{"id":82837,"date":"2015-12-21T15:50:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T23:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82837"},"modified":"2015-12-21T15:53:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T23:53:30","slug":"wp-home-page-politics-opinions-sports-local-national-world-business-tech-lifestyle-entertainment-video-photography-washington-post-live-live-chats-real-estate-cars-jobs-wp-brandconnect-classifieds-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=82837","title":{"rendered":"WP: How America\u2019s dying white supremacist movement is seizing on Donald Trump\u2019s appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The same rhetoric that frightens critics (\u201cTrump has really lifted the lid off a Pandora\u2019s box of real hatred and directed it at Muslims,\u201d said the Southern Poverty Law Center\u2019s Mark Potok) draws praise from supporters such as former Louisiana politician and KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.<\/p>\n

Duke told The Post that while he has not officially endorsed Trump, he considers the candidate to be the \u201cbest of the lot\u201d at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of what he says resonates with me,\u201d Duke said…<\/p>\n

Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance, a white-nationalist magazine and website based in Northern Virginia, told the New Yorker that Trump may be in denial about the makeup of his base.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me,\u201d Taylor told the magazine, \u201cbut his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Trump\u2019s meteoric rise to the top of the Republican field, white supremacist groups have enthusiastically embraced him.<\/p>\n

Stormfront, one of the most popular white nationalist websites, claims that a surge of Trump-inspired traffic has forced administrators to upgrade their servers, according to Politico.<\/p>\n

Site founder Don Black told The Post that Trump has \u201cinspired an insurgency\u201d for users of the site and listeners of a Stormfront radio show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all very surprising to me,\u201d Black said. \u201cI would have never expected he be the great white hope, of all people. But it\u2019s happening. So that\u2019s what we talk about. That\u2019s what so many of our people are inspired by.\u201d<\/p>\n

…In a recent post on the white nationalist blog Occidental Observer, Kevin MacDonald \u2014 described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as \u201cthe neo-Nazi movement\u2019s favorite academic\u201d \u2014 wrote that Trump\u2019s candidacy is helping America realize that a \u201cvery large number of White people are furious\u201d about the where the country is headed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are living in very exciting times,\u201d MacDonald wrote. \u201cA major political candidate is saying things that have been kept out of the mainstream for decades by a corrupt elite consensus on immigration and multiculturalism that dominates both the GOP and the Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacDonald called Trump\u2019s candidacy \u201ca game changer\u201d that \u201chas a very real possibility of success,\u201d adding:<\/p>\n

“In this new climate, millions of White people are realizing that it\u2019s entirely legitimate to oppose immigration and multiculturalism.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay to oppose the idea that every last human has the moral right to immigrate to a Western country, or that all peoples and cultures are equally acceptable as immigrants. And it\u2019s safe to say that millions of White people are changing what they think.”<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t think Trump is a white nationalist,\u201d National Policy Institute director Richard Spencer told the New Yorker. But Spencer, called \u201cone of the country\u2019s most successful young white nationalist leaders\u201d by the SPLC, told the New Yorker that Trump reflects \u201can unconscious vision that white people have \u2014 that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren\u2019t able to articulate it. I think it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon. I think he is the one person who can tap into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t always like this.<\/p>\n

During the embryonic days of the campaign \u2014 way back when Trump was still known more for televised business deals than anything-goes bombast \u2014 Matthew Heimbach was like many conservative voters: uninterested in Trump.<\/p>\n

But six months later, the 24-year-old said he finds himself caught in an all-powerful Trumpian tractor beam.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to see, and I didn\u2019t expect it,\u201d Heimbach told The Post.<\/p>\n

How did that happen, exactly?<\/p>\n

The same way it has for millions of other conservatives, who have been drawn to the candidate\u2019s outspoken and seemingly unscripted rhetoric aimed at working-class voters already seething about poor economic prospects, the \u201cmenace\u201d of illegal immigration and the persistent threat of violent crime.<\/p>\n

And yet, Heimbach is no ordinary conservative.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s an influential and avowed white nationalist, a divisive and radical outsider who gave up on mainstream politicians years ago. As a polarizing student at Towson University, Heimbach made headlines by unsuccessfully attempting to establish a White Student Union and leading controversial night patrols to combat a so-called \u201cblack crime wave,\u201d according to the SPLC, which monitors hate speech.<\/p>\n

The onetime member of the neo-Confederate League of the South never thought he\u2019d be back under the Republican umbrella.<\/p>\n

But then Trump began talking about \u201cbuilding a great, great wall on our southern border.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time since Buchanan in the \u201990s and George Wallace in \u201968 where you have a guy outside the mainstream speaking to white interests,\u201d Heimbach told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump, whether he meant to or not, has opened this floodgate that I don\u2019t think can be restrained regardless of what happens in the 2016 elections,\u201d Heimbach added.<\/p>\n

Trump didn\u2019t exactly create this new wave of radical support, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center\u2019s Potok.<\/p>\n

What Trump is doing, Potok told The Post, is taking a \u201csubterranean community\u201d of people that, until recently, existed underground and online and bringing them into the light of mainstream America. Hostile towards minority groups, fearful of seismic changes in racial demographics and cultural norms, and frustrated by corrupt politicians they perceive as cowed by politically correct culture, it is a bloc of Americans who have been quietly seething, Potok said.<\/p>\n

“Even 15 years ago, same-sex marriage is something that seemed unimaginable, and now it\u2019s the law of the land,\u201d he said. \u201cFor a pretty sizable number of Americans, that\u2019s unbelievable. They feel like ground is being cut from under them, like they inhabit a world they don\u2019t recognize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, Potok said, has opened a conversation about an America that never really existed. That conversation might include factually incorrect information, such as a tweet last month showing an image of a dark-skinned man holding a handgun above a series of inflammatory statistics that Politifact described as \u201cwildly inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally posted by a neo-Nazi, the information was disseminated by Trump one day after Trump supporters assaulted a black activist at a rally in Alabama.<\/p>\n

But accuracy and basis in reality aren\u2019t what matter to some of Trump\u2019s supporters, Potok said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat his statements do is open up a political space for people that have these radical feelings and he gives them permission to speak out, loudly and proudly,\u201d he said. \u201cAccuracy is beside the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Center on Extremism, said it\u2019s difficult to verify white supremacist claims that Trump is drawing new members into their ranks because their ranks are closely held secrets.<\/p>\n

What is verifiable, she said, is the surge in postings on websites such as Stormfront each time Trump makes a controversial statement.<\/p>\n

That excitement, she noted, stems from the belief among white supremacists that a front-runner is knowingly championing their agenda by using both explicit and coded language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese groups are constantly trying to reach whites that they think would be attracted if they were just inspired enough,\u201d Mayo told The Post. \u201cWhat it does is allow the mainstreaming of hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re using Trump and his message to bring more people and more money into their fold, and that\u2019s a tremendous concern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post: The same rhetoric that frightens critics (\u201cTrump has really lifted the lid off a Pandora\u2019s box of real hatred and directed it at Muslims,\u201d said the Southern Poverty Law Center\u2019s Mark Potok) draws praise from supporters such as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1361,21791,34,29752,29594],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adl","category-america","category-blacks","category-donald-trump","category-whites"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t