The leader of the American Nazi Party has said the election of Donald Trump as president would present “a real opportunity for people like white nationalists” to start “acting intelligently”, with the aim of building a mainstream political presence similar to that of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“It’s kinda hard to go and call us bigots,” said party chairman Rocky Suhayda, “if we don’t go around and act like a bigot.”
Buzzfeed first reported the comments, which were made on Suhayda’s radio broadcast last month.
In the broadcast, Suhayda addressed the need for his party to organise and act respectably. “Now, if Trump does win, OK, it’s going to be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that,” he said. “You know how you have the black political caucus and whatnot in Congress, and, everything, to start building on something like that, OK.
“It doesn’t have to be anti, like the movement’s been for decades, so much as it has to be pro-white. It’s kinda hard to go and call us bigots, if we don’t go around and act like a bigot. That’s what the movement should contemplate. All right.”
Suhayda predicted Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton in the general election. “I think it’s gonna surprise the enemy, because, I think that they feel that the white working class, especially the male portion of the working class, and with him his female counterparts have basically thrown in the towel,” Suhayda said. “Given up hope of any politician again standing up for their interests.”
Trump has criticised international trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, promised to build a wall on the border with Mexico and deport undocumented migrants, and advocated a ban on Muslim immigration and surveillance of American Muslims as an anti-terrorism measure. In so doing, he has attracted significant support from white working class voters. Both campaigns have spent significant time in the Rust Belt states of the northern US, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, both of which are historically swing states.
The American Nazi Party is a fringe group that grew out of that founded by George Lincoln Rockwell in 1959. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard who is running for the US Senate in Louisiana and has spoken favourably of Trump, was once a follower. This week, Duke told NPR: “As a United States senator, nobody will be more supportive of his legislative agenda, his supreme court agenda, than I will.”
Trump has disavowed such support from Duke, although in February a delay in doing so caused controversy.
In the “frequently asked questions” section of its website, the American Nazi Party defines itself: “We are National Socialists, although we use the designation ‘Nazi’, simply because at the present time, most Americans would not understand ‘WHAT’ a National Socialist ‘IS’, confusing us with some kind of Marxist ideology.
“NS are certainly NOT ‘supremacists’, rather we are SEPARATISTS – we believe that RACIAL SEPARATION is best for all concerned. White and non-White alike.”