing conservative retreat on racial preferences and the continued existence of an anti-white racial spoils system in jobs and education. Kirkpatricks rant linked to a 2011 VDARE article referring to affirmative action as anti-white quotas.

Another CIS newsletter from July 8, 2016, linked to a Kirkpatrick article, which referred to anti-Trump Republicans as RATs and traitors to the party. The conservative opposition to Trump, Kirkpatrick opined, were deserving of such a title due to their cooperation with the Lying Press. The term, as Kirkpatrick observed in a VDARE article from June 2016, is an English translation of the German term Lgenpresse, which has become popular among certain circles of the so-called alt-right. Though the term itself originated as a rhetorical cudgel in the mid-19th-century,the Nazis further popularized it.

While CIS executive director Mark Krikorian attempted to distance himself and the center from the extreme, racist far-right, he has, as recently as last February, asserted the importance of bringing pieces published on those sites to the attention of readers.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies speaks at the Budapest Summit on Migration in March 2019. (Photo by Elekes Andor via Wikimedia Commons)

When asked by a caller on CSPANs Washington Journal about the continued inclusion of content from VDARE, Krikorian defended the decision.

We send out a weekly roundup of immigration commentary from all sides, including people we dont agree with, Krikorian told CSPAN, citing The New York Times editorials on immigration as an example. Though he acknowledged that the center linked to some sites that publish other material that he viewed as objectionable, he posited that such links were needed: If theyre important sites of immigration news, we include them because the whole point is [to] see the broad spectrum of views and judge for yourself.

Photo illustration by SPLC