Month: October 2016

The other side of the story

by digby

Clinton’s doing a whole positive campaign on social media that’s worth checking out in the middle of all this nauseating Trump garbage. I’m not one to get all gushy about this stuff and maybe you aren’t either. But it’s worth looking at to see the other side of this awful campaign. There are people who are inspired and feel uplifted instead of angry and disgusted. The campaign is calling it #LoveTrumpsHate.

Here’s what Trump says about interacting with real people:

Don’t forget that when I ran in the primaries, when I was in the primaries, everyone said you can’t do that in New Hampshire, you can’t do that. You have to go and meet little groups, you have to see — cause I did big rallies, 3-4-5K people would come . . . and they said, “Wait a minute, Trump can never make it, because that’s not the way you deal with New Hampshire, you have to go to people’s living rooms, have dinner, have tea, have a good time.” 

I think if they ever saw me sitting in their living room they’d lose total respect for me. They’d say, I’ve got Trump in my living room, this is weird.

Yeah, it’s weird alright.

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QOTD: Trump, dude

by digby

Trump’s doctor

Since this has been the “I know you are but what am I” projection campaign from the get, I think Trump admitted earlier today that he’s using drugs:

“I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. I think we should. Why don’t we do that?Why don’t we do that? We should take a drug test. Because I don’t know what’s going on with her, but at the beginning of her lat debate she was all pumped up at the beginning and at the end it was like, uh,take me down.

She’s getting pumped up. Let’s see. You know. Maybe? I don’t know. We’re like athletes right? Hey, look. I beat seventeen senators, governors. I beat all these people. We’re like athletes. Hillary beat Bernie, although it looked like Bernie got a little bit of a bad deal based on Wikileaks. Right? We’re like athletes right? So, athletes, they’re making them more and more. But athletes, they make them take a drug test right? I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. I do. Why don’t we do that? We should take a drug test prior because I don’t know what’s going on with her.”

It’s so bizarre that it’s totally fair to assume he’s talking about himself there.

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The surrogate problem

by digby

And it’s getting worse:

Via Media Matters:

Over the course of the 2016 election, CNN hired four Trump supporters — Kayleigh McEnany, Scottie Nell Hughes, Jeffrey Lord, and Corey Lewandowski — to act as full-time Trump surrogates and defend their candidate on-air. CNN has defended its hirings by suggesting that surrogates like Lewandowski are needed to provide “balance,” especially after several of CNN’s traditional Republican commentators expressed their opposition to the GOP presidential nominee.

CNN’s decision to hire professional Trump apologists has made for some fascinating — if not excruciating — television. Their appearances frequently result in screaming matches, with hosts and other panelists trying desperately (and fruitlessly) to deal with the surrogates’ barrage of talking points, misdirection, and blind stubbornness. The Trump surrogates do a masterful job of avoiding being pinned down — they change the subject, argue in circles, make things up, and generally do whatever they can to sidetrack any negative discussion about Trump.

So a segment about Trump’s hesitance to disavow David Duke turns into an absurd argument about whether Democrats used to support the KKK.

A segment on Trump’s attacks on Alicia Machado’s weight becomes a debate about whether it’s actually offensive to be called an “eating machine.”

And a segment about Trump’s recorded comments describing sexually assaulting women gets sidetrackedinto a decade-old smear about Hillary Clinton’s work as a court-appointed defense attorney in the 1970s..

By the end of most segments, everyone else on the panel is yelling, in shock, or has been flustered to the point of giving up.

This isn’t entirely the fault of the professional Trump surrogates. CNN pays them to be Trump apologists; their jobs depend on them defending their candidate regardless of how ridiculous it makes them sound. In other words, the network incentivizes them to be intractable.

That’s especially true in the case of Lewandowski, who is still effectively working for — and, until recently,being paid by — the Trump campaign while being employed at CNN. Lewandowski likely signed a non-disparagement agreement with the Trump campaign, meaning he can’t speak ill of his former boss on CNN even if he wanted to.

None of this is meant to suggest that Trump gets a free pass on the network. CNN’s Trump surrogates are regularly grilled and challenged, both by other panelists and by hosts.

And it all makes for highly entertaining reality television.

But for a news network, these segments are a disaster. These constant screaming matches offer nothing of substance to audiences who want to make sense of the election. Instead, they desensitize voters to bullshit — elevating ridiculous and even blatantly dishonest defenses of Trump’s campaign into mainstream political debates. The presence of CNN’s Trump surrogates makes any segment they appear in more likely to devolve into the kind of absurdist bickering that makes many viewers tune out or give up on being politically engaged altogether.

If CNN wants to feature pro-Trump voices in its election coverage, it can rely on guests who actually work for the campaign. But rewarding professional bullshit artists like Hughes, McEnany, Lord, and Lewandowski with CNN salaries and job titles sets a dangerous precedent for a news network: a move toward “balance” even when it comes at the cost of reasonable, useful coverage.

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Where did the GOP think this would lead?


by digby

More from that Boston Globe article about Trump flogging the “rigged election” theme referenced in the post below:

Mainstream Republicans are watching these developments at the top of the ticket with a growing sense of alarm, calling Trump’s latest conspiracy theories of a rigged election irresponsible and dangerous. They also say the impact of voter fraud or errors on the outcome of elections is vastly overblown.

“How do you proclaim fraud before the incident takes place? It’s like my calling you a robber before you rob the bank,” said Al Cardenas, who was chairman of the Republican Party of Florida during the 2000 electoral recount. “In America, you call out a crime or malfeasance after it happens.”

Cardenas, having been immersed in the Florida recount for 37 days, said an average of 1.5 percent of votes cast in the nation are not recorded, due mostly to technical issues and procedural errors.

“That’s a significant number in a close election, but they are not wrongdoings,” Cardenas said. “Americans should feel that the ultimate outcome of the election is fair. That’s how we defend our democracy.”

Cardenas said he would not vote for Trump or Clinton — even if that means Clinton wins.

“Hey, the radicals had their day,’’ he said. “This is the result of it.”

Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, said it was an incredibly important moment in 2000 when Democrat Al Gore gave a speech saying he accepted the results of the Supreme Court decision to award the majority of electoral votes and presidential victory to George W. Bush.

“Had he not done that, or done so halfheartedly, or even suggested that he’d been robbed, or otherwise tried to delegitimize the results, it would have been a huge blow to our democratic process,” Cullen said.

Cullen expects Trump’s warnings about a rigged election to get even uglier in coming weeks, and he fears they will incite violence if Trump loses.

“That’s really scary,” Cullen said, recounting the violence at Trump rallies around the country leading up to the Republican National Convention. “In this country, we’ve always had recriminations after one side loses. But we haven’t had riots. We haven’t had mobs that act out with violence against supporters of the other side. There’s no telling what his supporters would be willing to do at the slightest encouragement from their candidate.”

While voters have certainly questioned election outcomes, it is unprecedented for the nominee of a major party to do so, historians say.

“What’s really distinct is the candidate himself putting this out front and center as a consistent theme throughout the last part of the campaign, and doing it when there’s no evidence of anything,” said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University presidential scholar.

Some of Richard Nixon supporters in 1960 claimed that John F. Kennedy’s father bought the election for his son in Chicago. Many Democrats in 2000 felt the Supreme Court intervened on behalf of Bush. Fringe conservatives in 2008 launched the birther movement, which Trump joined with gusto in 2011, in an attempt to delegitimize Barack Obama’s presidency.

“If Clinton is elected, as it looks like she will be, they will be convinced she should not be president because the Republican nominee has confirmed their own fears, anxieties, and conspiratorial outlook,” Zelizer said. “It will make governing more difficult.”

Yeah, that’s a problem. Also violence.

It’s all true what they say. But Trump didn’t invent this theme and the GOP leaders who are now expressing alarm that their voters believe the election is being stolen have only themselves to blame. All over he country they’ve been pimping the thinly veiled racist voter fraud meme for years, passing laws to suppress the vote and otherwise try to rig elections! They’ve admitted it dozens of times. Here’s just one example from a GOP official:

“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates. It’s done for one reason and one reason only … ‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,.”

They are trying to “rig” the vote and they admit it. And the way they do it by accusing the Democrats of rigging the vote.

Now the GOP leaders are upset that this sociopathic demagogue is fomenting violence by running with this theme they’ve been subtly pushing for decades. Look in the mirrors boys. You built the road he’s careening down at a a hundred miles an hour.

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“We can’t have that lying bitch in the White House”

by digby

The “rigged” theme that’s run through the primaries and found a welcome home in the Trump campaign may have some very serious consequences. He’s working his followers up into a frenzy:

The emergence of that video seems to have sent Trump into a regression, with speeches that — instead of expanding his appeal — more directly target the angry base that formed the strongest core of his support from the beginning.

Above all, Trump is now using the prospect of his loss to undermine faith in democratic institutions.

“It’s one big fix,’’ Trump said Friday afternoon in Greensboro, N.C. “This whole election is being rigged.’’

He saved some of his harshest criticism for the media, which he said is in league with Clinton to steal the election.

“The media is indeed sick, and it’s making our country sick, and we’re going to stop it,” he said.

His supporters here said they plan to go to their local precincts to look for illegal immigrants who may attempt to vote. They are worried that Democrats will load up buses of minorities and take them to vote several times in different areas of the city. They’ve heard rumors that boxes of Clinton votes are already waiting somewhere.

And if Trump doesn’t win, some are even openly talking about violent rebellion and assassination, as fantastical and unhinged as that may seem.

“If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take. . . . I would do whatever I can for my country.”

He then placed a Trump mask on his face and posed for pictures.
[…]
Above all, Trump is now using the prospect of his loss to undermine faith in democratic institutions.

“It’s one big fix,’’ Trump said Friday afternoon in Greensboro, N.C. “This whole election is being rigged.’’

He saved some of his harshest criticism for the media, which he said is in league with Clinton to steal the election.

“The media is indeed sick, and it’s making our country sick, and we’re going to stop it,” he said.

[…]

Trump has recently started encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He’s urging them to act as posses of poll watchers in “other” communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”

“Watch your polling booths,” he warned.

His supporters are heeding the call.

“Trump said to watch you precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.

“I’ll look for . . . well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”

Some Trump supporters say that if he doesn’t win, they figure the United States government will be no better than dictatorships where elections cannot be trusted.

“We’re heading toward North Korea, without a doubt,” said Grant Reed, a Trump supporter wearing a shirt that said, “If you’re offended, I’ll help you pack.”

Joe Cecil, a 39-year-old restaurant manager, said he has never voted before but is newly inspired by Trump.

“If people are offended by the sexual stuff, what do they think is going to happen when Muslims come here, implement Sharia law, and start raping our women?” he asks.

But he questions the integrity of the voting system, particularly in places that don’t require identification to vote.

“This is my prediction: Trump is going to win the popular vote by a landslide, and the Electoral College will elect Hillary, because of all the corruption,” he said. “Maybe it’ll all work and restore my faith in humanity. But I doubt it.”

It’s a common strand among the Trump crowd. They say they have seen videos of Clinton supporters ripping up Republican registrations. They believe Obama is rushing to allow illegal immigrants to become citizens in order to vote.

“We’re going to have a lot of election fraud,” said Jeannine Bell Smith, 65-year-old longtime teacher in a red Trump shirt with a bucket of popcorn under her arm. “They are having illegals vote. In some states, you don’t need voter registration to vote.”

After a prayer is said and the national anthem sung, she leans in.

“We can’t have that lying bitch in the White House,” she said.

“If Hillary wins, it’s rigged,” said Judy Wright, who is from Illinois but took off work recently to come volunteer for Trump in Ohio.

She sighs at what seems to her an unfathomable outcome.

“All I know is our country is not going to be a country anymore,” she added. “I’ve heard people talk about a revolution. I’ve heard people talk about separation of states. I don’t even like to think about it. But I don’t think this movement is going away. We don’t have a voice anymore, and Donald Trump is giving us a voice.”

Meanwhile:

Three members of a militia group in Kansas were arrested for allegedly planning to bomb an apartment complex and kill dozens of Muslim Somali immigrants the day after the presidential election, federal officials said Friday.

Calling themselves “The Crusaders,” the three men wanted to detonate four parked vehicles filled with explosives outside the apartment complex in Garden City to “wake people up,” said acting US Attorney Tom Beall.

“The only fucking way this country’s ever going to get turned around is it will be a bloodbath and it will be a nasty, messy motherfucker,” one of the suspects, Patrick Stein, was recorded telling the men, according to an affidavit in the case. “I think we can get it done. But it ain’t going to be nothing nice about it.”

Stein, Curtis Allen, and Gavin Wright planned for months to find a target, but the FBI began investigating the group in February to thwart what they referred to as an act of domestic terrorism, Beall said.

They’re big Trump fans:

“The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.” — Patrick Stein, an alleged domestic terrorist and big @realDonaldTrump fan https://t.co/QV40u95Tiy pic.twitter.com/LPt9NYf0dP

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) October 14, 2016

Going Trump
by Tom Sullivan

The Charlotte Observer the other day (h/t beninsc) published a long article on the social fallout from HB2 in North Carolina. Gov. Pat McCrory signed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (the “bathroom bill“) in March. Much of the media focus has been on the effects the bill has had on the state’s national image and on the businesses that have pulled out and the concerts and sporting events cancelled in response. But the Observer looked this week at the effects on people of the state — what do we call it? — “going Trump”:

Last month in Charlotte, a 24-year-old transgender man said he was confronted outside the restrooms at PNC Pavilion by several women who demanded to know if he was “a boy or a girl” and then lifted up his shirt to see.

Early on a Saturday evening in June, a lesbian chef said she was body-slammed to the ground in Uptown Charlotte by a teenage girl hurling homophobic slurs.

In Waynesville, in the Smoky Mountains, a newlywed gay man left work late one night last fall and discovered “DIE FAG” spray-painted in huge black letters on the side of his Jeep.

The Observer reports, McCrory denied last month in Charlotte being aware he had ever heard of “one example of any type of discrimination” towards people in Charlotte during his term as mayor there or during his term as governor. The Observer found otherwise. Hate crimes tend to go underreported.

It’s not just the LGBT community that has to worry about the country going Trump. Last month an older woman on an oxygen bottle protesting outside a Trump rally here got punched and knocked to the ground by a Trump supporter. Josh Marshall posted on a couple of instances of Trump supporters threatening violence. New York magazine has more about trumpish violence towards women:

Trump Supporter Threatened to Beat Up Black Woman — October 2016
A 55-year-old man in Albany, New York, was arrested after approaching a 27-year-old black woman outside a grocery store and yelling, “You [racial slur] had your time. Your eight years are up.” He also added, “Trump is going to win and if you don’t like it I’m going to beat your ass.”

Man Says, “I Can’t Wait Until Trump Gets Elected So I Can Force Bitches Like You Down on Your Knees” — October 2016
Writer Sara Nović shared a screenshot of a text message from her younger sister, in which she described being pestered by a man in Penn Station until she told him, “I don’t mean to be rude at all, but I’m just not interested.” He reportedly replied, “Wooowww, fucking bitch! I can’t wait until Trump gets elected so I can force bitches like you down on your knees when you talk like that.”

[…]

Muslim Women Attacked by Someone Trying to Rip Their Head Scarves Off — September 2016
Two Muslim women pushing their strollers in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, were attacked by Emirjeta Xhelili, a 32-year-old woman who allegedly yelled, “Get the fuck out of here, get the fuck out of America, bitches,” while punching and kicking them. She also tried to rip their head scarves off. Upon investigating her Facebook and Twitter accounts, it was found that she posted messages like, “America is the ark of Noah. Trump’s gonna win.”

Muslim Woman Attacked Outside D.C. Starbucks — May 2016
A white blonde woman reportedly began to verbally harass a black Muslim woman on the patio of a Washington, D.C., Starbucks, and ultimately threw a “liquid-like substance” at her. Per DCist, the victim told CAIR [the Council on American Islamic Relations] that the suspect said that she was voting for Donald Trump in hopes “that he would send ‘all of you terrorist Muslims out of this country.’”

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza reports that Trump is priming his followers to believe that a November win by Hillary Clinton will be as illegitimate as Obama’s supposed long-form birth certificate:

Given that rhetoric, it’s difficult for me to imagine that in 25 days time, if he comes up short to Hillary Clinton, Trump will simply concede the election. He is actively fomenting the idea that the results on Nov. 8 will be invalid no matter what they say because of the “rigged” nature of the whole process. He is priming the pump among his supporters to never accept that he actually lost but instead had it stolen from him by the Democratic-media complex, which couldn’t deal with the truths he was telling.

Trump believes himself the ultimate winner. Yet he and his team know the prospects are not good. So he has left himself only two options. Either he emerges the winner or he and his followers will be the victims of a vast left-wing conspiracy that stabbed them in the back.

Time to reread Robert Altemeyer. That is, after you finish your canvassing and phone banking shifts. Because if your country’s fate is not in your hands, it’s in his tiny ones.

Your would-be next president, ladies and gentlemen, setting the tone:

Trump rips apart his teleprompter after it breaks mid-speech https://t.co/AxRtT4Y6ZU pic.twitter.com/C02IfyZbvR— The Hill (@thehill) October 15, 2016

Friday night soother: Scoop!

by digby

Scoop got scooped.

The baby raccoon that spent days trapped on a window ledge at the Toronto Star building has been rescued.

Toronto firefighters worked with Toronto Wildlife Centre staff to retrieve the little fur ball Thursday afternoon.

It was a tricky manoeuvre.

The fire department backed a ladder truck onto the sidewalk outside the Starbucks near the building’s entrance. While the truck crew extended the ladder and basket towards the shivering Scoop, so nicknamed by Toronto Star staff, their colleagues stretched out a safety net and blanket below to catch the critter should he panic and fall.

Workers from the building lined the western stairwell just metres from Scoop while a crowd of around 50 passers-by formed on the sidewalk to watch the rescue.

As the rescue team approached, Scoop uncurled himself from a tight ball and peered over the ledge.

A wildlife centre staff member, accompanied in the fire truck bucket by two firefighters, threw a large net over the little raccoon, and dragged him free of the ledge. Scoop fought back, but was eventually lifted to safety.

Wildlife centre staff on scene would not say what will happen to the little critter now that he’s been rescued. Calls to the centre’s spokesperson were not immediately returned.

“He’s pretty stressed out,” said one worker, who would not give her name.

Security staff at the building said they first noticed Scoop on Tuesday, and contacted the Toronto Wildlife Centre to help bring the animal down to safety.

The centre initially decided to postpone the rescue for a couple of days, hoping the baby raccoon would find a way down itself as the building material, which appears to be gravel-like, should be easy for the species to climb.

On Wednesday afternoon, the raccoon made several attempts throughout the day to lower itself back down to the ground, but slipped dangerously and nearly fell several times before finding refuge in the corner of the ledge, closer to the window.

Poor little guy .

A little lightness

by digby

Free to be you and me, but not them

by Denis Hartley

Donald Trump supporters are convinced that there is a real war on Christmas and they are not going to be allowed to say Merry Christmas in public unless he is elected. Looney tunes …

Thank the Lord Vishnu this isn’t your father’s Georgia. Or is it?

(from The Guardian)

Administrators at an elementary school in Georgia are making changes to yoga practices for students, after parents complained such practices encouraged non-Christian beliefs.

Bullard elementary, in Cobb County, is one of a number of schools across the US and in Georgia to offer yoga and other mindfulness practices rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism as stress management methods for students.

Some parents at Bullard, however, felt the introduction of yoga was akin to pushing Hinduism on their children, the Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreported.

“No prayer in schools. Some don’t even say the pledge [of allegiance], yet they’re pushing ideology on our students,” one mother, Susan Jaramillo, told11Alive, an NBC affiliate. “Some of those things are religious practices that we don’t want our children doing in our schools.”

Really, Georgia? Seriously? Wait…it gets even more absurd:

Bullard is now making changes to how students go about the practice. When they go through the yoga moves, they will not say “namaste” or put their hands by their hearts, because the term and gesture are derived from Hindu custom.

Students will also no longer be allowed to color mandalas, spiritual symbols in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Oy. OK. First off, let’s examine the etymology of the word namaste:

(from the Urban Dictionary)

…an ancient Sanskrit greeting still in everyday use in India and especially on the trail in the Nepal Himalaya. Translated roughly, it means “I bow to the God within you”, or “The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you” – a knowing that we are all made from the same One Divine Consciousness.

That seems fairly benign. Like “hello”, or “good morning”. No…wait:

(from All Experts)

There is agreement among etymologists that Goodbye, Good morning, Good afternoon, etc. all derive from the word ‘God’; (Goodbye specifically from ‘God be with you’.) and times of the day inserted accordingly; All these greeting and parting expressions are found in earliest literature; recorded as early as 1200 in Layamon’s ‘Chronicle of Britain).

OK, that tears it. I demand that homeroom teachers immediately stop greeting their students with “good morning, class”. Because this is obviously pushing some kind of Christian agenda. I’m offended.

Wasn’t that a silly stretch on my part? I agree. Namaste. Peace out.

UPDATE: Oh, Georgia…just when I thought you were incorrigible:

(from the Washington Post)

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R)  vetoed a controversial religious liberties bill that had provoked outrage from Hollywood, sports leagues and corporations for what critics said was its discrimination against gay and transgender people.

“I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia, which I and my family have been a part of for generations,” Deal said at a news conference announcing his decision.

Deal’s decision comes two weeks after the state legislature passed a bill aimed at shoring up the rights of religious organizations to refuse services that clash with their faith, particularly with regard to same-sex marriage. Deal, who had already expressed discomfort with the measure, came under enormous pressure to veto the bill after the National Football League suggested it might pass over Atlanta for future Super Bowls, and leading Hollywood figures threatened to pull production from the state.

The decision drew immediate praise from gay rights groups.

[…]

Social conservatives, however, accused Deal of flinching in the face of liberal opposition. Among those who immediately expressed disappointment via Twitter was Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission at the Southern Baptist Convention.

Psst! Hey, Russell? You need to chillax. Have you considered yoga?

Alt-right rising

by digby

If you only read one long article this week this one about the rise of the alt-right is the one. Don’t read it late at night if you need a good night’s sleep.

The first warning sign that something new was brewing came in June 2015, as Donald Trump joined the crowded field vying for the Republican presidential nomination. In the extravagant lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, he announced he would build a wall to keep out Mexican criminals and “rapists.”

“I urge all readers of this site to do whatever they can to make Donald Trump President,” wrote Andrew Anglin, publisher of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, 12 days later. Anglin, a 32-year-old skinhead who wears an Aryan “Black Sun” tattoo on his chest and riffs about the inferior “biological nature” of black people, hailed Trump as “the only candidate who is even talking about anything at all that matters.”

This neo-Nazi seal of approval initially seemed like an aberration. But two months later, when Trump released his immigration policy, far-right extremists saw a clear signal that Trump understood their core anger and fear about America being taken over by minorities and foreigners. Trump’s plan to deport masses of undocumented immigrants and end birthright citizenship was radical and thrilling—”a revolution,” in the words of influential white nationalist author Kevin MacDonald, “to restore a White America.”

Trump’s move was a “game changer,” said MacDonald, a 70-year-old silver-haired former academic who edits the Occidental Observer, which the Anti-Defamation League calls “online anti-Semitism’s new voice.” Trump, he wrote, “is saying what White Americans have been actually thinking for a very long time.”

“Stunning,” raved Peter Brimelow, editor of the anti-immigrant site VDare.com. “The thing that delighted us the most,” he wrote, was Trump’s plan to close “the ‘Anchor Baby’ loophole,” denying citizenship to the American-born children of immigrants—a policy that Brimelow said he had been advocating for more than a decade.

Trump “may be the last hope for a president who would be good for white people,” remarked Jared Taylor, who runs a white nationalist website called American Renaissance and once founded a think tank dedicated to “scientifically” proving white superiority. Taylor told us that Trump was the first presidential candidate from a major party ever to earn his support because Trump “is talking about policies that would slow the dispossession of whites. That is something that is very important to me and to all racially conscious white people.”

Trump fever quickly spread: Other extremists new to presidential politics openly endorsed Trump, including Don Black, a former grand dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and founder of the neo-Nazi site Stormfront; Rocky Suhayda, chair of the American Nazi Party; and Rachel Pendergraft, a national organizer for the Knights Party, the successor to David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Richard Spencer, an emerging leader among a new generation of white nationalists known as the “alt right,” declared that Trump “loves white people.”

But Trump did not become the object of white nationalist affection simply because his positions reflect their core concerns. Extremists made him their chosen candidate and now hail him as “Emperor Trump” because he has amplified their message on social media—and, perhaps most importantly, has gone to great lengths to avoid distancing himself from the racist right. With the exception of Duke, Trump has not disavowed a single endorsement from the dozens of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, and militia supporters who have backed him. The GOP nominee, along with his family members, staffers, and surrogates, has instead provided an unprecedented platform for the ideas and rhetoric of far-right extremists, extending their reach. And when challenged on it by the press, Trump has stalled, feigned ignorance, or deflected—but has never specifically rejected any of these other extremists or their ideas.

This stance has thrilled and emboldened hate groups far more than has been generally understood during the 2016 race for the White House. Moreover, Trump’s tacit welcoming of these hate groups into mainstream American politics will have long-lasting consequences, according to these groups’ own leaders, regardless of the election outcome.

“The success of the Trump campaign just proves that our views resonate with millions,” Pendergraft told us. “They may not be ready for the Ku Klux Klan yet, but as anti-white hatred escalates, they will.”

Read on. It’s not that all Trump voters are white supremacists. But the fact that they feel so comfortable among them — and easily join in the bigoted, xenophobic rhetoric — is disturbing. There are tens of millions of them.

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