Thursday, February 9, 2017

Trump & Fascism: Appendices

Appendix I: Speaking Their Language

In "Trump & Fascism: The Basics", I wrote, "Trump is the darling of the 'alt-right,' much of which is overtly fascist. This isn't coincidental or in any way unintentional--he all-but-openly courted these elements during the campaign, often in ways that would have been political suicide for any other modern presidential candidate." As I covered in that earlier piece, Trump speaks the language of fascism. "The ultranationalism, the anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism, the opportunistic political syncretism (during the presidential race, Trump freely ran to Hillary Clinton's left on many issues), the lack of any real program beyond Trump as the strongman who promises to cure the liberal democracy that ails the nation, the promise of authoritarian rule and of national renewal to be achieved by it ('Make America Great Again'), the machismo, the militarism, the exaltation of authority, the persistent demonization of his 'enemies,' including helpless minorities, often to justify repressive policies," and so on.

Donald Trump's protofascism has been a key to his success. When he entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, he was widely despised within his party. That week in June 2015, RealClearPolitics, which aggregates polls from many sources, showed him with a pathetic 3.6% support among Republicans. But the protofascist rhetoric began with his first speech. He asserted that Mexican immigrants in the U.S. were rapists, drug-dealers, criminals and further, that the Mexican government was involved in a conspiracy to ship such elements to these shores. Challenged on such rot, he doubled down again and again, making it clear he wasn't just limiting his attack to people from one Latin American country but meant "people that are from all over that are killers and rapists and they're coming into this country" across the Mexican border. He had a plan to deal with these evil brown people from south of the border too; he promised to "build a great wall" across that entire border, describing it in increasingly grandiose terms, and to establish a "deportation force" which would be assigned the task of removing every illegal immigrant from the U.S.. This sort of rhetoric made Trump's numbers explode; within a month, he went from a low-single-digit also-ran to the head of the Republican field, a position he continued to hold right through to the end of the primary season. Trump called for banning all Muslims from entering the U.S. He described watching "thousands and thousands" of American Muslims celebrating in the streets of Jersey City, New Jersey on 9/11 as the World Trade Center Towers fell and said because of this, he wanted federal surveillance of mosques in the U.S. He insisted the millions of illegal immigrants were illegally voting in our elections. Such rhetoric has been and remains a cornerstone of Trump's stint in politics.

In reality, immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than the native born. Even if it was possible to deport over 11 million people--and it isn't--the result of doing so would be the complete and spectacular collapse of the U.S. economy. The notion that the Mexican government is involved in a conspiracy to send us their vile, their felonious is ludicrous and baseless and it can't be forced to pay for any wall. Muslims can't be banned from entering the U.S.; no mechanism either exists or could be created to act as a "religious police" in such a matter. Trump's tale of Jersey City Muslims celebrating 9/11 was just a lie he pulled out of an orifice on the spot. Ditto with the illegal immigrants voting.

But subjecting these comments to that sort of empirical analysis entirely misses their point. Trump's rhetoric isn't meant to be an honest, rational assessment of anything. His remarks of this genre are simply lies deployed for their emotional appeal, the standard fascist cult of aggrievement being nurtured. With them, Trump is directly echoing what the white supremacist community in the U.S. has been saying for decades. At one point, he even directly consulted a network of nativist hate-groups founded by a white nationalist, and  made extensive use of their fake "research" on the campaign trail. He tells Americans there are too many brown people with funny accents and strange habits running around and you're being harmed by this. Stoking racial and ethnic fears and, most importantly, resentments. Tearing at the fabric of civilized, liberal society. And that's all it is. When, on the campaign trail, his rhetoric began to attract protests--a healthy liberal society will always strongly react against this sort of thing--Trump spent months encouraging his supporters to carry out violence against those protesting. That's the fascist response to everything the fascist dislikes, to hit it, to kick it, to try to stomp it out. While there are important differences between Trump and real fascists (outlined in the earlier essay), all of this is why Trump is so incredibly popular within the white supremacist/Nazi/fascist subculture. He speaks their language. He parrots their rhetoric. This is one of the enduring cornerstones of both his campaign and now his presidency.



Appendix II: Nazis, Fascists, Racists

If one sticks around internet locales wherein politics are discussed, one quickly runs into an array of rightist trolls who launch thread after thread insisting, among other things, that today's Democratic party is the party of the Ku Klux Klan and that fascists are, in reality, leftists. These trolls deploy a standard litany of lies and misrepresentations in support of such Orwellian assertions; they've all pretty much been programmed from the same playbook. Seeing these endless threads spill over into the election cycle wherein the white supremacist/Nazi/"identitarian"/fascist subculture was absolutely enraptured by one of the presidential candidates,[*] I decided it would be helpful to create a thread that cut through the squid's ink and made clear who these elements were and who they were supporting. Some are separatists who don't take part in electoral politics. Some have their own small, right-wing parties, usually local. But those who participate in traditional two-party politics had made their political allegiance very clear and it wasn't to the party that elected that black fellow president. That thread was basically a series of links to various relevant items, by no means comprehensive but more than sufficient to make the point. They're reproduced here:

Andrew Anglin, a white supremacist and self-proclaimed fascist, founded the Daily Stormer, which has recently overtaken Stormfront to become the major internet white supremacist site. Here's his endorsement for president:
http://www.dailystormer.com/the-daily-stormer-endorses-donald-trump-for-president/

Anglin doesn't have the rightist trolls' confusion about fascists. As he tells it, Trump "is absolutely the only candidate who is even talking about anything at all that matters," said things that matter being that Trump wants to get rid of those Mexicans, get rid of Obamacare and he's the only candidate "with any chance whatsoever of beating Hillary."

The Daily Stormer is jam-packed with articles promoting Trump and attacking his enemies:

--"Glorious Leader [Trump] Calls for Complete Ban on All Moslems"
--"Media Jews Try to Hoax Trump with Fake Attack on Lying Slut Reporter"
--"Krauthammer Says Trump Train Cannot be Derailed!" (the subheadline for this one: "You gave it a good shot, Jews.")
--"Soros Funds Hispanic Move Against Trump"
--"Vile African Leader of America [President Obama] Again Attacks Donald Trump"
--"Jew Noam Chomsky Says a Trump Presidency Would Destroy Earth"
--"Three Wetbacks Arrested for Pulling Gun on Trump Supporter in Georgia"

And so on.
http://www.dailystormer.com/?s=trump

David Duke, probably the single-most prominent white supremacist in the U.S., has issued a de facto endorsement of Trump. "I’m not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven’t formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do." Further, he told his followers that "voting for these people [Cruz and Rubio], voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage." He encouraged his listeners to "get active":

"Get off your duff. Get off your rear end that’s getting fatter and fatter for many of you everyday on your chairs. When this show’s over, go out, call the Republican Party, but call Donald Trump’s headquarters, volunteer. They’re screaming for volunteers. Go in there, you’re gonna meet people who are going to have the same kind of mindset that you have."
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/david-duke-urges-his-supporters-to-volunteer-and-vote-for-tr#.dxJQrYjoY

Kevin B. MacDonald is the editor of the Occidental Observer, devoted to "white identity, white interests, and the culture of the West"--a racist who with a particular focus on anti-Semitism who affects the pose of an intellectual. Early on, he saw much hope for white nationalists in the Trump campaign, praising "Trump’s statements on the criminal tendencies and generally low functioning of Mexican and Central American immigrants," which he wrote, "have struck a chord with White America." MacDonald praises Trump for attacking Jewish pundits--"prominent operatives of the Republican Party/Israel Lobby nexis"--and for bringing to the forefront the "issue" of "illegal alien criminality."
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/07/10/how-it-could-happen-the-candidacy-of-donald-trump/

MacDonald has become more and more enthusiastic about Trump as the campaign has gone on:

"I certainly counted myself among the skeptics when it comes to Donald Trump’s candidacy. But it’s clear now that he is going full populist on the issues that matter, first with his statements on trade deals, but now—and more importantly—on immigration. Ann Coulter calls his immigration statement 'the greatest political document since the Magna Carta'... I agree--if it can actually end up influencing policy. While other candidates like Scott Walker and Rick Santorum have mumbled things about legal immigration, the immigration issue will now define Trump’s candidacy. White Americans can finally express themselves on what kind of country they want to live in. As Coulter also points out, immigration is the only important issue."
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/08/17/donald-trumps-breakthrough-statement-on-immigration/

MacDonald has authored perhaps a dozen articles expressing glee that Trump pisses off prominent Jewish commentators.

"The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers in part to cope with a Trump traffic spike. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s... 'Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,' said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump. Black predicts that the white nationalist forces set in motion by Trump will be a legacy that outlives the businessman’s political career. 'He’s certainly creating a movement that will continue independently of him even if he does fold at some point.'... [White supremacist leaders] consistently say that Trump's rhetoric about minority groups has successfully tapped into simmering racial resentments long ignored by mainstream politicians and that he has brought more attention to their agenda than any American political figure in years. It is a development many of them see as a golden opportunity."
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/donald-trump-white-supremacists-216620

As Politico notes, Stormfront, the biggest white supremacist community on the internet (and before the Daily Stormer came along, the most visited site), is full of excitement over Trump. One can go there and, under the logo "We are the voice of the new, embattled White minority!," see thread after thread of enthusiastic white supremacists expressing their delight at Trump.
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1148133/
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1117558/
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1148008/
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1148217/
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1148102/
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1148204/
And on into infinity.

Stormfront is a very effective antidote for the persistent nut-right trolling about fascism being a phenomenon of the left ("The Nazis have the word 'socialist' in their name!"). The Nazis, white nationalists, race separatists of the Stormfront gang has no such illusions about which side they're on or who their enemies are. Trump is god, George Soros is evil, Black Lives Matters are violent thugs, Bernie Sanders is the evil socialist Jew, Hillary Clinton is a felon, and on and on. Remove the overt racial references and much of the political commentary on the site would be indistinguishable from any other right-wing site that allows people to post. A small sample:

Poster Blueearth:

"The enemy is the left, it became clear to even the most moderate whites, with the well organized mob last night and, the bitter vitriol pouring out from Tim Wise the anti white jew. I did not hear Bernie Sanders condemn the violence either, even though today, they are identifying the vast majority as sanders supporters, no surprise really, since sanders has been active in agitation since the early 60's in this same city. This mob was evil and violent, they wanted the war to start last night, they may just get their wish if this continues... The enemy here is the organized institutional left, and every single GOP candidate and surrogate needs to start educating the voters on who they are. This is going to get worse. As I predicted in January:As the newest incarnation of the activist Left, Black Lives Matter will not back down or rest until it is either stopped by someone gutsy enough to call them out or until it gets what it wants: a bloody revolution leading to a socialist/anarchist America."

Volodyamyr states the matter plainly:

"The Left and Jewry are synonymous, because the Jews are the Left."

Makker:

"...the only way around this is for Trump to take control of the country and explain the media bias to the masses in simple terms. So the best all of us can do right now is hope Trump wins through and is the genuine article, and for the American public get behind and help Trump. I'm not sure that the likes of Trump, The UKIP party in Britain, LePen in France, Vladimir Putin are the real thing, but my God they have to be better than Hillary Clinton and the worldwide libtard movement."

Phoenix1933:

"Jews invented left wing ideology and they still set the agenda for all the leftists."

NationalCrusader14:

"Hillary is the problem and Trump is the solution."

DomTxn:

"Look back at history. Who created the so called left? The Jew... If you are still on the fence about whether to support white pride groups, I would advise you to go to one of the leftist rallies. Listen to the hate and vitriol they spew at absolutely anyone who disagrees with them. Look around at the people at one of these dog and pony shows. These people have the unmitigated gall to call us haters? They talk about brotherly love and peace and love your fellow man. What that means is love thy spook. Fall down and worship thy Hebe. Never question the liberal agenda. If you fail to do any of these things they will attack you like a pack of rabid dogs."

WhiteRights:

"We’ve heard the liberal meme over and over that Donald Trump encourages violence among his supporters. Of course the liberals who make this accusation, always fail to note that the problems have always resulted from obnoxious leftists, who show up inside Trump rallies and then try to keep Trump from speaking, forcing Trump and his supporters to throw them out."

SPOON!:

"Hungarian Jew billionaire George Soros has announced that he is putting $5 million into a new political action committee designed solely to mobilize Hispanics into a nonwhite anti-Trump voting bloc. The blatant racially-based political mobilization—which Soros would be among the first to call 'racist' if it were done by whites—will take the form of the “Immigrant Voters Win PAC,” and will help to coordinate the effects of a number of nonwhite political groups."

And so on.

Now get a shower.

The New Yorker ran a good piece about, among other things, Trump's extensive fan following among the white supremacist crowd:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated

The American Freedom Party, a neo-Nazi org, launched a super-PAC, American National, that has been financing robocalls in support of Trump's candidacy:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-robocall-super-tuesday-william-daniel-johnson

Jared Taylor, editor of the white supremacist American Renaissance and spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, lent his voice to recording the robocall message:

"Jared Taylor, a leading white nationalist known for his academic-sounding deconstructions of multiculturalism, has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump since the earliest days of the billionaire's presidential campaign."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/12/why-this-leading-white-nationalist-is-urging-iowa-voters-to-back-donald-trump/

"Jared Taylor is a believer in what he calls 'race realism,' a belief system that includes the idea that people are happier when they can live with only members of their race, and that people of color are endangering the majority that white Americans have held for centuries. He has questioned the ability of black people to live in civilized society, and his website, American Renaissance, says one 'of the most destructive myths of modern times is that people of all races have the same average intelligence.' Taylor, a white nationalist, is also an enthusiastic supporter of Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

"'He is really the first candidate in many years whose policies are not going to kowtow,' Taylor said of Trump. 'He has taken a very straightforward position on keeping Muslims out, for example. Can you name a single good consequence of mass Muslim immigration to the United States? I sure can’t!'"
http://www.ibtimes.com/white-nationalists-among-donald-trumps-most-enthusiastic-supporters-2220618

The Knights Party is one of several descendants of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan organization formerly run by David Duke (it fractured over the years). Thomas Robb, the preacher who has run it since the '70s, knows who he's supporting for president: "As far as I’m concerned, Donald Trump is the pick of the litter."

"'The others say they can control the border … they’ve been talking about controlling the border for 50 years,' he said. 'The Knights Party started calling for a wall on our border back in the late '70s. It’s nice to see some other people catching up.'

"While he views Trump as the 'pick of the litter,' Robb said that he would back any Republican against Hillary Clinton in the general election."
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2016/03/04/current-leader-of-kkk-donald-trump-is-the-pick-of-the-litter

Some quotes from Robb, courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

"When the Negro was under the natural discipline of white authority, white people were safe from the abuse and violence of the Negro, but the Negro was also safe from himself."
–-Editorial in The Torch, April 1990

"Dats when A'hs does what A'hs want. Dat's also when A'hs kin have da white girls, and da free food stamps."
--The White Patriot, 1991

"My name’s not Paul Revere, but one of the things I’d be saying if I was on that stallion in 1775, but I’m not, so in 2009, the Mexicans are coming, the Mexicans are coming!"
--At White Christian Heritage Festival, Pulaski, Tenn., Oct. 24, 2009
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/thomas-robb

Rachel Pendergraft, an organizer for the Knights Party, uses Trump as a recruting tool:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/21/how-donald-trump-is-breathing-life-into-americas-dying-white-supremacist-movement/?tid=sm_fb

The Knights Party has a platform; with a few overt racial references (and one or two odd items) removed, it would pass muster with much of the American nationalist hard right.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151007004031/http://www.kkk.bz/program.htm

Craig Cobb wants to turn the little town of Antler, North Dakota into a white supremacist enclave and rename it after his hero Donald Trump:
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/08/white_supremacist_wants_to_rename_town_after_donald_trump.html

William Daniel Johnson of the white nationalist American Freedom Party once proposed a constitutional amendment revoking the citizenship of every non-white American. He thinks Trump is just hunky-dory:

"'I was not a supporter of the man until the positions made me a convert,' Johnson said, describing how he was swayed by Trump’s promises of a wall separating the United States and Mexico and a new plan to ban all Muslims from entering the country. For the quarter of a century during which Johnson was aware of Trump before these proposals, he wasn’t a huge fan. Now, he said, 'I admire what he’s doing very much.'

...

"The slight problem for Johnson, in his political capacity, is that the American Freedom Party has its own presidential candidate. The portly, blue-eyed Bob Whitaker is the party's man. He campaigns with the catchy slogan 'Diversity Is a Codeword for Genocide.' Yet as Johnson laughingly told The Daily Beast, Whitaker himself supports what Trump is doing, as do many members of the party.

"Indeed, interest in the American Freedom Party has surged along with Trump’s rise, Johnson said.

"'We have seen a dramatic uptick in support,' he crowed. 'In fact, sometimes I can hardly manage because of this Trump phenomenon.'
...

"...the American Freedom Party chairman describes his relationship with Trump as 'unrequited love.' He said he has contributed financially to the campaign, created a super PAC to support him, and tries to get the message out about Trump’s near sainthood on the party’s daily radio shows."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/10/white-supremacists-for-donald-trump-the-positions-made-me-a-convert.html

Whitaker eventually withdrew as the AFP's candidate and the party endorsed Trump.

Back in the 1960s, the Citizens Councils of America, better known as the White Citizens Councils (and known colloquially as "the uptown Klan"), battled civil rights and racial integration. Those behind it eventually changed its name to the Council of Conservative Citizens. The CCC has all the usual targets--it's anti-black, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-liberal, anti-"race-mixing" (in 2003, the group's website decreed that "Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God)." In 2007, the Citizen Informer, one of the group's publications, offered a "statement of principles" that included things like this:

"We believe the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people... We therefore oppose the massive immigration of non-European and non-Western peoples into the United States that threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority in our lifetime. We believe that illegal immigration must be stopped, if necessary by military force and placing troops on our national borders; that illegal aliens must be returned to their own countries; and that legal immigration must be severely restricted or halted through appropriate changes in our laws and policies. We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called ‘affirmative action' and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races."
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/council-conservative-citizens

Dozens of politicians and political officials are tied up with the CCC and, of course, almost all of them are Republicans. Then-Republican leader Trent Lott--the fellow who, a few years ago, praised Strom Thurmond's 1948 "Segregation Forever" campaign--gave at least five speeches to the group and was reportedly a dues-paying member. Then-Mississsippi Governor and former Republican National Committee chief Haley Barbour has addressed the group, as has Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who ran for the Republican presidential nomination again this year. Alabama "Justice" Roy Moore, the reactionary demagogue who fought a long battle over trying to erect and maintain an unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument in the state Judicial Building, has addressed the org. The CCC was allowed to participate in the Conservative Political Action Conference year after year until their white supremacist views got a wider airing in the press, forcing CPAC to cut them out.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1999/racist-council-conservative-citizens-finds-home-mainstream-politics

In 1999, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) introduced a resolution in congress condemning the CCC:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) condemns the racism and bigotry espoused by the Council of Conservative Citizens;
(2) condemns all manifestations and expressions of racism, bigotry, and religious intolerance wherever they occur; and
(3) urges all Members of the House of Representatives not to support or endorse the Council of Conservative Citizens and its views.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/106/hres35/text

All but 13 Republicans in the House lockstepped against the resolution and killed it. Over in the Senate, Lott himself stood opposed to it. Shocking, right?

A few years later, a little right-wing slug happened across the CCC's website. He was amazed by what he found there--as he described it, it really opened his eyes to the world. That slug was Dylann Roof and in 2015, inspired by what he'd found, he entered a black church in Charleston and murdered 9 people.
http://splcenter.org/blog/2015/06/21/charleston-shooters-manifesto-indicates-sound-knowledge-of-white-nationalist-ideology/
And:
http://time.com/3930993/dylann-roof-council-of-conservative-citizens-charleston/

In the flurry of press coverage the followed the Roof killings, it was brought to light that the CCC's president Earl Holt III, a man who describes black people as "the laziest, stupidest and most criminally-inclined race in the history of the world," had given $65,000 to various Republican campaigns in the last few years, including large donations to Mitt Romney in 2012 and, prior to the rise of Trump in the current race, to Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/21/dylann-roof-manifesto-charlston-shootings-republicans

A breakdown of Holt's donations over the years, which have gone to Michele Bachmann, Louis Gohmert, Steve King, Tom Cotton, Rick Santorum, Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, etc.--all the darlings of the nut right:
https://mic.com/articles/121121/ted-cruz-among-politicians-with-donations-from-white-supremacist-earl-holt#.Loe9N06de

Holt switched to Donald Trump in the presidential race, helping finance those American Freedom Party robocalls.

White supremacist Kyle Rogers, the CCC's webmaster, has been a Republican activist in South Carolina for nearly a decade; you can visit ebay where he'll sell you a "Trump 2016" shirt:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Donald-Trump-for-president-2016-t-shirt-in-different-colors-/261860194123?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item3cf815774b

Trump recently made a few waves in the press by approvingly retweeting a quote by Benito Mussolini. Getting much less attention is the fact that Trump routinely retweets white supremacists:

"Last week, presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a minor stir by retweeting someone with the Twitter handle @whitegenocideTM, which some saw as making explicit the connection between Trump and American white supremacists. But that’s just one data point, right? A one-off thing that could have been an intern’s mistake? Unfortunately, no: the data shows that 62 percent of the accounts Trump has retweeted recently have white-supremacist connections."
http://nymag.com/following/2016/01/donald-trump-mostly-retweets-white-supremacists.html

Fortune did an analysis of Trump's social media ties to white supremacists and found them depressingly significant:
http://fortune.com/donald-trump-white-supremacist-genocide/

"Last night, PBS NewsHour ran a story on the Tilly family of Fayetteville, North Carolina. The Tillys do not have a history of being active in politics, but various members of the family—both old and young—are being motivated to vote or work for a campaign for the first time by Donald Trump.

"If you can put aside the fact that the Tillys are rallying behind Trump, this is a small but almost heartwarming story of a family choosing to engage with democracy. That’s also if you can put aside the fact that Grace, one of the central characters in the story, has large white power tattoos on each of her hands."
http://gawker.com/pbs-news-story-on-first-time-trump-voters-prominently-f-1765284316

This became a bit of a controversy and Grace Tilly falsely denied they had any connection to white supremacy:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/03/17/pbs-issues-second-editors-note-on-trump-supporters-white-supremacist-tattoos/

"A white supremacist radio show was given full press credentials by the Donald Trump campaign, and even managed to snag at interview with Donald Trump Jr... The Political Cesspool bills itself as 'unapologetically pro-White... Even though Whites represented the vast majority of the American population, we had no mainstream voice,' its website laments. 'That would soon change. The Political Cesspool enjoyed a modest launch on October 26, 2004.' [Host James] Edwards has a long history of making disparaging comments about racial minorities, even saying interracial sex was nothing but 'white genocide.'

"Needless to say, Edwards is a big Trump fan. 'Trump is the only candidate who gives us a chance at having a fighter who will put America first. He’s the only candidate who isn’t owned and operated by special interests,' he continued. 'With Trump, America has a chance to regain her identity.'"
http://www.mediaite.com/election-2016/donald-trump-camp-gives-press-credentials-to-white-supremacist-radio-show/

When this received some press attention, Trump Jr. claimed he didn't know Edwards held such views and that if he had, he wouldn't have done the interview but a few weeks later, Edwards was given press credentials for the upcoming Republican National Convention and invited to cover it. While there, he interviewed several Trump surrogates, including at least four Republican congressmen, who "promoted Trump’s candidacy to The Political Cesspool audience."
https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2016/07/24/trump-adviser-and-gop-congressmen-gave-pro-trump-interviews-white-nationalist-radio-host-rnc/211861

Matt Forney is a virulent white supremacist--hates blacks, hates Jews, hates Muslims, immigrants, gays, Mormons, Latinos and seems to particularly hate women--he advocates regular domestic violence against them, argues against educating them, says "feminists want men to rape them." He endorsed Trump early:

"Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is the closest America will come to redemption, the last triumph of nationalism before the left swamps us with hordes of barely literate foreigners who will vote them into a permanent majority. I’m not going to sit back and pretend that both parties are identical when one of them is presenting a clear alternative to decay and decline."
http://mattforney.com/im-voting-donald-trump/

Forney later covered the Republican National Convention for Red Ice Radio (there's plenty on Forney charming views here as well):
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/07/21/rnc-contact-gave-white-supremacist-and-virulent-misogynist-convention-pass/211786

Red Ice Radio is a racist internet radio show where the Holocaust is denied, white supremacy is affirmed and an endless parade of white nationalists/Nazis/fascists find a welcome home. It's produced by Red Ice Creations:

"Their [Red Ice Creations] two primary programs are the podcasts Red Ice Radio hosted by Henrik [Palmgren] and Radio 3Fourteen hosted by Lana [Lokteff]. Here they focus on guests for interviews, which are quickly becoming the 'who’s who' of the broad white nationalist and racist communities. Guests like Richard Spencer, American Renaissance’s Jared Taylor, David Duke, Mike Enoch and Seventh Son from the Daily Shoah, various people from the Manosphere and Men’s Rights community, and just about everyone who remains relevant from this growing Alt Right scene."
https://antifascistnews.net/2016/07/11/red-ice-creations-and-the-new-fascist-media/

Billy Snuffer, the Imperial Wizard of the Virginia-based Rebel Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, knows who he's backing:

"'You're paying attention to the presidential elections this time? In your own personal opinion, who is best for the job?' I asked the Imperial Wizard.

"'I think Donald Trump would be best for the job,' said the Imperial Wizard. 'The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes in, we believe in. We want our country to be safe.'"
http://www.nbc12.com/story/31846257/kkk-leader-disavows-violent-past-declares-trump-best-for-president

William Daniel Johnson of the American Freedom Party made another appearance in the Trump saga:

"On Monday evening, California's secretary of state published a list of delegates chosen by the Trump campaign for the upcoming Republican presidential primary in the state. Trump's slate includes William Johnson, one of the country's most prominent white nationalists."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/donald-trump-white-nationalist-afp-delegate-california

When this became public, Johnson stepped down as a delegate.

White nationalist Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute is the fellow who coined the phrase "alt-right" as a rebranding of the white supremacist/Nazi/fascist subculture. When Johnson had the AFP conducting those elect-Trump calls, Spencer had warned him that the association could be hurting Trump's campaign but Spencer himself is a Trump supporter who has become increasingly enthusiastic as the campaign has continued. From Dec. 2015:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/we-asked-a-white-supremacist-what-he-thought-of-donald-trump-1210

By Oct. 2016:

"Spencer has become more enthused as Trump has ramped up his claims about how his campaign represents an 'existential threat' to 'global special interests.' After Trump's widely criticized speech in West Palm Beach last week, during which the GOP nominee alleged a 'conspiracy' against the American people led by a 'global power structure,' Spencer tweeted, 'The shackles are off, and Trump is getting radical. We've never seen a major postwar politician talk like this.' He later amplified his appreciation of what he characterized as Trump 'demystifying "racism" and the financial power structure,' concluding, 'No matter what happens, I will be profoundly grateful to Donald Trump for the rest of my life.'... Spencer reflects on the significance of what he sees as Trump's affinity for white nationalism. 'It's not so much about policy – it's more about the emotions that he evokes,' he says. 'And emotions are more important than facts. Trump sincerely and genuinely cares about Americans, and white Americans in particular.'

"Spencer is ebullient over how Trump has legitimized his movement. 'It's not just about "deport illegals" or "stop illegal immigration,"' he says. 'It's about the sense – the existential sense – of, Are we a nation? He's brought an existential quality to politics.'
...

"Trump, Spencer believes, has exposed the Republican Party's id. 'The Trump phenomenon expresses a fundamental truth,' he says. 'It's an unspoken truth, and that is that the Republican Party has won elections on the basis of implicit nationalism and not on the basis of the Constitution, free-market economics, vague Christian values and so on. Even a leftist would agree with that statement. Like, Trump has shown the hand of the GOP. The GOP is a white person's populist party.' Unlike Trump, though, the party is 'embarrassed of itself.'"
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/meet-the-alt-right-spokesman-thrilled-by-trumps-rise-w443902

In July, Trump again retweets virulent racists, this time trashing Hillary Clinton:
https://mic.com/articles/147711/donald-trump-s-star-of-david-hillary-clinton-meme-was-created-by-white-supremacists#.7FxDZgJMi

"Donald Trump's paid campaign staffers have declared on their personal social media accounts that Muslims are unfit to be U.S. citizens, ridiculed Mexican accents, called for Secretary of State John Kerry to be hanged and stated their readiness for a possible civil war, according to a review by The Associated Press of their postings."
https://apnews.com/d98c99e8626549d984d3695ac6ef589f/Racism-and-talk-of-religious-war:-Trump-staff's-online-posts

"The effort to plant the seeds of white nationalism in the political mainstream, where they might blossom into pro-white political coalitions that appeal to a broader swath of Caucasian voters, will not be easy, according to the chairman of the American Nazi Party.

"But Rocky Suhayda thinks there is one political figure who presents a 'real opportunity' to lessen the load.

"Who is it? Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president.

"'Now, if Trump does win, okay, it’s going to be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that, and to go and start — you know how you have the black political caucus and what not in Congress and everything — to start building on something like that,' Suhayda declared on his radio program last month.

"'It doesn’t have to be anti-, like the movement’s been for decades, so much as it has to be pro-white,' he added.
...

"Audio from the radio program was posted Saturday by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, who noted that Suhayda has in the past avoided making statements about Trump out of concern that he might harm the businessman’s candidacy. Yet, Kaczynski reported, in an American Nazi Party report from September, the chairman argued that Trump’s rhetoric revealed the secret popularity of the party’s messages.

"'We have a wonderful OPPORTUNITY here folks, that may never come again, at the RIGHT time,' Suhayda wrote, according to BuzzFeed. 'Donald Trump’s campaign statements, if nothing else, have SHOWN that "our views" are NOT so "unpopular" as the Political Correctness crowd have told everyone they are!'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/07/top-nazi-leader-trump-will-be-a-real-opportunity-for-white-nationalists/?utm_term=.aadaf6f7697c

"Last week, when Donald Trump tapped the chairman of Breitbart Media to lead his campaign, he wasn't simply turning to a trusted ally and veteran propagandist. By bringing on Stephen Bannon, Trump was signaling a wholehearted embrace of the 'alt-right,' a once-motley assemblage of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, ethno-nationalistic provocateurs who have coalesced behind Trump and curried the GOP nominee's favor on social media. In short, Trump has embraced the core readership of Breitbart News.

"'We're the platform for the alt-right,' Bannon told me proudly when I interviewed him at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. Though disavowed by every other major conservative news outlet, the alt-right has been Bannon's target audience ever since he took over Breitbart News from its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, four years ago. Under Bannon's leadership, the site has plunged into the fever swamps of conservatism, cheering white nationalist groups as an 'eclectic mix of renegades,' accusing President Barack Obama of importing 'more hating Muslims,' and waging an incessant war against the purveyors of 'political correctness.'
...

"A Twitter analysis conducted by The Investigative Fund using Little Bird software found that these 'elements' are more deeply connected to Breitbart News than more traditional conservative outlets. While only 5 percent of key influencers using the supremacist hashtag #whitegenocide follow the National Review, and 10 percent follow the Daily Caller, 31 percent follow Breitbart. The disparities are even starker for the anti-Muslim hashtag #counterjihad: National Review, 26 percent; the Daily Caller, 37 percent; Breitbart News, 62 percent."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-alt-right-breitbart-news

White nationalist/fascist leaders couldn't have been more pleased with Trump's choice of Bannon:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/17/alt-right-rejoices-at-trump-s-steve-bannon-hire.html

Trump's crazed, reactionary speech on immigration in August drew tweets of praise from the white supremacist crowd:

The editors of VDARE:
"In a sane country, everything Trump has proposed tonight so far would be regarded as so obviously true it wouldn't even be up for debate."

Jared Tayler of American Renaissance:
"Hell of a speech. Almost perfect. Logical, deeply felt, and powerfully delivered. Now watch how the media twists it."

David Duke:
"Excellent speech by Donald Trump tonight. Deport criminal aliens, end catch and release, enforce immigration laws & America First."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/1/1565759/-Former-Imperial-Wizard-of-the-KKK-and-white-supremacists-line-up-to-praise-Trump-s-speech

During Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Republicans displayed a tweet by white supremacist "Western_Triumph" on the big monitors around the arena. Earlier in the convention, they'd also displayed a tweet from VDARE:
http://time.com/4418591/republican-convention-white-supremacist-tweet/

The Twitter profile for "Western_Triump" makes it rather difficult to write that off as an honest mistake; he describes himself as "AltRight #Pro White #Southern #RaceRealist #Nationalist #SlayCulturalMarxism #Trump2016 #LoveYourRace."

"Originally established in 1999 by the Center for American Unity, a Virginia-based nonprofit foundation started by English immigrant Peter Brimelow, VDARE.com is an anti-immigration hate website 'dedicated to preserving our historical unity as Americans into the 21st Century.'

"Now run by the VDARE Foundation, the site is a place where relatively intellectually inclined leaders of the anti-immigrant movement share their opinions. VDARE.com also regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites."
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/vdare

"The extent to which the Trump campaign has legitimized and promoted white supremacism--the real unvarnished version--still boggles my mind. I sincerely can’t understand why people are just sitting back and letting this happen. The media now treat each new revelation of Trump’s outright connections with and sympathy for these racial extremists as a sort of 'ho-hum' routine thing, not very big news, let’s just move on and discuss Ivanka’s designer dress instead.

"But the GOP convention was absolutely lousy with white supremacists, and not just hanging around outside. They were given press passes and convention credentials, and in at least one case actually seated in the luxury box next to the VIP section."
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/46173_White_Supremacists_Were_Everywhere_at_the_GOP_Convention


That pic, from the above Little Green Footballs article, is Richard Spencer posing, at the convention, with Chuck Johnson, another white supremacist. During the primary season, after Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson had posed for a photo with Johnson, LGF ran an article outlining his deplorable views:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/45740_Yet_Another_Donald_Trump_Spokesperson_Associating_With_a_White_Supremacist

"Among the small number of American newspapers that have embraced Donald Trump’s campaign, there is one, in particular, that stands out.

"It is called the Crusader — and it is one of the most prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan.

"Under the banner 'Make America Great Again,' the entire front page of the paper's current issue is devoted to a lengthy defense of Trump’s message — an embrace some have labeled a de facto endorsement."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/01/the-kkks-official-newspaper-has-endorsed-donald-trump-for-president/

Trump's election was greeted with orgiastic glee by the white nationalist/Nazi/fascist community:


"White Nationalists all over the world," wrote Brad Griffin of Occidental Dissent, "are celebrating like this on the way to work this morning!"

"An historic, quite possibly revolutionary victory," declared Kevin MacDonald at Occidental Observer:

"This is an amazing victory... Fundamentally, it is a victory of White Americans over the oligarchic, hostile elites what have run this country for decades... [Trump]understood the anger in White America far better than anyone else and he was willing to say what they wanted to hear--most of all the White working class (72-23!), but also White women (53-43), and his deficit among White educated women was only 51-45 (CBS exit polls). Looks like quite a few college-educated women ignored what they heard in their gender studies courses and those mandatory credits in Black Studies. While obviously a lot of work needs to be done, this is a glorious day."

"We Won," declared Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer. "All of our work. It has paid off. Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor... History has been made. Today, the world ended. A new world has been born... This has been the best year and a half of my life. We have won so much. And it has led to the ultimate win. The battle is far from over. Much, much, much work to be done. But the White race is back in the game. And if we’re playing, no one can beat us."

Thomas Robb, Knights Party:

"America’s white voting majority, men and women, have spoken by electing Donald J. Trump to the presidency. They have recognized that this was a last chance election. They are sick and tired of seeing our young men and women die in foreign wars protecting other borders, while leaving our own border unsecure. They have been appalled by the leftist attack upon law and order and the hardworking law enforcement officers who put their lives at risk everyday. They are alarmed by the increasing number of Muslims invading America; with a majority who hate America and are anti-women. And they recognize that the liberal agenda, free trade, and over regulation robs [sic] them of jobs and opportunities and harms all communities; white and nonwhite alike. They are beginning to feel like a stranger in their own country. They are beginning to feel like a stranger in their own country. They are saying to the establishment, “Keep your hands off our families, 2nd Amendment and Christian faith."
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/09/white-nationalists-and-alt-right-celebrate-trump%E2%80%99s-victory

The North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan greeted news of the election by declaring a "Victory Klavalkade Klan Parade" to be held in Pelham, NC in celebration. "Trump’s Race United My People," its website declared.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article116062103.html

Shorty after the election, Richard Spencer brought his National Policy Institute conference to the Ronald Reagan Building in the nation's capitol. Addressing the assembled, Spencer declared, ""Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!" At which point, attendees exploded in applause and Nazi salutes. Spencer made generous use of racist imagery and asserted, "America was, until this last generation, a white country, designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation and our inheritance, and it belongs to us."

---

[*] Right in the midst of the general election, the deplorable Dinesh D'Souza put out one of his dreadful "documentaries"--HILLARY'S AMERICA: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY--that tied the Democratic party to the KKK.


Appendix III: Ku Klux Reflux

Ever hear the one about the Ku Klux Klan endorsing Hillary Clinton? Throughout the presidential campaign, rightist internet trolls took great delight in posting--and reposting and reposting--the alleged "endorsement" of Hillary Clinton by California KKK Grand Dragon Will Quigg.

Quigg had been a Trump supporter:


He flip-flopped and made his "endorsement" of Clinton in March 2016. The original Telegraph article on this development noted that:

"'Based on his past statements, it doesn’t appear highly credible that he has changed his effusive allegiance to Donald Trump,' Brian Levin, a former New York police officer who is director of the Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino, told the Telegraph. 'The timing seems suspect. I think this is a function of not wanting to undermine the Trump campaign.'"

While Clinton stood for everything Quigg and his org despise, Quigg said she has a "hidden agenda" that dovetails with his own, something that will only come out after she's elected. For now, she was just "telling everybody what they want to hear so she can get elected..." Quigg's reasoning for turning on Trump? "We don’t like his hair. We think it’s a toupee."

By April, the tale had grown; Quigg was then claiming to have made an anonymous $20,000 donation to the Clinton campaign. He said the donation was made anonymously. Those at Vocativ seem to have been alone in examining this claim but they did debunk it almost as soon as Quigg had made it:

"According to Schwerin, the campaign has 'not received anywhere close to $20,000 in anonymous donations in total, [so] it is impossible that they are telling the truth.' Vocativ independently verified this through FEC filings."

...which did nothing to slow the roll of the rightists trolls plastering the story of the "endorsement" all over the internet. Other than actually saying, from time to time, that his org endorsed Clinton, Quigg said nothing complimentary of his allegedly favored candidate. His Twitter feed, instead, was full of standard Trumpian far-right ranting. He wrote that Black Lives Matter had issues a statement saying "To kill all Whites esp. White Cops" (17 July). When Trump asserted President Obama was "the founder of ISIS," Quigg tweeted "Trump Does make a good point here" (11 Aug.). In response to a tweet by Obama himself, he wrote:

He tweeted an article about reactionary Arizona "sheriff" Joe Arpaio continuing to "investigate" Obama's birth certificate (25 Sept.). And so on.

Nevertheless, when, in August 2016, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine railed against Donald Trump's white supremacist support, Fox News aired footage of Quigg's "endorsement" of Clinton to rebut his comments. The video was widely circulated throughout the rightist internet.

When Trump won, Quigg finally dropped even the little effort he'd put into his ruse and came clean:


After he'd fessed up, Quigg was a bit irked that some were a little slow to catch on



As of this writing, rightist trolls are still occasionally posting the story about how the KKK endorsed Hillary Clinton. What can you do?

--j.

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