Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
An Interesting Robocall
William Johnson, of the American Nationalist Super PAC, is supporting Donald Trump.
I got my first political robocall of the season last night, and it was so off-putting I didn’t know if this was actually from people supporting Donald Trump, or from an opponent trying to paint Trump in a bad light. I mentioned this on another thread and everyone’s favorite snake-lady suggested that if I could figure out who it was from, it would make an interesting post.
So I did a search and found a newspaper article that describes the very call I got. The article says the call is going around the Iron Range, which is northeastern Minnesota. I live in northwestern Minnesota, so maybe the call is state-wide. I did not record the call, but looking at the content in the article, this sounds just like what I heard.
“The American Nationalist Super PAC makes this call to support Donald Trump. I am William Johnson, a farmer and white nationalist.
“The white race is dying out in America and Europe because we are afraid to be called racist. This is our mindset: It’s okay that our government destroys our children’s future, but don’t call me racist. I’m afraid to be called racist. It’s okay to give away our country for immigration, but don’t call me racist. It’s okay that few schools anymore have beautiful white children in the majority, but don’t call me racist. Gradual genocide against the white race is okay, but don’t call me racist. I’m afraid to be called racist.
“Donald Trump is not a racist, but Donald Trump is not afraid. Don’t vote for a Cuban; vote for Donald Trump.
“… This call is not authorized by Donald Trump.’ ”
Snooping around a little more I see there is a party called American Nationalist Party, but their website says they are open to people of all races and ethnic backgrounds, so it ought not be them who made the ad. So I don’t know if this is an ad from authentic pro-Trump racists, or if it’s being done by anti-Trump people trying to sell people on the idea that Trump is favored by white supremacists and therefore is to be avoided. Political campaigns do bring out nuts, so either possibility is plausible. Does anybody know anything more about this?
Published in General
I think you’re just racist against robot-americans.
Take that back, man. Just a week ago I wrote a recommendation for a fine new robot book.
“Some of my best friends are robots!”
Is it real? I’m supposing that is the question. It seems to me that it is too brazen and too cartoonish to be authentic. That said, it appears to meet that the culture is increasingly displaying little shame. Beyonce’s halftime performance is evidence to how mainstream outright racism can be. People are not accountable for outrageous statements to the point where the statement’s sincerity is unimportant. Che’ and Mao t-shirts are cool. Why wouldn’t racist extremists not feel liberated in such and environment? It may also be that the Conservative Right (myself included) deny the level of actual people like this around where we live.
The line of argument presented in the call does in fact represent the current thinking of modern racist political movements here in the US and abroad. You can just look at the American Freedom Party. Now they happen to have their own presidential candidate, but perhaps they view Trump as a means of inserting their own philosophy into the mainstream by coasting behind Trumps nationalism. Nationalism makes a great vehicle for this kind of ideology because it is easy to equate race/ethnicity with national identity.
I also seem to recall that Trump just got the endorsement of David Duke. Unsolicited I am sure. Still, these scum smell blood in the water. I would not be surprised if they start coming out of the wood work.
I don’t know if Trump is a racist.
But online many of his followers are racists.
It’s disgusting.
They’re coming out of the woodwork now…guess that report that Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally moved them off the fence.
Oh hey is this what you heard or something like it?
http://american3rdposition.com/?p=15932
This is from the American Freedom Party, who are in fact out and proud racists.
If this party splits, I’m with Marco.
I won’t be part of Trump’s party. He is not only an enabler of racists, he is a con artist.
Nope, the message I got was in the text of the original post. I specifically recalled the several times it said “I am not a racist” and the line about beautiful white children.
Agreed with Paul. It doesn’t matter if the robocall is real or staged.
If it’s real, that the group can raise enough money to publish the ad doesn’t mean the group’s membership is significantly large or influential. And Democrats openly support racism in many forms, including historically militant groups like the Black Panthers… even when the New Black Panthers are caught intimidating people at voting booths. Republicans’ unwanted support from hateful groups shouldn’t be more embarrassing than Democrats’ active encouragement of hate and abuse of legal authority to empower such groups.
If it’s staged, it’s in line with the “War on Women” and countless other despicable lies Democrats have openly spread. It’s in line with NBC, ABC, and CNN employing an epithet to smear Tea Party groups for months. This it the ugliness that has become mainstream American politics.
The danger is not that the ad exists. The danger is that Republicans will respond timidly and apologetically when confronted with it in major media.
One of the things that marks a really crazy person is that they don’t realize they’re crazy.
Look at the 9/11 Truthers who claim over and over that fire can’t melt steel. That’s crazy but they think they’re making a brilliant point. They say something ridiculous repeatedly and loudly because they don’t realize they’re crazy.
So it’s entirely possible that a virulent racist doesn’t realize that when he says things like what are in the script it doesn’t come off as a plea for solidarity and instead it sounds crazy. Cartoonishly crazy – like a guy in a tinfoil hat talking about radio waves controlling our thoughts.
Ugh, I need to wash my computer now.
I don’t know if Trump is racist, but he’s certainly happy to accept the support of racists. His campaign wouldn’t be where it is without white nationalists.
The Republican Party was formed, in part, to repudiate this nonsense. Remember Reagan’s “They support me, I don’t support them”?
This is why I won’t ever vote for Trump. If the GOP lets Trump be its spokesman than it has lost all moral authority and will be a dead party.
More serious response.
Remember those Disney cartoons you loved so much as a kid? Well there’s people on DeviantArt drawing the characters naked. They’re fans too. Nothing you can do about it, the only thing you can do is ignore them. It’s not even enough reason to stop liking the thing; there’s always going to be people you don’t like who are fans of th same stuff.
Here is the American National Super PAC information from OpenSecrets:
https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/recips.php?cmte=C00591610&cycle=2016
No donors or spending logged yet, but I don’t know how much lag there is between ad buys and FEC disclosures.
Possible, but I find a strong resemblance between these statements and those attributed to the perceived average Republican in, say, the WaPo editorial section.
Here is William Johnson’s Wikipedia article (with the usual caveats about Wikipedia):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Daniel_Johnson
This is chilling. David Duke also is on board. Trump seems like a reasonable fellow on his one on one interviews, but his schoolyard taunts and the sycophants in his audience are really a major turn off. My elderly Mother came over this morning and is genuinely scared of how far this joke has gone.
Thanks for looking that up.
What does it say about Trump and his campaign that it’s actually hard to tell if this is real or fake?
That he attracts the racists? Thing about Citizens United is, Trump really doesn’t have to know about this kind of thing or approve of it for it to happen, even if it is meant as support.
Racist gotta vote for someone.
He’s not repudiating the racists.
And what does Citizens United have to do with this at all?
In 27 years, white Americans will be a despised minority against whom it will be legal to discriminate. Other than the “don’t vote for a Cuban” or the overwrought “white genocide” part, I don’ t really find anything wrong or shocking with that robocall. Very few people graciously accept being pushed into minority status.
Citizens United means anyone can spend money on advocating for a candidate as long as that candidate doesn’t coordinate with you. Whoever put this robo-call together doesn’t work for the Trump campaign (assuming you believe the post script). He’s not paying for it, he’s not running the organization, so why do we assume Trump knows about it?
So he is Freedom Party! In that case the robo call is not a joke I am afraid.
I don’t think he realizes it, but he is speaking to them as well as others. As one commenter at another site said, he called and we answered. Makes all the burn it down rhetoric creeepy.
Really? I think you need to brush up on exactly who these people are. This is the tip of the iceberg here. It is bad enough to have the Dems mainstreaming their racialist view of the world, watching it bubble up in white power form only guarantees further breakdown. The whole logic of their movement and ideology is absurd, and based on a faulty view of humanity. We give them an inch they will take a mile and the end results will be a propagation of a philosophy with clearly negative unsustainable vision of humanity which is fundamentally at odds with Christian Humanist values.If you think there is currently an erosion of Christian values today with constant attacks from the left just wait until we are being assailed by these yahoos too.
How do you know that white people will be despised, and that anti-white discrimination will be legal?
Mr. Johnson’s a piece of work, isn’t he?