While it’s hard to imagine a good day to be Richard Spencer, the infamous Nazi punching bag has had a particularly rough Tuesday. Not only is his alt-right nonprofit losing its tax exempt status, but the lead singer of his favorite band, Depeche Mode, thinks he’s a cunt.
And that’s his word, not ours. In a new interview with Billboard, frontman Dave Gahan was asked to comment on Spencer’s recent statement that “Depeche Mode is the official band of the alt-right.” After bemoaning that Spencer gets too much press as it is, Gahan responded, “What’s dangerous about someone like Richard Spencer is, first of all, he’s a cunt — and he’s a very educated cunt, and that’s the scariest kind of all.”
He also said that Spencer completely misinterpreted the band’s music. “If anything, there’s a way more sort of socialist — working class, if you like — industrial-sounding aesthetic to what we do. That’s where we come from … So I don’t quite get what he was [saying].”
Gahan added that he thinks a guy like Spencer is more dangerous than “an attention seeker” like Milo Yiannopoulos because Spencer “has some weight behind him.” Well, the good news is that he lost some of that weight today. Spencer’s white nationalist think tank, the National Policy Institute, has been stripped of its tax-exempt status by the IRS (via The Washington Post).
The Institute relies on tax-free contributions to operate as it tries to bring about what’s essentially American apartheid. For some reason, the IRS doesn’t require the charity to file returns revealing the source of those donations. However, they do require the submission of Form 990s, which NPI has failed to deliver for the last three years. Spencer chalked it up to an accounting error and has filed paperwork to regain tax-exempt status. Still, the miscues have caused NPI to stop all fundraising for the time being as they deal with the IRS’ punishment.
Put that on top of Gahan’s comments, and we imagine Spencer’s feeling a bit like this right now:
