A White Supremacist Black Swan? Why Donald Trump's fringe white nationalist supporters matter.

[DonViejo]

A White Supremacist Black Swan?

Why Donald Trump's fringe white nationalist supporters matter.

By Justin Hienz | Contributor
Aug. 19, 2016, at 6:00 a.m.

The United States could see an increase in violent extremism in 2017 – but not because of Muslim extremism.

The September 11 attacks were a "black swan," a high-impact, low-probability event that is almost impossible to see coming. One of the 9/11 Commission's conclusions was that the 2001 attacks succeeded, in part, because of a failure of imagination. Who could have guessed that terrorists would use airplanes as weapons of mass destruction in a suicidal attack? No one, evidently.

Since then, U.S. homeland security efforts have attempted to imagine it all, from biological attacks in subways to EMP attacks on the electric grid (neither of which we're ready for, by the way). Yet, I fret we have slipped into another malaise of imagination. A significant, even outsized portion of law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts are focused on the threat from Muslim extremists. It dominates security policy and American politics. That threat is valid, but in all our angst over the Islamic State group and those it inspires, we may be missing some terrible dark wings flapping over the horizon.

There is plenty of solid reporting and opinion writing on how Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appears to be parroting white supremacist views and ideas, for reasons debatable. I'm less concerned with whether Trump is a racist and more concerned with the number of racists who believe he is. He is the chosen leader for right-wing extremists, regardless of whether he means to be.

A former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan likes and supports Trump. Some of the people who show up at his rallies are part of racist right-wing groups. All manner of white supremacists on social media regularly chime in to voice their endorsement, as do users of the widely read white supremacist online forum Stormfront. And on Tuesday, a violent extremist in Olympia, Washington attacked an African-American and his girlfriend outside of a restaurant, citing hatred of the Black Lives Matter movement and, according to court documents, saying he would head over to a Trump rally next to "stomp out" more members of the movement.

-snip

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-08-19/why-donald-trumps-kkk-and-white-supremacist-supporters-matter?emailed=1&src=usn_thereport

[guillaumeb]

1. And Trump, by not speaking in the coded language that the modern GOP

prefers to use, is making the racism more acceptable. Rather than hiding behind the hoods, the racists are showing their faces because they feel that their views are acceptable. Trump is truly the GOP, absent the coded language of "states rights" and "special rights" that the GOP prefers to use.

And, as the author states, whether Trump himself is a racist or not, he is validating the racial resentment of some of his followers, and by his inflammatory speech he is encouraging violence.

My own view is that if any person encourages racial resentment, that person is a racist.

[treestar]

2. Interesting link to the one about Merkel

https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trumps-new-attack-on-hillary-echoes-white-supremacist-websites-70579c9d7e50#.4cm3taonz

Trump knows that he is reaching out to white supremacists.