Vice News
By Olivia Becker
December 14, 2015
Donald
Trump's statement last week that he would like to ban all Muslims from
entering the United States was met with resounding and predictable
outrage from nearly all
quarters of society, with many condemning the plan as racist,
unconstitutional, or just plain wrong.
White supremacists, on the other hand, were thrilled.
Don
Black, a former Klu Klux Klan leader who runs the white supremacist
website Stormfront.org, said he noted a spike in visits to his site
after Trump unveiled his proposed
Muslim ban. Trump "has clearly been a benefit to us," Black said,
referring to his community of white supremacists.
"There's
an insurgency among our people that has been seething for decades that
have felt intimidated and demoralized," he added. "The Trump candidacy
has changed all
that."
"There
is absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal in what Donald Trump has
proposed," said Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist and the
director of the far-right
National Policy Institute, in a recent video discussing the proposed
Muslim ban.
Trump
was popular with white supremacists long before he said Muslims should
not be allowed into the country. Spencer said he witnessed a marked
flurry of discussion on
Twitter and other online forums from the white nationalist community
over the past year, which he credits in large part to Trump.
"I really do admire and respect what he's doing," said Spencer. "I'm glad he's running."
'He's willing to talk about those things that make people uncomfortable and that's great.'
Black
also agrees that Trump has attracted more people to the white
supremacist cause, even though it remains a relatively small community.
Ever since Trump announced
he was running for president in June, Black says that visitors to the
site have been up by 25 percent. He claimed the audience for his radio
show has also increased by 30 percent.
In June, the Daily Stormer, another prominent neo-Nazi site, formally endorsed Trump for president.
Trump
"is absolutely the only candidate who is even talking about anything at
all that matters," wrote Daily Stormer's founder, Andrew Anglin. "[H]e
is talking about actual
issues, and this is severely important."
Spencer
says his community of white supremacists support Trump for much of the
same reasons that his other supporters do — precisely because he
provokes so much outrage
in the elites, not in spite of it.
"He's willing to talk about those things that make people uncomfortable and that's great," said Spencer.
Black
pointed out that his fellow white supremacists like that Trump speaks
off the cuff, without the aid of a teleprompter. "Whatever he says, even
if he gets the facts
wrong, it still resonates with people," Black said.
Black
spoke to VICE News from his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, where Trump
held a rally that attracted 30,000 people in August. "There's never been
anything like that,
with any candidate before," he said, calling the turnout, "incredible."
'They
can't believe that there is a politician leading the presidential
Republican field that is expressing these positions that are so very
close to their own.'
White
supremacists like Black and Spencer are responding to the same outsider
aspect of Trump that has been his selling point since his candidacy
began. "Most of our people
are pretty disenchanted with politics. Most of them usually don't vote,
because there's no one to vote for," Black said. "They will vote for
Trump, though."
The
fact that Trump's message resonates with white supremacists in this way
is unusual, considering that white supremacists normally don't have any
interest in politics,
said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center and
a leading expert on extremism.
"They
see Democrats and Republicans alike as utter sellouts," Potok said.
"The fact is, is that Trump's positions put him far, far outside the
political mainstream and
essentially in the world of white supremacist groups. They can't
believe that there is a politician leading the presidential Republican
field that is expressing these positions that are so very close to their
own."
So
does this mean that Trump is going to be elected on the wave of white
supremacist support? Probably not. White supremacists are still a
relatively tiny community, and
it's still likely that many of them won't vote. But the significance of
Trump, says Potok, is not about whether droves of white supremacists
actually go out to the polls to vote for him on election day. Trump's
candidacy, he said, "has opened up a political
space for people who have these feelings to express them and very often
to express them virulently." He added that Trump is "legitimizing and
normalizing hatred toward an enormous group of people."
Black
agreed, albeit in different words. Trump has awakened a feeling among
many white Americans that is not just going to disappear, he says.
Regardless of whether or
not those people go to the polls, "they're still part of this
insurgency, they're part of this movement and our job is to keep it
going."
The
Trump campaign has not exactly welcomed the support from white
supremacists with open arms, but he hasn't completely disavowed them the
way other politicians might
either. In August, after prominent white supremacist and KKK leader
David Duke endorsed Trump, Trump brushed off the support.
"I
don't need anyone's endorsement," Trump told Bloomberg. When asked how
he felt about Duke's support, Trump responded by saying, "People like me
across the board. Everybody
likes me." The Trump campaign did not respond to VICE News' request for
comment.
Trump's lukewarm reaction to Duke's endorsement didn't bother Black one bit.
"All
I know is that our people — white nationalists and white Middle America
out there who would never call themselves that — are inspired and
energized," he said. "And
I don't think that's going to go away. Trump is doing a great thing.
And I never would have expected that."
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