According to Wikipedia:

Paul Edward Gottfried (born 1941) is an American paleoconservative political philosopher, intellectual historian, columnist and former Horace Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, as well as a Guggenheim recipient. He is currently an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute,[1] and H. L. Mencken Club President. He is the author of numerous books and articles detailing the influences which various German thinkers (such as Hegel and Schelling) have exerted on American conservative political theory, and was a friend of many political and intellectual figures: such as Richard Nixon, Pat Buchanan, John Lukacs, Thomas Molnar, Will Herberg, Samuel T. Francis, Paul Piccone, Murray Rothbard, Eugene Genovese, Christopher Lasch, and Robert Nisbet. Gottfried is a paleo-conservative critic of neoconservativism within the Republican Party.

According to his own website:

aul Edward Gottfried (b. 1941) has been one of America’s leading intellectual historians and paleoconservative thinkers for over 40 years, and is the author of many books, including Conservatism in America (2007), The Strange Death of Marxism (2005), After Liberalism (1999), Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt (2002), and Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America (2012) . A critic of the neoconservative movement, he has warned against the growing lack of distinctions between the Democratic and Republican parties and the rise of the managerial state. He has been acquainted with many of the leading American political figures of recent decades, including Richard Nixon and Patrick Buchanan.

His books include:

Conservative Millenarians: The Romantic Experience in Bavaria, Fordham University Press, 1979 ISBN 978-0-8232-0982-8

The Search for Historical Meaning: Hegel and the Postwar American Right, Northern Illinois Univ Press, 1986 ISBN 0-87580-114-5

The Conservative Movement, Twayne Pub 1988, with Thomas Fleming (second edition 1992) ISBN 0-8057-9724-6

Carl Schmitt: Politics and Theory, Greenwood Press 1990, ISBN 0-313-27209-3

After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State, Princeton University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-691-08982-5

Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Towards a Secular Theocracy, University of Missouri Press, 2002 ISBN 0-8262-1417-7

The Strange Death of Marxism: The European Left in the New Millennium, University of Missouri Press, 2005 ISBN 0-8262-1597-1

Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007 ISBN 0-230-61479-5

Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers, ISI Books, 2009 ISBN 1-933859-99-7

Leo Strauss and the American Conservative Movement, Cambridge University Press, 2012

Jared Taylor writes:

It would be hard to think of a scholar more essential to American conservatism—real conservatism—than Paul Gottfried. Perhaps no one else writing today combines such deep erudition and keen insight with a real sympathy for conservative thought. Building on his previous work in The Conservative Movement, After Liberalism, and Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt (reviewed in AR, Jan. 2003), Professor Gottfried’s latest book authoritatively recounts “the evolution of the American conservative movement from the 1950s to the present.” This is not a primer; Prof. Gottfried does not write for beginners. But for those prepared to follow its concise arguments, this is a vastly rewarding account of how the American Right was invaded and denatured by ex-liberals and ex-Communists who have stripped the word “conservative” of virtually all meaning.

I talk to Paul Gottfried by phone Thursday.

Paul: “For somebody with such strong European sensibilities, I shouldn’t like LA, but I love LA. I like the natural setting. I love the areas around it like Santa Monica and Pasadena.”

Luke: “I believe that Los Angeles used to be the most Anglo-Saxon city in the United States.”

Paul: “It would not surprise me.”

Luke: “I grew up a WASP. Then I converted to Reform Judaism about 20 years ago and then Orthodox Judaism.”

Paul: “I have no idea how you can convert to those things. It is ethnic, very ritualistic, you have to live in a community with people of the same background. It’s very different from being a Protestant. There are beliefs that hold together a community. Here there is ethnicity and ritual. As a WASP, you don’t make it, particularly with the Orthodox. You haven’t remained in that camp?”

Luke: “I’m still an Orthodox Jew. I go to synagogue every morning. I study the Rambam, daf yomi (page of Talmud).”

Paul: “That’s remarkable.”

…Luke: “One led to the other. I saw how effectively and without any shame how Jews organize in our self-interest. We do not sell our homes to non-Jews in this community.”

Paul: “You’re talking about a group that does not recognize white Protestants as anything other than the other, as some outside group.”

Luke: “If we Jews can and should organize in our self-interest, and every other group does except for whites, that makes me think, hey, why aren’t [non-Jewish] whites organizing in their group interest?”

Paul: “That’s like saying you’re going to become black or Chinese because these are groups that organize in their self-interest. The one indispensable element for Western civilization are the white Christians. Once they go, everything goes. Jews aren’t going to save anything except Jewish self-interest, which is often viewed as incompatible with the preservation of a Western Christian civilization. Jews typically tend to weaken that. I agree with Kevin MacDonald on this entirely. I don’t think it’s anything socio-biological nor necessarily consistent with the entire course of Jewish history, but if you look at Jews in today’s world, they do very much play the role Kevin MacDonald says they do.”

Luke: “I interviewed Kevin MacDonald a couple of weeks ago… [He] also agreed with me that the traditional Orthodox Jew presents much less of a threat.”

Paul: “To say that Orthodox Jews are less of a threat to civilization does not mean that they are an appealing alternative. They’re not as dangerous as the more assimilated Jews. It doesn’t make them the good guys. It doesn’t make them a model you want to imitate if you are interested in preserving Western civilization.”

Luke: “Whites need the craft of the Jew to survive.”

Paul: “What we’re looking at is created by white Christians. They’ve created multiculturalism and all those problems, but once they go down, I don’t think much will survive as a recognizable Western society.”

Luke: “Why do you think the term ‘white nationalist’ is considered so loathsome?”

Paul: “Because whites have chosen themselves to be the ultimate victimizers.”

When we talk about whites, we invariably mean non-Jewish whites aka goyim.

Paul: “So you’re saying that these people who have chosen the role of victimizers have a right to organize in self-defense in the same way that all the groups whom they’ve privileged as victims have been able to do. I see it as a non-starter. I don’t think whites have a nationalist sense. I don’t think they’ve had a nationalist sense. My concern is not with the lack of nationalism but with the masochism they are expressing, the self-destructiveness. Nationalism is always organizing against other groups. What whites need to do is to stop beating themselves and treating other groups according to their just deserts.”

Luke: “You see no hope for whites organizing in their group interest like Jews and Chinese and blacks?”

Paul: “But whites are not successful at it. They destroy themselves. Most whites at most times do not buy into this white nationalism. There are other things that have united white people — ethnicity, religion, being a part of a particular nation. It is rare that whites have seen themselves in terms of racial nationalism.”

“I have had this discussion with Jared Taylor on a number of occasions and I have tried to explain to Jared that whites in the past have expressed racial preferences does not mean that white nationalism was the focus of their existence. Groups dislike other groups and try to preserve their own identity. White nationalism says that nothing else really counts in terms of what we are except race. I have a problem with that. I don’t want to take sides with homosexuals against black people. I’m much more concerned about the feminists and homosexuals than I am about people of different races because I am a social conservative.”

Luke: “Why couldn’t white nationalism mean organizing in your group interest just like all other groups do?”

Paul: “Nationalism historically has meant reaction, the friend-enemy distinction. Nationalism in the 19th Century develops against some group that has conquered somebody else. It contributes to the tensions of both sides leading to World War I. Until recently, it was a destructive force. I don’t think it is true anymore. I support nationalist movements in Europe because they are against multiculturalism. They don’t usually hate their neighbors, at least in Western Europe. I don’t think the nationalist paradigm even works here. I don’t think the problem is that whites are beleaguered but that whites behave in a lunatic fashion. They just have to stop being lunatics. They don’t have to hate blacks or exclude them, just don’t be crazy. I worked at a college. I think most of the people I worked with were certifiable. The feminists, the anti-whites, they were just loony tunes. The answer is not to organize them as white nationalists, it is getting them to [stop] behaving in a crazy way.”

Luke: “What do you think of American Renaissance and Jared Taylor?”

Paul: “I think it is a noble endeavor. He undertook this project, hoping that it would turn the country around. This is also true about VDARE. It is a hope that if you call certain problems to the attention of the general public, it will have a beneficial effect. It has not had that beneficial effect because the problems by now are so systemic that one small publication coming out once a month is not going to make much difference.”

“Another problem we face is that the conservative movement in the United States is controlled by neoconservatives. There is no right-wing movement that can effectively contend against the left. You have elements of the right that have no political voice. It is the problem of powerlessness that leads some of us to look for solutions that are not really solutions.”

Luke: “Where do you see hope for America?”

Paul: “I have no hope for the near-future. I hope that in the course of time, there will be a reaction. I always tell people that I am a right-wing Lenninist. The worse, the better. If I lived in New York City, I would have voted ten times if I could for DeBlasio. I would never vote Republican in a presidential race. That staves off the disaster. Things have to fall hard before they get any better.”

Luke: “Should Jews fear Kevin MacDonald?”

Paul: “I can’t imagine why. First of all, he has no power. What could he do to them? Second, a lot of the stuff he writes is perfectly sensible. There’s nothing he’s going to do. He doesn’t have that wide readership. He is denounced and marginalized by the establishment. So am I. I don’t even write on these subject, you just have to cross the line by questioning the happy results of the civil rights revolution that takes you out of the picture. I was recently kicked out of ISI (Inter-Collegiate Studies Institute), which had published me for like 40 years because I was friendly with people who believed in cognitive disparities [by race]. Once you befriend anyone who believes in cognitive disparities, the conservative movement kicks you out.”

Luke: “The Jewish response to him is to throw slurs rather than to rebut.”

Paul: “Yes, of course. What else do you expect? He’s questioning the nobility and high-mindedness of Jewish leftists. I wouldn’t expect any other kind of response. I don’t think the very Orthodox Jews care one way or the other.”

“The neoconservative position is that if blacks don’t like us, we have done so much for them, we have sacrificed ourselves, they should kiss our toes and support Israel and if they don’t, they’re making us suffer because they’re extremely evil. What Kevin MacDonald shows is that leftist Jews take certain positions because they’re trying to neutralize the Gentile [threat]. Most Jews I have known on the left fear white Gentiles.”

Luke: “Many liberal Jews I’ve known make civil rights for blacks the center of their Jewish identity while the Orthodox Jews I go to synagogue with could care less about civil rights for blacks.”

Paul: “Because they live in another world. They’re not concerned about what happens to Gentiles. The other [Jews] are in the process of assimilating and they fear and hate Christians. I was listening to this guy Alan Dershowitz on a television program and he was asked if the Ten Commandments are good and he said, oh no, they’re awful. They were written for primitive people. And they have nothing to do with us. Now why would a Jew be attacking the Ten Commandments? Because he doesn’t want the Gentiles to have it. He doesn’t want them to have any religion except left-liberalism. He hates the goyim. If you read his book Chutzpah, it is even more obvious that he hates Gentiles. I’ve never seen Jewish liberalism as anything other than an attempt to neutralize a group that Jews fear and hate.”

Luke: “When did you become a heretic? Outside the pale of acceptable opinions?”

Paul: “I always was. My father was. My brother is. I’ve never thought any differently. I was critical of the Civil Rights revolution. Most of the people I grew up with thought this way except that they opportunistically changed their minds later on.”

Luke: “How have you dealt with the ostracism?”

Paul: “I don’t care. The people who ostracize me, I despise anyhow. If somebody asked me why do I bother to fight at all? The answer is I despise my enemies. They’ve kept me back. I’ve published important works that they make sure are never reviewed, even if they are published by Princeton and Cambridge and other universities. They can all go to hell. I can vomit when I look at these neocons on Fox News. They’re there so they can offer a politically correct alternative to political correctness and their parents got them those jobs.

“If I were ever given any power, I would destroy them. I would make sure that they disappear from the face of the earth. The thing I really like about the Jewish tradition is that it is OK to hate your enemies because I thoroughly despise mine.”

Luke: “When you say you would like to see them disappear from the face of the earth, does that include violence?”

Paul: “I don’t care. Whatever. No, I’d just like to see them professionally ruined and socially ruined. I do not wish them physical harm. I would like to see them no longer be any factor in public life, which would probably cause them to commit suicide. I hear that this guy Jay Nordlinger who works at National Review always refers to me as the Court Jew of Pat Buchanan. I have never criticized the state of Israel in any of my writings. Why would I be called that? The answer is that I don’t agree with the neocons about the outbreak of World War I or something like that. If you deviate the breadth of a hair from the party line, they hate you. They have gone out of their way to ostracize and marginalize me. That’s fine. I would do the same thing if I were in a superior position. I would align myself with Kevin MacDonald against them at any point if I thought that that kind of alliance would go anywhere.”

Luke: “Do you practice Judaism?”

Paul: “Up to a point. I consider it an ethnic identity. I know that now that you are Orthodox, that is not your position any more. It’s being loyal to ancestral custom. I do believe in God.”

Luke: “Do you believe that God has communicated to humanity?”

Paul: “Yes.”

Luke: “How?”

Paul: “I can accept the Bible as being inspired and probably the New Testament as well as the Old Testament. I do have a religious side. I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the intensity of my hatred for my enemies.”

Luke: “Do Jews have the same relationship to America as WASPs?”

Paul: “No. Not the same as the WASPs used to. I think it is true of the old German Jews. They thought of themselves as 1000% American. They tried to assimilate into the WASP establishment. There are different senses of being American [among Jews]. The neoconservatives identify America with global democracy, human rights, Jewish interests, Zionism, the struggle against German Nazism in two world wars, the victory of the Civil Rights movement. They have their own myth of America and it differs only slightly from Obama’s view of America, that America is good because it has progressed, overcome prejudice, it is universal and it is based on human rights. Other Jews on the left are more radical because they are still afraid of Christian influence. However radical Americans have become, Jews are even more radical with gay rights and things like that. Jews often play a pivotal influence in introducing new phases of radicalism.”

“My father thought the Civil Rights movement was something that was organized by members of the Communist party. He didn’t think Joe McCarthy was too bad. I first met Jewish radicals when I was a graduate student at Yale. Then I noticed how radical they were and how much they disliked the WASP establishment at Yale. I admired these [WASPs].”

Luke: “Is it endemic to belonging to a tribe?”

Paul: “Yes. That’s exactly what it is. Jews are more articulate than most other groups. They have higher intelligence than most other minorities. I meet people from India, from China. They all behave like Jews. John Derbyshire is married to a Chinese lady and she says all her friends are big Obama supporters. It’s all ethnic identity. I’ve known black people who were devout Christians, who were against abortion, who prayed over food when they ate it, and they loved Obama and they thought George W. Bush wanted to re-enslave every black in America because being a Democrat was black ethnic identity. It was being on the side of the minority party against the Christian white majority that was going to oppress you.”

Luke: “Would it make sense for a national state such as the United States to pay special attention to the activities of tribes and perhaps giving them greater scrutiny before perhaps giving them access to power and national security interests?”

Paul: “We’re beyond that. I can’t even imagine that. There’s not even a WASP leadership running the country. What you have are groups of minorities who distrust each other. My wife gets New York magazine which is put out by Jewish liberals and you think that once you leave New York, it is entering Nazi Germany. Their sense of the world is so provincial. They seem to hate cowboys in Texas, and fundamentalist preachers in Oklahoma. They think these are nasty people who are going to come after them as Jewish liberals. But the WASPs don’t seem to care. They buy into all this stuff. They want to please. They want to accommodate. The ones who are patriotic are patriotic about America as a universal nation going abroad to destroy the enemies of human rights. They have no sense of ethnic identity. These nutty ideas — propositional nationhood, human rights, liberal internationalism — were invented by whites. There’s no concern to preserving their own cultural hegemony in the United States.”

Luke: “Remember when Osama Bin Laden was killed, people poured out on to the streets, the people were overwhelmingly white and Protestant.”

Paul: “True. It was seen as a patriotic act. WASPs are patriotic but it is a patriotism that is made to incorporate Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Stonewall, and the rest of this stuff. It is a progressive narrative that fills their patriotism. It is a cumulative leftism that goes into this WASP patriotism… While I would like to restore WASP hegemony of the old form, I can’t think like a WASP. I don’t even know what goes into their heads. I understand people who try to preserve their identity. People who go around beating themselves on the head because they were prejudiced or used to own slaves, it’s all very nutty. I’m trying to read the minds of people whose behavior is incomprehensible to me.”

“The WASPs have a certain kind of guilt culture. They internalize the guilt, which is very good for lawfulness, for republican government, for self-government, but it is not the way most people act and think. An Italian friend was telling me that they had to lie about where their niece was staying so that they could get reduced insurance rates. They told their older son, ‘Tell the insurance company that Laura lives here.’ He asked me, do you think I did the right thing? I said, of course you did the right thing. You have to protect your family.

“Then he had a teacher from India who taught Sanskrit who said, in my village, I would do the same thing. Then he asked this Methodist who said, you did a terrible thing. Each individual should never lie. And he went on and on.

“Both sides are right. Traditional societies would take the side of this Italian guy and WASP individuals would take the side of the Methodist.”

Luke: “I know Jews in the entertainment industry who don’t care about the effect of their work on society. They feel no loyalty to the wider society.”

Paul: “What they would typically say, since Jews are very verbal, is that this is good because it is breaking down Christian prejudice.

“I suppose from a Protestant sense, from an Old Testament sense, I would say this is terrible, you are breaking down communal morals, but this is exactly what they want to do. I don’t think this is just an indifference to morals, there’s a certain malice that lies behind it. In many ways, it is a moral act, a kind of inverse morality they are practicing.”

Luke: “Are Jews served by putting themselves off-limits to any group criticism?”

Paul: “It’s an expression of power. Usually the ones who run to shut you up are Christians. It makes you wonder about the prospects for white nationalism, these people are just running to serve someone else’s interests, which are not your own. Morally, culturally, it is not good that this happened. I don’t see it being changed.”

“Neoconservatives are selectively for academic freedom when it advances what they see as Jewish interests. They’ll say it’s everybody’s interests.”

“They also hate the Russians because their ancestors came from Russian villages. If you say nice things about the Russians, they don’t like it. I’ve noticed that all the magazines that take money from neoconservative foundations and from Rupert Murdoch take the same party line on certain countries and certain issues. I don’t see any of this changing. We are not going to change anything.”

“The Jewish positive [intellectual] tendencies are seen in science and business. Most of the Jewish cultural [and political] influence in America is very bad. I just don’t see the good cultural influence of Jews.”

Luke: “That comes from non-Orthodox Jews because Orthodox Jews don’t participate in these things.”

Paul: “Speaking as a German Jew, most of them come from Eastern European Jews. Orthodox Jews don’t do much one way or the other [in culture and politics]. It seems that the only political interest they have is Israel. The [Modern] Orthodox are ardent Zionists.”

“The WASP contribution to American culture is nil at this point. It’s not that Jews are singularly evil but that the group that once provided cultural leadership is gone.”

Luke: “Have Jews collectively been more of a blessing or a curse to the United States?”

Paul: “I think it is mixed.”

“Just because I like Bach and Goethe doesn’t mean I have to like Hitler.”

“Jews have brought with them a certain kind of animating force, which I don’t see in WASPs anymore. The brain stupefaction of WASPs never ceases to amaze me. There are exceptions. Jared Taylor is one. Sam Francis is another. I would say that most of the WASPs I have admired have been southerners.”

“The neocons will call any Jew they don’t like a self-hating Jew. Anyone who disagrees with them is a self-hating Jew.”

Luke: “What do you think about the accusation that American Jews have dual loyalties [to America and to Israel]?”

Paul: “I could say what the late Joseph Sobran said, ‘What’s so dual about it? Is there any country but Israel for them?’ That’s partly true. Theoretically, they love Israel as a Jewish land but they are not going to go there to live. It’s some distant country they admire. In traditional Jewish circles [outside the haredim], anything for Israel is good. But they’re not going to leave the United States. They have a physical and financial and residential attachment to the United States.”

Luke: “Do you ever pause before saying anything to ask yourself whether this will be good or bad for the Jews?”

Paul: “Never… I was not even raised to think that way.”

Luke: “My perception of tribal identity is that you can never go wrong within your tribe by putting your tribe’s interests first.”

Paul: “If you would put Jewish interests first, you would not care at all about what happens to white Christian society in which you are living, but if that goes down, Jewish tribal interests are not going to survive long. It’s linked to a larger whole no matter how much Jews despise their white Christian allies.”

Luke: “What percentage of American Jews would you estimate care more about Israel than about America?”

Paul: “It would be true of the Modern Orthodox Jews I have known… and the older generation of liberal Jews. That’s a vanishing sentiment.”

Luke: “I was watching Alan Dershowitz’s 2009 documentary The Case For Israel, and in the last 20 minutes he complains about how Israel is singled out for human rights violations. I think that is philosemitism. Our actions are singled out because we are a more interesting people. Nobody cares what the Arabs do because they don’t produce anything.”

Paul: “You could say the same thing about South Africa because it was a white Protestant society. The horror over Nazi crimes was much greater than the horror over Soviet crimes because Russians are seen as barbaric people compared to the Germans. Atrocities committed by people more like yourself become harder to justify.”

Luke: “Do you think South African whites simply lost the will to rule?”

Paul: “Exactly.”

Luke: “Do you think American whites have been losing the will to rule?”

Paul: “Yes. I don’t think the Israelis have. I greatly admire the Israelis. The thing I admire about the Israelis is that they don’t give you any human rights nonsense. They don’t talk about global democracy. I give the Israelis as a model of political realism. They don’t even hate their enemies, but they wouldn’t think twice about shooting them.”

“I once met David Duke. I thought he was a nutcase. I don’t fit into the radical right. I don’t like people who are visceral antisemites. Kevin MacDonald is fine. He wants to criticize Jews and I generally agree with what he says. Someone like David Duke and William Pierce viscerally hate Jews. They want to destroy them. I find that to be a vile sentiment.”

“Jim Kalb and I had the same problem. We were known to be friendly with socio-biologists. What they say makes sense to me, but I am not a deep racialist. I do not hate people because they’re black. I would be very happy if black people didn’t vote. I would be very happy if the Civil Rights movement had failed. That’s because I would like America to remain an old-fashioned constitutional republic with a sane immigration policy. I would even vote for black people if I agreed with their views. I am not a white nationalist. Is Jared a stronger white nationalist than I am?”

Luke: “What do you think will happen to America?”

Paul: “It will muddle through for a while because it is so rich. I think the whites will become so decadent that they will allow the minorities to do whatever they want. There will be no core loyalty except to social programs. The government will give out victimological credits. Tribal divisions will become so severe that it will convulse the country. At some point, the saints will rise up and try to preserve what there is left of white society.”

Luke: “Do you think different races can live in the same land for very long without conflict leading to war?”

Paul: “It depends upon proportions.”

Luke: “Do you think we will ever restore freedom of association in this country?”

Paul: “WASPs will never allow it. They’re so decadent and full of guilt and political correctness.”

Luke: “I will pull this together.”

Paul: “Please feel free to cut out my effusions of hate.”

Luke: “Oh no, I love your effusions of hate.”

Paul: “Jared Taylor, being a Southern WASP aristocrat, would never say those things.”

Luke: “Jews are much more visceral and emotional and passionate in their hatreds.”

Paul: “I’m afraid that I came across as someone insufficiently racist.”

Paul knew the late Phil Rushton. “The guy was an incredible researcher. He was not in any way motivated by malice. He was convinced of the conclusions of his scientific research.”

“These people [along with Arthur Jensen] have a 19th Century mentality. They think that if you prove something scientifically, people will accept it. Political correctness is not at all about rationalist or science.”

“Most of the kids I tried to teach did not have the grey matter to do college work so you had to entertain them, give them social work courses or major in communications. If one tried to run a college on the basis of being able to attract students with the cognitive wherewithal to do college work, you’d have to close up your place. Most small colleges and state universities are dealing with people who do not have the IQ to do college work. They’re bored by it. There’s little effort to get them to study. They’re simply customers who bring money in. Students are sent into a learning situation they do not have the means to deal with.”

By the 1990s, Paul had been purged from National Review, followed by Peter Brimelow, Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire, and Robert Weisberg.

“You don’t want millions of blacks to be mobilized because they were going to vote for the left. I would have been the last one to vote for female suffrage for the same reason.”

Paul Gottfried writes for VDARE: