A project of white nationalist John Tanton’s umbrella organization, U.S., Inc., The Social Contract Press publishes a quarterly racist journal, hosts an annual gathering of anti-immigrant activists, and has published some of the most seminal anti-immigrant texts of the past quarter century, including the English translation of the racist novel The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail. The current editor of the journal is another white nationalist, Wayne Lutton.
About
- In 1990, John Tanton established the publishing house The Social Contract Press (TSCP) and a quarterly journal, The Social Contract. Tanton believed there was a lack of journals that consistently published on anti-immigrant topics and hoped that this would fill the void. TSCP also publishes occasional papers focusing on the alleged fiscal impacts of immigration that are penned by economist Edwin Rubeinstein, a contributor to the racist VDARE website.
- TSCP is most known for republishing Jean Raspail’s infamous novel The Camp of the Saints into English. Linda Chavez, who served under three presidents and once served on the board of Tanton’s U.S. English described it as, “without a doubt the most vehemently racist book I have ever read.” Chavez resigned from the board of U.S. English after racially charged memos penned by Tanton were leaked to the press in the late 1980s and has denounced him since. Tanton had another view, writing, “We are indebted to Jean Raspail for his insights into the human condition, and for being 20 years ahead of his time. History will judge him more kindly than have some of his contemporaries.”
- Also in 1994, TSCP published another racist screed, this time co-authored by Tanton and Wayne Lutton. The book was titled The Immigration Invasion and was banned in Canada for violating hate literature laws.
- Since 1985, TSCP has hosted an annual Writers Workshop event. The Writers Workshop brings together anti-immigrant activists, elected officials and white nationalists to listen to speeches about the ills of immigration. A number of white nationalists have spoken at the event, including Peter Brimelow, founder of VDARE and Kevin DeAnna, the founder of the now-defunct far-right student group Youth for Western Civilization (YWC). A number of YWC members went on to become active in the white nationalist movement, including Devin Saucier, Matthew Heimbach and DeAnna. Elected officials have also spoken at the event including former Congressman Lou Barletta and Tom Tancredo, along with key anti-immigrant leaders such as Mark Krikorian, Jessica Vaughan, Robin Hvidston, John Miano, Cynthia Kendoll, Rosemary Jenks, Roy Beck, Maria Espinoza, Kris Kobach and D.A. King. The Social Contract’s journal routinely publishes anti-immigrant figures including Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
- Tanton served as the first editor of his quarterly journal, The Social Contract, until 1998 when Wayne Lutton took over the editorship. Lutton is a white nationalist who has written for a number of white supremacist and Holocaust denial groups and once penned an extremely homophobic book arguing that HIV-positive LGBT inviduals should be quarantined and HIV-positive patients should be barred from visiting regular hospitals.
- In the mid-2000s Kevin Lamb joined TSC’s editorial staff. Lamb is the former editor of the anti-Semitic Occidental Quarterly. Roy Beck, the founder of the Beltway-based anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA served as Washington Editor for TSC for a number of years.
- Throughout the years, the journal has published a number of anti-immigrant activists, white nationalists and even academics. Each of the issues has a central theme, such as environmental degradation, the alleged fiscal impact of immigration, and warning about overpopulation. Many of the pieces contain rhetoric indistinguishable from that used by white nationalists.
- In 2012, Maria Espinoza was published in the journal, and was on the front cover, holding the Stolen Lives Quilt with Wayne Lutton.
Anti-immigrant Views
- A 2017 piece by TSC contributor Dave Gibson read, “While Americans are now quite aware of the dangers illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America pose to all of us who use this nation’s roads and highways, most are likely unaware that there is a genetic component at work in every alcohol-fueled crash caused by one of these invaders.”
- In 2010, under Lutton’s editorship, TSC published an issue titled, “The Menace of Islam.” In his editorial, Lutton called for a ban on Muslim immigration to America, years before a similar ban was champoined by President Donald Trump. Lutton’s column prompted a backlash but he was defended by K.C. McAlpin, president of TSCP’s parent U.S., Inc., who responded in 2011, by comparing the call for a Muslim ban to the Congressional ban on members of the Nazi party from entering the United States during World War II.
- The Winter 1999-2000 issue of TSC featured a piece by Michael Masters who wrote, “The contrast between the bloody nature of tribal warfare and the relatively tranquil nature of modern life should not mislead people into believing that the rules of natural selection have changed. Invasion of the homeland of one group by another group – combined with high differential birth rates and amalgamation through intermixing – are ultimately just as destructive as overt tribal massacres.”
- A 1998 issue of TSC was guest-edited by John Vinson, a founding member of the neo-Confederate group League of the South and head of the anti-immigrant American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF). The issue was titled, “Europhobia: The Hostility Toward European-Descended Americans,” and featured pieces by a number of white nationalists including Jared Taylor of American Renaissance and the late Sam Francis. A line in Vinson’s editorial read, “Multiculturalism, which subordinates successful Euro-American culture to dysfunctional Third World cultures, keeps gaining ground against surprisingly weak opposition.” The issue is not available for sale on the TSCP website and the archive of that issue does not contain Taylor’s piece.
- In a 1994 issue of TSC, contributor Malcom Brown wrote, “The Third World, like AIDS and killer-bee swarms, gropes outward with persistent tendrils, like the tender roots of plants that pierce even concrete sewer pipes. The branch of medicine called epidemiology has turned up evidence that the Third World has something in common with bacterial cultures and cancerous tumors.”
- In the same piece, Brown wrote, “The other prong of the new therapy would be the development of a bacterial or viral carrier that would make the antifertility factor infectious – capable, that is, of spreading throughout the human race on its own. Infection of a few individuals with the sterility bug might produce an epidemic that might spread widely enough to reduce the global birthrate for a while, until human beings became immune and resumed breeding.”
- In 1993, Tanton wrote in TSC, “Nigerian citizens, many of whom enter on student visas, are part of an international crime syndicate headquartered in Washington, D.C. and now active across the country. They specialize in huge drug deals and major fraud schemes, and are among the most violent of criminals.”
- In his biography on the TSCP website, it notes that Kevin Lamb has contributed to The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. That journal is edited by Roger Pearson, a longtime eugenicist and former colleague of anti-Semite Willis Carto. Pearson once wrote,“If a nation with a more advanced, more specialized, or in any way superior set of genes mingles with, instead of exterminating an inferior tribe, then it commits racial suicide.”
Anti-immigrant Activity
- The Social Contract Press, through its journal and books, served as one of the go-to outlets for those seeking talking points on some of the most common nativist tropes. TSCP excelled at depicting immigrants as criminals and harborers of disease. The titles of TSC’s quarterly journals are not subtle. The winter 2017 issue is titled, “Importing Diseases: The Toxic Threat of Infected Migrants,” while the fall 2014 issue focused entirely on “Illegal Alien Crime in North Carolina.”
- TSCP would also occasionally hold press events in an attempt to get these anti-immigrant conspiracy theories into the mainstream. In 2008, the group organized an event at the National Press Club to discuss the findings of a report published by David Simcox, that focused on another key anti-immigrant trope, namely non-citizen voting. Simox claimed that somewhere between 1.8 and 2.7 million “illegal alien voters” reside in the United States. The issue of voter fraud is often exaggerated by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and President Trump.
- Other TSCP reports have focused on challanging the official number of undocumented immigrants in the United States and even claiming that immigration will be responsible for 80% of the infastructure expansion that will take place in the U.S.
- TSCP was also one of the first anti-immigrant outlets to explicitly single out Muslim immigration as a “danger” to the United States. Through the Writers Workshop and TSC, Tanton and Lutton have given a platform to a number of anti-Muslim activists such as Bill Warner, Ann Corcoran and others.
- In a 2013 report by Edwin Rubenstein attacking immigrants for “defrauding the American taxpayer,” he claims the “IRS knowingly enables illegal aliens to defraud honest taxpayers. It has allowed itself to become a political arm of the Obama Administration.”