May joins attack on Trump in race row
THERESA May has joined world leaders to condemn Donald Trump for going soft on white racist thugs.
THERE was no sign of remorse from America’s emboldened white supremacists as a service was held for protestor Heather Heyer, run down by a Nazi sympathiser in a riot.
Thousands of far-right supporters no longer hide behind the Ku Klux Klan white hoods of yesteryear and openly air racist views to anyone who will listen.
They feel legitimised by the election of Donald Trump and his repeated failure to disavow their white nationalism.
And now, the President’s lack of action over the neo-Nazis on the march in Virginia at the weekend is being seen as a further endorsement of their beliefs.
Shaven-headed alt-right leader Christopher Cantwell welcomed 32-year-old Heather’s death in Charlottesville, gloating: “I’d say it was worth it.” He added: “The fact nobody on our side died, I’d call that points for us.”
James Alex Fields Jr, 20, said to be a Nazi sympathiser, has been charged with Heather’s second-degree murder after he allegedly rammed his car into protesters.
Cantwell, 36, who travelled to the protest with a band of like-minded neoNazis went on to make a chilling prediction. “I think a lot more people are going to die here,” he said, smirking. Trump’s reaction to the violent protest in support of preserving statues of a pro-slavery general is being blamed for the brazen attitude of people like Cantwell.
Instead of denouncing them, after Heather’s death on Saturday, he said “many sides” were to blame. But this was not enough for white supremacist leader David Duke, who replied with a strong rebuke. The former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and Holocaust denier told Trump: “I recommend you take a good look in the mirror and remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.” On Tuesday, a day after Trump read from a script denouncing the far-right, he backtracked saying they were some “very fine people”. He buoyed the white nationalist movement as no president has done in generations, equating activists protesting racism with neo-Nazis and supremacists. Duke replied: “Thank you, President Trump, for your honesty and courage to tell the truth about Charlottesville and condemn leftist terrorists.”
It was yet another example of how Trump’s populist rhetoric has energised a disparate movement which has seen the rebirth and emergence of hate groups not seen since the 1960s.
Ever since 2015, the same year Trump announced he was running for the White House, there has been a year-on-year rise in hate groups, says the Southern Poverty Law Centre monitoring group. The total number of racist factions in America in 2016 grew to 917 from 892 a year earlier.
Since 1999, the total number of hate groups in the US has more than doubled.
There are more anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, white nationalist, neoNazi, neo-Confederate and black separatist organisations than ever.
Despite a presence over the weekend, the Ku Klux Klan have declined, say the SPLC. But they have made way for the new bigots on the block, the alt-right.
Made of millennials, both men and women, the group, whose name derives from “the alternative right” hold extreme ideologies, with the core belief white identity is under attack by political correctness. The same political correctness Trump has opposed.
As a mainly online movement, the altright does not officially have a membership, but it is believed to have tens of, if not hundreds of thousands, of supporters, determined to ensure white supremacy.
They are becoming increasingly aligned at rallies with other far-right groups including neo-Nazis.
The Hitler-loving group of separatist activists share the same anti-Semitic and anti-black ideals and include the American Nazi Party and the National Socialist Movement.
The most visible of these groups is the feared National Alliance, which currently has an estimated 3,000 members and is known to contain violent members watched by the FBI. A sharp rise in “bias incidents” – instances of race crimes or harassment and intimidation – followed Trump’s election run on an anti-immigration, anti-muslim ticket, including the promise to build a wall along the Mexican border. Of 1,094 hate and bias incidents in the month after his victory last November, 37% of them directly referenced either Trump, his campaign slogans or remarks about sexual assault.
He is part of the alt-right’s totem pole, it seems, along with Robert E Lee, former commander of Confederate forces and symbol of racial oppression.
Fearing further violence, work crews have begun hauling away divisive statues of the Civil War general. Four were taken down in Baltimore in the early hours yesterday.
Trump has repeatedly failed to do more to denounce hate groups associated with his name. But for some racists even his perceived support is enough.
That includes former jailbird Cantwell, who wants an “Anglo ethno state” free of African-Americans, Jews and non-white immigrants. He often openly carries a .38 handgun on his hip, earning him the nickname The Enforcer. Discussing his presence at the Charlotte Unite the Rally, he said: “I’m here to spread ideas, talk in the hope someone more capable will come along.
“Somebody like Trump but who does not give his daughter to a Jew [Ivanka is married to Jared Kushner who is jewish].
“Someone a lot more racist.”