You're so awesome, America. This Daily Beast article is a handy overview of the startling number of white power -- yes, white power, of the racist variety -- candidates who are currently seeking public office, including America's most famous white power advocate, David Duke: White Supremacist Stampede.Yes, the list includes Duke, member of the Louisiana House of Representatives member and Republican executive-committee chairman -- and former Ku Klux Klansman -- who is apparently considering a big for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. Oh, forgive me, David Duke wasn't just any old Klansman -- he is a former Grand Wizard. And here are more like him:
Former (and current) Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Confederates, and other representatives of the many wings of the "white nationalist" movement are starting to file paperwork and print campaign literature for offices large and small, pointing to rising unemployment, four years with an African-American president, and rampant illegal immigration as part of a growing mound of evidence that white people need to take a stand.Most of these candidates haven't picked up much support... yet. While most will probably be dismissed as white supremacist kooks, they've definitely emerged from a rising undercurrent of racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiment that spiked with the election of the country's first African American president. Who knows? As America's minority population surges, these crazy haters could find support in increasing numbers. And that is scary, America.
Most aren't winning—not yet. But they're drawing levels of support that surprise and alarm groups that keep tabs on the white-power movement (members prefer the terms "racial realist" or "white nationalist"). In May, the National Socialist Movement's Jeff Hall hit national headlines in a bizarre tragedy: his murder, allegedly at the hands of his 10-year-old son. But before his death, he had campaigned for a low-level water board position in Riverside, California. The swastika-wearing plumber who patrolled the U.S. border paramilitary-style walked away with almost 30 percent of his community's vote. "That's a sizable amount of the vote for a person running openly as a Neo Nazi," says Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. While Hall's political future—and life—has been cut short, Mayo points out that we should expect more white supremacist hopefuls next year.