Joseph Sobran

A racist magazine called Instauration (now defunct) described Scandinavians as the pinnacle of beauty; “the thin, fair and symmetric race originating in Northern Europe.” Joseph Sobran praised Instauration in the New York City Tribune on May 13, 1986, even though he admitted it “is openly and almost unremittingly hostile to blacks, Jews, and Mexicans and Oriental immigrants.” That’s an understatement. Instauration even favored abortion as a means of controlling the black population. Instauration returned Sobran’s compliment in September of that year in an editorial entitled “The Brave Pen of Joseph Sobran,” saying, “The man has repeatedly defended white racial pride and solidarity, despite the mounting campaign to get him.”

In a review of the movie Schindler’s List, Sobran complained about “all this Holocaust-harping,” explaining that the genocide of six million Jews was largely an overreaction to “Jewish-led communist movements.” (Arizona Republic, 3/24/94) Sobran believes that the New York Times “really ought to change its name to Holocaust Update.” (New Republic, 8/11/86) There’s much more here. Joseph Sobran is such a virulent anti-Semite that he was fired from National Review magazine. He has also been a keynote speaker for the Institute for Historical Review, one of the major organizations dedicated to holocaust denial.

What does this have to do with Howard and Doug Phillips, you ask? Joseph Sobran was the Constitution Party’s nominee for vice-president in the year 2000. At the top of the ticket was Howard Phillips. Doug Phillips promotes the Constitution Party as a worthy recipient of a Christian’s vote.

Howard Phillips

We now turn to the influences that Doug Phillips routinely praises, and we must begin with his greatest influence, the man he calls his “hero” – his father, Howard Phillips.

Howard Phillips headed two federal agencies during the Nixon Administration and later served as chairman of the Conservative Caucus and founded the Constitution Party.

Howard has a partner on the board of the Conservative Caucus named Richard Shoff. Shoff is the former “Grand Kilgrapp” of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. According to Indiana police, Shoff regularly hosted KKK rallies on his property with cross burnings.

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Constitution Party a racist organization. “Among the party’s current roster of local candidates is a Salt Lake City man, Jack Gray, who has no qualms about presenting himself as a member of David Duke’s white supremacist hate group, the European American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO)… The party’s official ‘key race’ for 2003 is a gubernatorial bid by Mississippi’s most virulent Confederate flag defender, John Thomas Cripps, a long-time member of the white-supremacist hate group, League of the South…”

When racist John Thomas Cripps, the pastor of the “Confederate Presbyterian Church,” ran for governor of Mississippi on the Constitution Party ticket, he was endorsed by Howard Phillips. Both Howard and Cripps are being watched carefully by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Howard was one of the few present at the funeral of notorious racist Samuel Francis, who was fired by the Washington Times due to his constant race-baiting.