Interview with Billy Roper
Billy Roper, a White Nationalist and briefly a candidate for the 2012 presidential nomination of the now-defunct Boston Tea Party, took some time to answer questions about his recent activities and his thoughts on 2016 American Freedom Party presidential nominee Bob Whitaker and the Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
Roper is a former member of the National Alliance and is the founder of White Revolution, which folded in 2011. As covered at Uncovered Politics, he ran as a write-in candidate for governor of Arkansas in 2010, and, in addition to his Boston Tea Party candidacy, was the 2012 presidential nominee of the Nationalist Party before withdrawing from the race.
What are your thoughts on the Donald Trump campaign?
My views on Donald Trump’s campaign are similar to those espoused by Bob Whitaker when he was asked the same question in the Independent Political Report article. To wit, I don’t think that Trump is legitimately any kind of Jacksonian populist as he presents himself to be. It is fascinating that he has transferred celebrity status into political prowess through using the media attention his admittedly masterful hyperbolic statements demand. His appeals to the third of the Republican base at the working class White grassroots is cynical, but effective. What I find most interesting about his campaign is the way that it has forced (not in a vacuum as the simultaneous abdication of the establishment in the Senate leadership) the donor class of the GOP into impotency…and not because of the deep pockets that he’s famous for, but rather by using the way that the old boy network turned over the reins of the party apparatus to superPAC funding. That’s ironic. What coverage he hasn’t been given gratis has been paid for through voluntary small donor funding from his base. I think that, with the last two full cycle elections demonstrating the loss of the electoral majority by Whites in this country, none of us would have anticipated that a national candidate espousing some views as far to the right as his resonate would have gained this much traction. So, despite his obvious insincerity, his campaign has brought to the forefront the immigration debate once again, and given an outlet, steam pressure release valve safety though it might be, to a portion of the electorate which had frankly felt itself becoming disenfranchised. And speaking to that, perhaps the establishment knows that they benefit from keeping the increasingly disgruntled descendants of those who founded this nation to secure the blessings of liberty for them, and not the descendants of Asia or Africa or Mexico or, God forbid, Syria, involved in the electoral process, rather than marginalizing them into accepting the 1775 alternative to the ballot box. One might even say that there is a strong anti-establishment meme from both ends against the middle. I could see some Sanders supporters finding common ground on economic issues with Trump voters, for example. I’m still not sure that Trump will be the Republican nominee. Who else but Donald might make Cruz seem palatable by comparison to the desperate GOP establishment? But his campaign has shifted the dialectic to the right for the portion of the party who had almost despaired, believing that if elections could still change anything, they would have already been made illegal. Depending on whether one believes that multiracial democracy can fly or that it must fall, that is either a glimmer of hope, or the greatest of disservices. We’ll see next year, I reckon.What do you think about Bob Whitaker? Are you supporting him for president?
I have the utmost respect for Mr. Whitaker. In my opinion, he has the character and integrity necessary to be a great leader of our nation. Of course, in third party politics, using the electoral process and campaigning to spread a message may be considered a moral victory independent of election night results.Do you have any updates on personal projects or campaigns?
After my Quixotic write-in campaign for governor of Arkansas in 2010, and the abortive Presidential campaign under the auspices of the Nationalist Party of America, I threw my support and endorsement, such as they were, to Merlin Miller, whom you wrote about during your interview with Mr. Whitaker, I believe.At the time I swore that I’d not reenter electoral politics unless and until the electorate was returned to that designed by the Naturalization Act of 1790, lol. So, I continue my Nationalist political activism, and write books (fiction and nonfiction), instead.