- Oct 17, 2011
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‘No enemies to the right’: DeSantis ally hosts debate hedging white nationalism
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who is a close ally [and New College board appointee] of Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, hosted a social media debate in which one participant argued that conservatives should cooperate with a hypothetical white nationalist dictator “in order to destroy the power of the left”.Participating in the debate was Charles Haywood, a former shampoo magnate who the Guardian previously reported is a would-be “warlord” who founded a secretive, men-only fraternal society, the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR).
The debate concerned Haywood’s promotion of a strategy he calls “no enemies to the right”, which urges people on the right to avoid any public criticism of others in their camp, including extremists.
Early in the Rufo-hosted discussion last Tuesday, Haywood raised the hypothetical possibility early in the discussion: “Let’s say a real white nationalist arose who had real political power … and therefore [could] be of assistance against the left.”
Responding to the hypothetical, Haywood said: “I think that the answer is that you should cooperate with that person in order to destroy the power of the left.”
[Later:] “When we’re talking about people like Franco or Pinochet or even Salazar … they did kill people. ... that’s just a historical fact.”
“But,” Haywood added, “they saved a lot more people than they killed.”