White Supremacist Groups See Donald Trump as “Golden Opportunity” for Recruitment
Here’s where US politics is in 2015: the leading presidential candidate of the Republican Party is seen as a “golden opportunity” by the nation’s white supremacist groups.
For example, Stormfront, a center of racist hatred for years, is now having to upgrade their web servers to deal with the increased traffic.
[Don] Black of Stormfront said Trump’s rhetoric has been a boon to white nationalists. “He has sparked an insurgency and I don’t think it’s going to go away,” he told POLITICO of Trump.
Black, who said his site receives a million unique visitors a month, said Trump has helped drive a steady increase in traffic in recent months – including 30-40 percent spikes when the businessman makes news on immigration or Muslims – that is compelling him to upgrade his servers.
Rachel Pendergraft, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas-based Knights Party, which considers itself the national standard-bearer for the KKK, said the group encourages its members to engage with their communities through apolitical volunteer work and, at the right moment, steer conversation toward race and “white genocide.”
Trump, she said, has offered KKK members a prime opportunity to feel out potential recruits on their racial attitudes. “Right now he is a major talking point. He is in the news a lot.”
[David] Duke, a former grand wizard of the KKK and perhaps the most notorious racist intellectual in the United States, said Trump, a successful businessman and the subject of nonstop media coverage, has given Americans license to more openly voice their racial animus.
“He’s made it ok to talk about these incredible concerns of European Americans today, because I think European Americans know they are the only group that can’t defend their own essential interests and their point of view,” Duke said. “He’s meant a lot for the human rights of European Americans.”