Donald Trump’s Message Resonates With White Supremacists

No matter how carefully, how succinctly you explain things to any arm of the media, you’re always a “white supremacist.”

Until recently, Jared Taylor, long one of the country’s most prominent white supremacists, had never supported a presidential candidate.

“There’s been no one worth endorsing,” he said in an interview. “I mean, for heaven’s sake, was John McCain ever going to do anything useful as far as the legitimate interests of whites are concerned?”

But Mr. Taylor believes he has finally found someone who will: Donald J. Trump.

This year, Mr. Taylor’s voice could be heard on robocalls to voters across Iowa and New Hampshire, urging them to support Mr. Trump. “We don’t need Muslims,” he said on the call. “We need smart, educated, white people who will assimilate to our culture.”

Then came Sunday — a banner day for Mr. Trump in the eyes of white-power advocates.

In an early-morning social media post, Mr. Trump approvingly reposted on Twitter a quotation from Benito Mussolini (“It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep”). Then, in an interview on CNN, he refused to condemn the Ku Klux Klan or David Duke, its onetime grand wizard, after Mr. Duke declared his support for Mr. Trump.

“God bless this man,” exulted the Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website.

After the CNN interview, Mr. Trump pointed to his disavowal of Mr. Duke’s support two days earlier. In an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show on Monday, he blamed a “very bad earpiece” for his equivocation. And a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, Hope Hicks, said he broadly disavowed all white supremacist groups.

Mr. Duke took no umbrage. “I’ll laugh it off — that’s fine,” he said in an interview on Fox News Radio on Monday evening. “Donald Trump: Do whatever you need to get elected.”

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2016-03-01