Let’s be clear, #JemelleHill , the ESPN sports show co-host was correct—Donald Trump is a white supremacist, and he had white supremacists around him in the White House. How do we know that Trump is a white supremacist? How do we know what’s in his heart? What’s in his heart is irrelevant. It’s what he did or what he does that counts. And we know a lot about that.
Trump ran a white nationalist campaign, making racist statements about several non white racial groups. This approach created the core of his support, which started with the anti-black birther movement back in 2011. The birther movement was an obvious argument that an African American is not legitimately the president of the U.S.
Discrimination against African Americans has been a pattern throughout Trump’s career:
• The Justice Department sued his company ― twice in the 1970’s― for refusing to rent to African Americans.
• He encouraged the mob anger that resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of the Central Park Five.
• Trump’s casino in Atlantic City was widely accused of racism. Trump allegedly disparaged his black casino employees as “lazy” in racially bigoted terms. According to one named employee, “When Donald and his wife (Ivana) came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor.”
• During the presidential campaign, he refused to condemn the white supremacists like David Duke who advocated for him.
• In May 2016, Trump chose as one of its California primary delegates, William Johnson, chair of the white nationalist American Freedom Party and one of the most prominent white nationalists in the country.
• Trump stereotyped Jews and once shared an anti-Semitic image created by white supremacists.
• He claimed a judge was biased because “he’s a Mexican.”
• After the election, Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute held a celebratory event in Washington, D.C. A video showed many of the white nationalists assembled there doing the Nazi salute after Spencer declared, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
• After becoming President, Trump launched a travel ban targeting Muslims.
• Steve Bannon, a leader of the Alt-Right, is credited with winning the election for Trump. He previously headed Breitbart.Com, which he was widely reported to have claimed as a platform for the Alt-Right. Bannon ran the last part of Trump’s campaign and was then installed as the top policy strategist in the White House.
• There were fellow travelers with Bannon in the White House—Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka–who have dallied with groups and people under the broad Alt-Right umbrella.
• What is the Alt-Right? They are white nationalists, a nice term for white supremacists. It includes Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
• Trump’s white supremacy was on full display this past weekend as he attacked African American professional football players who following Colin Kaepernick had used their freedom of speech rights to protest current racial injustices, including the continuing murder of unarmed African American men without penalty.
• While not criticizing the white supremacists who rioted and killed a woman in Charlottesville last month, without provocation Trump called the football players, “sons of bitches.”
White nationalists certainly think they are connected to the White House. Neo-Nazi David Duke, the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who endorsed Trump during the presidential campaign, had this to say about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville:
“This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump because he said he’s going to take our country back.”
Duke’s words show the views of a white supremacist movement that sees President Trump as its champion.