" Déjà vu" As they slam the oven door again, The Danger of the Hypocrisy of Jews Who Line Up Behind Steve Bannon’s Twisted Vision of America.#RIPUSA,#AmericaHangsItsHeadnShame,#KeepTrumpInCheck,#ImpeachTrumpNow

The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Jews Who Line Up Behind Steve Bannon’s Twisted Vision of America. will american and World Jewry's response when they slam the oven door again be just " Déjà vu"

For many years now, American Jews have been told to worry about anti-Semitism from the left, from those whose criticism of Israel veers into rank de-legitimization of the Jewish state. Well-funded efforts have sprung up to defeat this “new anti-Semitism,” especially on college campuses, and it’s getting to the point where support of the movement to boycott, sanction and divest from Israel is equated with betrayal of the Jewish people.


So obsessed are we with looking for threats from one direction that we have missed the growing danger from another.

Unleashed by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and cemented by the appointment of Stephen Bannon to a powerful position in the White House, the anti-Semitic sentiments of the far right are closer to the center of political power than they have been in recent memory.

This “new, new anti-Semitism” is largely limited to social media onslaughts and is nowhere near as pervasive as the global efforts to isolate Israel and Israelis. (For now.) But ignoring it, dismissing it, excusing it, hoping it will go away — as some Jewish leaders are doing — is not only perilous, it’s hypocritical and self-defeating.

Unless we denounce and work against the hatred coming from the right with the same energy and resources used to combat hatred from the left, we risk losing allies and diminishing our own moral standing.
“We now know that there is a coherent threat from the right as well as from the left,” Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and a wise observer of the American Jewish scene, told me. “I don’t know why there isn’t a coherent response to the right.”

When I spoke to him and others about this development late last week, everyone was waiting to see what role, if any, Bannon might play in a Trump administration before sounding the alarm bell. Now we know: chief strategist and senior counsel to the president.
“We need to do a serious reckoning,” said Deborah Lipstadt, who is writing a book about anti-Semitism and as the preeminent historian on Holocaust denial, knows of what she speaks. “It’s been so convenient for people to beat up on the left, but you can’t ignore what’s coming from the right.”
Bannon is both the poster child for this development, and the reason it will be a complicated reckoning. Some of the Jews who have worked with him at Breitbart News are lining up to vouch for his tolerant character.
“I have Saturdays off, Jewish holidays off and Steve Bannon always wishes me a ‘Shabbat shalom’ on Friday afternoon — just in case you were concerned about that,” Joel Pollack, Breitbart’s senior editor at large, told NPR.

Joel Pollak
Even more, his Israel politics are hawkish enough to make Mort Klein, the very hawkish head of the Zionist Organization of America, boast that Bannon will attend the ZOA’s annual awards gala on Sunday.
Bannon may be, as Klein insisted, “the opposite of an anti-Semite,” but the news organization he oversaw until he joined the Trump campaign unabashedly embraced the white supremacist movement that is anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, anti-Muslim — and at times, anti-Semitic. “We’re the platform for the alt-right,” Bannon proudly told Mother Jones last summer.
Some of those pro-Trump alt-right guys are the ones sending horrific anti-Semitic messages laden with Holocaust imagery to Jewish journalists — and others — around the country.
As our Naomi Zeveloff explained earlier this week, it’s possible to be Zionist and anti-Semitic at the same time. Some, like Bannon, see in Israel a (white) nationalist, anti-Arab country worth supporting — over there. Here, in America, they may accept, even respect, individual Jews, but their ideological aim is to cleanse the country of its multiculturalism and restore privilege to white Christian males.

So, according to this logic, as long as you support certain policies of the current Israeli government, it’s okay to pal around with people who hate Jews.
That is, apparently, much more acceptable than being a proud, devout Jew who doesn’t happen to support the policies of the current Israeli government. That will earn you the title of anti-Semite.
The hypocrisy here is not only breathtaking, it’s self-defeating. The Jews in America who are the target of anti-Semitic threats and harassment — and here I include many of us at the Forward — must make common cause with other minority groups who are experiencing this and worse in today’s toxic political environment. The undocumented worker fearful of deportation. The Muslim subject to hate crimes.
If, instead, Jews excuse the far right’s hateful behavior because
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Republished from The Forward . The Forward (Yiddish: פֿאָרווערטס‎; Forverts), also called The Jewish Daily Forward, is an American newspaper published in New York City for a Jewish-American audience. The organization publishes two newspapers, weekly in English (The Forward) and biweekly in Yiddish (Yiddish Forward or Forverts) and websites updated daily in both languages. Forward has a circulation of 65,000 copies per issue... The article is republished unedited with permission of the Author Jane Eisner and The Forward 

.It is one in a series of articles by Jane Eisner on what the election of Donald Trump will mean to Jews and Israel.Jane Eisner, a pioneer in journalism, became editor-in-chief of the Forward in 2008, the first woman to hold the position at the influential Jewish national news organization. Under her leadership, the Forward readership has grown significantly and has won numerous regional and national awards for its original journalism, in print and online.

#RIPUSA KKK and American Nazi Party celebrate Trump’s hiring of Bannon #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame , #ImpreachHimNow

White supremacists are praising President-elect Donald Trump for making former Breitbart publisher Steve Bannon his top White House advisor.

Former KKK leader David Duke lauded the Bannon appointment in a recent interview with a white nationalist radio host. Richard Spencer, president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, said the former Breitbart chief would “push Trump in the right direction.” Rocky Suhayda, chairman of the American Nazi Party, also expressed his approval with Bannon being the right hand of the 45th President of the United States.

“Perhaps The Donald is for real,” Suhayda said in a CNN segment.

The news of Bannon’s new job title, in particular the positive reaction of white nationalists, is alarming to the leading watchdog of hate groups in the United States.

“Bannon’s appointment makes a mockery of what Trump said the morning he was elected,” said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in an interview on MSNBC. “Two weeks after the massacre in Charleston, he talked about how we should raise the Confederate flag and be proud of it.”

“He chose Mr. Bannon because he’s a kindred soul. He chose him because he’s comfortable with the message of Breitbart,” Cohen added.

Trump, to his credit, has disavowed the endorsements of white hate group figures like Duke, calling him a “bad person.”

While President Obama has said he is hopeful that Trump, whom he described as “pragmatic” rather than ideological, he also said in a Monday press conference that he has “concerns” about a Trump administration, particularly as it concerns America’s reputation with its overseas allies and partners.

#TIPUSA White Nationalists and Supremist Celebrate Steve Bannon's proposed central role in Trump's WhiteHouse #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame, #ImpeachHimNow

Stephen Kevin "Steve" Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American businessman and media executive. He is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, a politically conservative American news, opinion and commentary website noted for its connection to the alt-right. He became chief executive officer of the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump in August 2016.^]Bannon will be chief strategist and Senior Counselor for the Presidency of Donald Trump.


Steve Bannon tapped as Trump's chief strategist

White nationalists say Bannon's hiring is a signal that Trump will follow through on some of his more controversial policy positions."I think that's excellent," former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told CNN's KFile.

(CNN)White nationalist leaders are praising Donald Trump's decision to name former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, telling CNN in interviews they view Bannon as an advocate in the White House for policies they favor.
The leaders of the white nationalist and so-called "alt-right" movement — all of whom vehemently oppose multiculturalism and share the belief in the supremacy of the white race and Western civilization — publicly backed Trump during his campaign for his hardline positions on Mexican immigration, Muslims, and refugee resettlement. Trump has at times disavowed their support. Bannon's hiring, they say, is a signal that Trump will follow through on some of his more controversial policy positions.

"I think that's excellent," former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told CNN's KFile. "I think that anyone that helps complete the program and the policies that President-elect Trump has developed during the campaign is a very good thing, obviously. So it's good to see that he's sticking to the issues and the ideas that he proposed as a candidate. Now he's president-elect and he's sticking to it and he's reaffirming those issues."

Duke, who last week lost his longshot bid for the US Senate seat from Louisiana, said he plans on expanding his radio show and is hoping to launch a 24 hour online news show with a similar approach to Comedy Central's Daily Show. He argued Bannon's position was among the most important in the White House.

"You have an individual, Mr. Bannon, who's basically creating the ideological aspects of where we're going," added Duke. "And ideology ultimately is the most important aspect of any government."

Bannon, who was a Navy officer and Goldman Sachs investment banker years before taking over Breitbart, has called the site "the platform for the alt-right." Under Bannon, Breitbart has taken an increasingly hardline tone on issues such as terrorism and immigration, running a headline after the Paris attacks of November 2015 saying, "Paris Streets Turned Into Warzone By Violent Migrants." It also ran a headline in May 2016 calling anti-Trump, neoconservative commentator Bill Kristol a "Renegade Jew."
Bannon himself was accused of anti-Semitism by his ex-wife, who alleged in a 2007 court declaration that he did not want their daughter to attend a Los Angeles school because of the numbers of Jews who went to school there. (Bannon, through a spokesperson, denied his wife's accusations.)

Peter Brimelow, who runs the white nationalist site VDARE, praised Bannon's hiring, saying it gives Trump a connection to the alt-right movement online.

"I think it's amazing," Brimelow said of Trump's decision to tap Bannon. "Can you imagine Mitt Romney doing this? It's almost like Trump cares about ideas! Especially amazing because I would bet Trump doesn't read online. Few plutocrats do, they have efficient secretaries."

Brimelow added his site would continue to focus solely on their hardline position on immigration, saying he expects American whites to vote their interests similar to other minority groups.

"To the extent that the 'alt-right' articulates that interest, it will continue to grow," Brimelow said.

Brad Griffin, a blogger who runs the white nationalist website Occidental Dissent using the pseudonym "Hunter Wallace," said he thought Bannon's hiring showed Trump would be held to his campaign promises.

"It makes sense to me," he said. "Reince [Priebus] can certainly get more done on Capitol Hill. He will be an instrument of Trump's will, not the other way around. Bannon is better suited as chief strategist and looking at the big picture. I think he will hold Trump to the promises he has already made during the campaign. We endorse many of those promises like building the wall, deportations, ending refugee resettlement, preserving the Second Amendment, etc. There's a lot of stuff in there on which almost everyone on the right agrees."

Griffin added, "We're most excited though about the foreign policy implications of Bannon in the White House. We want to see our counterparts in Europe — starting in Austria and France — win their upcoming elections. We're hearing reports that Breitbart is expanding its operations in continental Europe and that is where our focus will be in 2017."

Jared Taylor, who runs the site American Renaissance, echoed those comments, saying Bannon would help hold Trump to his campaign rhetoric.

"There has been some waffling on some of candidate Trump's signature positions: build the wall, deport illegals, end birth-right citizenship, take a hard look at Muslim immigrants, etc," he said. "I suspect one of Steve Bannon's important functions will be as an anti-waffler, who will encourage President Trump to keep his campaign promises."

Chairman of the American Nazi Party, Rocky J. Suhayda, who wrote a post after Trump's election night victory celebrating it as a call to action, said he was surprised at the pick of Bannon, but said it showed him Trump could follow through on his campaign promises.
"I must admit that I was a wee bit surprised that Mr. Trump finally chose Mr. Bannon, I thought that his stable of Washington insiders would have objected too vociferously," Suhayda wrote in an email. "Perhaps The Donald IS for 'REAL' and is not going to be another controlled puppet directed by the usual 'Wire Pullers,' and does indeed intend to ROCK the BOAT? Time will tell."

Richard B. Spencer, the president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, wrote a series of tweets on Sunday evening saying Bannon had the best position as chief strategist, allowing him to not get lost in the weeds and could help Trump focus on the big picture of setting up his agenda.

"Steve Bannon might even push Trump in the right direction. So that would be a wonderful thing," he told CNN on Sunday before the announcement, adding that he hopes to push Trump in an increasingly radical direction."

Matt Parrott, a spokesman for the Traditionalist Worker Party, said Bannon was a "civic nationalist" — someone who sees an American identity not based on race.
"Steve Bannon has never been a white nationalist and it's kind of tiresome how the important distinction, everyone needs to learn them now that they're relevant. There's an important distinction between a civic nationalist and a white nationalist," Parrott to CNN. "Steve Bannon's entire career, and if you look at Breitbart, like, he's accusing the other side of racism. That's something that wouldn't happen out of an actual white nationalist of course because we don't see being for your race as a negative thing. Yeah, Steve Bannon's a civic nationalist and that's much better than what was in Washington before. We're hopeful about the whole thing."

Parrot added, "We in the alt-right are going to be just as vicious in trolling and attacking the Republican Congress as they try to obstruct Trump's reforms as we were against the left."

#RIPUSA, Trump Hires are a cause for concern already #AmericaHangsItsHeadInShame, #ImpeachHimNow

Stephen K. Bannon, fourth from left, and Reince Priebus, second from right, during Donald J. Trump’s victory speech. Both are on a short list for chief of staff, according to people close to the campaign.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

“Busy day planned in New York,” President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Twitter on Friday morning, two days after his astonishing victory. “Will soon be making some very important decisions on the people who will be running our government!”

If anything, that understates the gravity of the personnel choices Mr. Trump and his transition team are weighing.

Rarely in the history of the American presidency has the exercise of choosing people to fill jobs had such a far-reaching impact on the nature and priorities of an incoming administration. Unlike most new presidents, Mr. Trump comes into office with no elective-office experience, no coherent political agenda and no bulging binder of policy proposals. And he has left a trail of inflammatory, often contradictory, statements on issues from immigration and race to terrorism and geopolitics.

In such a chaotic environment, serving a president who is in many ways a tabula rasa, the appointees to key White House jobs like chief of staff and cabinet posts like secretary of state, defense secretary and Treasury secretary could wield outsize influence. Their selection will help determine whether the Trump administration governs like the firebrand Mr. Trump was on the campaign trail or the pragmatist he often appears to be behind closed doors.

“A new president is really vulnerable and open to all sorts of influence by strong-willed advisers,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian. “Trump’s appointments over the next six weeks will be very significant because they can show whether he wants to create some unity in the country, or whether he really intends to deliver on his ideas.”

One of the influences on Mr. Trump could come from an unlikely quarter: President Obama. Meeting in the Oval Officeon Thursday, Mr. Trump said he looked forward “to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel.” A day later, in interviews with The Wall Street Journal and “60 Minutes,’’ he said he had decided to retain elements of Mr. Obama’s landmark health care law after their conversation — a hint, at least, that he might govern less radically than he had campaigned.

White House officials expressed hope that Mr. Obama would be able to impress on Mr. Trump the importance of other parts of his legacy, like the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal. The two will have the kind of peer-to-peer relationship that only fellow presidents can have — something that administration officials hope will appeal to Mr. Trump’s pride, as well as his desire to succeed, and make him view Mr. Obama less as a rival.

They conceded, though, that there was little historical precedent for such a relationship, especially when the incoming president had ousted the incumbent’s party after such an acrid campaign, and that Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama were never likely to become buddies.

Mr. Trump is drawing mainly from a pool of trusted aides and supporters, according to people familiar with the campaign. On Friday, he named three of his grown children — Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric — as well as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to his transition team, an arrangement that rang alarm bells in Washington because they will also manage his businesses. The Trump family, it is clear, will wield unusual power in the composition of an administration that is already shaping up as remarkable for its clannishness.

Even within Mr. Trump’s tight circle, however, there are sharp differences in ideology, background and temperament that could play out in how the White House deals with Congress and how the United States deals with the rest of the world.

Perhaps the deepest schism is between Stephen K. Bannon, the conservative provocateur and media entrepreneur who was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, and Reince Priebus, the Republican Party chairman who came to terms with Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Both are on a short list for chief of staff, according to people close to the campaign, and whoever is chosen, the other is likely to get another senior White House post.

Each would bring a radically different approach to a job often called the second-most powerful in Washington — gatekeeper to the president and often the first and last person he sees in the Oval Office.

Mr. Bannon, the executive chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News and onetime Goldman Sachs executive, is an avowed enemy of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan. An anti-establishment verbal bomb thrower with ties to the alt-right movement, Mr. Bannon may have little interest in compromising with the Republican-controlled Congress under its current leadership. He is an unabashed critic of the current immigration system and repeatedly encouraged Mr. Trump to appeal to the party’s base in the closing days of the campaign with arguments against globalization.

Mr. Priebus, a party loyalist who tried to reconcile Republican leaders with their renegade nominee, would most likely build bridges to Mr. Ryan and other Republican leaders. A Washington insider with a reputation for being easy to work with, Mr. Priebus would operate a more traditional White House, though given Mr. Trump’s flamboyant personality, traditional is a relative term.

Meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he looked forward “to dealing with the president in the future, including counsel.” CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

In some ways, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Priebus are proxies for the larger battle over what kind of president Mr. Trump will be. Some former Republican officials held out hope that Mr. Trump would be receptive to moderating influences, but others worried that he would simply listen to the last person he spoke to.

“You always have that tension between what he said to get elected and what he actually believes,” said John D. Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush. “How selective will his amnesia be?”

Mr. Negroponte, a Republican who supported Hillary Clinton in the campaign, said he could imagine senior members of Mr. Trump’s National Security Council warning him about the dangers of “cutting loose countries from our nuclear umbrella,” which Mr. Trump threatened during the campaign to do in reference to Japan and South Korea.

But there could be a parallel battle for Mr. Trump’s soul in foreign policy. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, a retired career intelligence officer who is Mr. Trump’s closest foreign-policy adviser, is a candidate for national security adviser, according to an internal transition document obtained by the conservative news site The Daily Caller, as is Stephen J. Hadley, who served in that capacity for Mr. Bush.

Mr. Hadley, who might also be considered for defense secretary, pushed Mr. Bush to undertake the troop surge in Iraq and is closely identified with the military interventionism of that administration. A key figure in the Republican foreign-policy establishment, Mr. Hadley had a hand in Mr. Bush’s second inaugural address, in which he called for the United States to be an evangelist in spreading democracy — something Mr. Trump has flatly rejected.

General Flynn, a registered Democrat, has criticized the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration for leading the United States into quagmires like Iraq. “They’ve gotten us into mess after mess for the wrong reasons,” he said, echoing Mr. Trump’s harsh criticism of Mr. Bush during the Republican debates. And like Mr. Trump, General Flynn is withering about the foreign-policy establishment of both parties.

It may seem counterintuitive for Mr. Trump to recruit a Bush administration veteran. But Peter D. Feaver, who worked on President Bush’s national security council and now teaches at Duke University, pointed out that Mr. Obama had campaigned “vociferously against the Iraq surge, and then asked the architect of the surge” — Robert M. Gates — “to stay.” Mr. Gates, as defense secretary, later persuaded Mr. Obama to deploy a similar surge in Afghanistan.

“You can say one thing in campaigns, and mean it,” Mr. Feaver said, “and in personnel matters, do the opposite.”

The contest for top economic posts does not expose the same ideological fault lines as those for the White House or national security jobs. But it does raise red flags, given the anti-establishment, anti-Wall Street sentiment that Mr. Trump stoked during the campaign.

Several of the candidates on his short list for Treasury secretary come from Wall Street, including Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner who was the finance chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, and Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. People close to Mr. Dimon said he was not interested in the job.

Another candidate is a conservative Texas congressman, Jeb Hensarling, who has called for the repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, the banking regulations passed after the financial crisis, during Mr. Obama’s first term.

The least predictable source of influence on Mr. Trump remains Mr. Obama. For all their differences, and the bitter words they flung at each other during the campaign, the two share traits. Both won the presidency as outsiders, and both hold their party’s foreign-policy establishment in contempt.

With Mr. Trump lacking elective-office experience or the political coterie that accompanies establishment candidates to Washington, administration officials said Mr. Obama would probably spend more time with him than was typical for other incoming and outgoing presidents.

And Mr. Trump, some outsiders predicted, would respect the advice of a president 15 years younger, whose path to the White House was nearly as improbable as his.

“If you’re looking at things from a hiring point of view, as Trump does, Obama could have done anything he wanted,” Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University, said in reference to Mr. Obama’s career options. “That has to impress Trump.”

David Duke and most high profile K.K.K. Clansman and former leader endorses Donald Trump. by Abigail Tracy ( Republished with permission of the Author and Vanity Fair in which the article first appeared )

David Duke and most high profile K.K.K. Clansman and former leader endorses Donald Trump. by Abigail Tracy ( Republished with permission of the Author and Vanity Fair in which the article first appeared )

The Republican nominee’s K.K.K. problem isn’t going away. Trump has been asked the question numerous times and still hasn't himself distanced himself from the K.K. K. endorsement.

Donald Trump may not want the support of David Duke, but unfortunately for him, the former Ku Klux Klan leader is giving it. As the Trump campaign battles criticism for its recent, tone-deaf attempts to court black voters and as Republicans desperately fight to maintain control of Congress in a number of key battleground states, the last thing they need is the unrelenting endorsement of the nation’s most prominent white nationalist. But they have it.Trump has and now that he has it is resisting any temptation to walk away from it.

On Sunday, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence condemned Duke’s effusive praise of Trump, after the former klansman said he was “overjoyed” to see the Republican nominee’s campaign “embrace most of the issues that I have championed for years.” In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Pence said Duke’s backing upset him, adding, “We don’t want the support of people who think like David Duke.” and yet again Pence is at odds with his running mate Trump. Trump himself has not yet distanced himself from this huge alt right rolls royce endorsement by the Crusader , the monthly mouthpiece of the K.K.K..

But the former K.K.K. grand wizard was apparently unperturbed by Pence’s disavowal. Instead of distancing himself from the Trump campaign, Duke lent his voice to robocalls that are going out to Louisiana voters, BuzzFeed News reported Monday, urging them to support both his senate bid and Trump for president in November. “Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we’ll be outnumbered and outvoted in our own nation. It’s happening,” Duke says in the robocalls. “Look at the Super Bowl salute to the black Panther cop killers. It’s time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for president and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate.”

The Trump campaign distanced itself from the recording. In a statement to Politico, a spokesperson said: “There is no place for this in the Republican Party or our country. We have knowledge of these calls and related activities, but strongly condemn and disavow.”. The statement however did not come from Trump's headquarters in Trump Towers rather from their little token office in California , A State Hillary Clinton leads by 27% . But Duke’s unsolicited plaudit for Trump comes at an inauspicious time for the campaign. In recent weeks, the Trump campaign has faced a deluge of criticism for its outreach to black voters. Trump’s frank pitch to African-American voters—“What the hell do you have to lose?”—was condemned for relying heavily on stereotypes of the African-American community. Over the weekend, the Republican standard bearer faced a fresh wave of backlash for his use of Dwyane Wade’s cousin’s death in a callous tweet to encourage votes in his favor.

The Trump campaign’s Duke headaches, however, date back well before it decided to ramp up its efforts to reach black voters. The presidential hopeful was slow to disavow the K.K.K. leader’s endorsement of his candidacy earlier this year and still hasn't done so conclusively. And while Trump did later say that he didn’t need Duke’s endorsement, but welcomed all endorsements, the damage was done. Since then, his campaign has struggled to distance itself from Duke and the white-supremacist movement—a battle it is not alone in fighting. The Republican Party of Louisiana is trying to prevent Duke from running as a member of the Party of Lincoln in the future, the Daily Beast reports. “David Duke is a convicted felon and a hate-filled fraud who does not embody the values of the Republican Party,” Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger F. Villere Jr., said in a statement. G.O.P. lawmakers in the state reportedly hope to change Louisiana’s bylaws to prevent convicted felons and individuals with links to hate groups from running for public office.

Duke’s fervent support for Trump, meanwhile, is a boon for Hillary Clinton, whose latest strategy involves linking her Republican opponent to the most hateful voices among his right-wing base. In a speech last week, Clinton excoriated the billionaire for hiring Stephen Bannon, a former Breitbart News executive, as his campaign C.E.O., and accused Trump of “reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.” That same day, the Democratic nominee also released a campaign ad rife with racially charged imagery and a man identified as a klansman explaining why he supports Trump. The Republican’s campaign reacted with outrage, but white nationalists who saw the speech were thrilled to get the recognition. Duke, despite being spurned, is apparently still a Trump supporter, too.

David Duke and most high profile K.K.K. Clansman and former leader endorses Donald Trump. by Abigail Tracy ( Republished with permission of the Author and Vanity Fair in which the article first appeared )

David Duke and most high profile K.K.K. Clansman and former leader endorses Donald Trump. by Abigail Tracy ( Republished with permission of the Author and Vanity Fair in which the article first appeared )

The Republican nominee’s K.K.K. problem isn’t going away. Trump has been asked the question numerous times and still hasn't himself distanced himself from the K.K. K. endorsement.

Donald Trump may not want the support of David Duke, but unfortunately for him, the former Ku Klux Klan leader is giving it. As the Trump campaign battles criticism for its recent, tone-deaf attempts to court black voters and as Republicans desperately fight to maintain control of Congress in a number of key battleground states, the last thing they need is the unrelenting endorsement of the nation’s most prominent white nationalist. But they have it.Trump has and now that he has it is resisting any temptation to walk away from it.

On Sunday, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence condemned Duke’s effusive praise of Trump, after the former klansman said he was “overjoyed” to see the Republican nominee’s campaign “embrace most of the issues that I have championed for years.” In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Pence said Duke’s backing upset him, adding, “We don’t want the support of people who think like David Duke.” and yet again Pence is at odds with his running mate Trump. Trump himself has not yet distanced himself from this huge alt right rolls royce endorsement by the Crusader , the monthly mouthpiece of the K.K.K..

But the former K.K.K. grand wizard was apparently unperturbed by Pence’s disavowal. Instead of distancing himself from the Trump campaign, Duke lent his voice to robocalls that are going out to Louisiana voters, BuzzFeed News reported Monday, urging them to support both his senate bid and Trump for president in November. “Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we’ll be outnumbered and outvoted in our own nation. It’s happening,” Duke says in the robocalls. “Look at the Super Bowl salute to the black Panther cop killers. It’s time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for president and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate.”

The Trump campaign distanced itself from the recording. In a statement to Politico, a spokesperson said: “There is no place for this in the Republican Party or our country. We have knowledge of these calls and related activities, but strongly condemn and disavow.”. The statement however did not come from Trump's headquarters in Trump Towers rather from their little token office in California , A State Hillary Clinton leads by 27% . But Duke’s unsolicited plaudit for Trump comes at an inauspicious time for the campaign. In recent weeks, the Trump campaign has faced a deluge of criticism for its outreach to black voters. Trump’s frank pitch to African-American voters—“What the hell do you have to lose?”—was condemned for relying heavily on stereotypes of the African-American community. Over the weekend, the Republican standard bearer faced a fresh wave of backlash for his use of Dwyane Wade’s cousin’s death in a callous tweet to encourage votes in his favor.

The Trump campaign’s Duke headaches, however, date back well before it decided to ramp up its efforts to reach black voters. The presidential hopeful was slow to disavow the K.K.K. leader’s endorsement of his candidacy earlier this year and still hasn't done so conclusively. And while Trump did later say that he didn’t need Duke’s endorsement, but welcomed all endorsements, the damage was done. Since then, his campaign has struggled to distance itself from Duke and the white-supremacist movement—a battle it is not alone in fighting. The Republican Party of Louisiana is trying to prevent Duke from running as a member of the Party of Lincoln in the future, the Daily Beast reports. “David Duke is a convicted felon and a hate-filled fraud who does not embody the values of the Republican Party,” Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger F. Villere Jr., said in a statement. G.O.P. lawmakers in the state reportedly hope to change Louisiana’s bylaws to prevent convicted felons and individuals with links to hate groups from running for public office.

Duke’s fervent support for Trump, meanwhile, is a boon for Hillary Clinton, whose latest strategy involves linking her Republican opponent to the most hateful voices among his right-wing base. In a speech last week, Clinton excoriated the billionaire for hiring Stephen Bannon, a former Breitbart News executive, as his campaign C.E.O., and accused Trump of “reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.” That same day, the Democratic nominee also released a campaign ad rife with racially charged imagery and a man identified as a klansman explaining why he supports Trump. The Republican’s campaign reacted with outrage, but white nationalists who saw the speech were thrilled to get the recognition. Duke, despite being spurned, is apparently still a Trump supporter, too.

DAVID DUKE MISSED THE MEMO THAT TRUMP DOESN’T WANT HIS SUPPORT by Abigail Tracy ( Republished with permission of the Author and Vanity Fair in which the article first appeared )

The Republican nominee’s K.K.K. problem isn’t going away. Trump has been asked the question numerous times and still hasn't himself distanced himself from the K.K. K. endorsement.

Donald Trump may not want the support of David Duke, but unfortunately for him, the former Ku Klux Klan leader is giving it. As the Trump campaign battles criticism for its recent, tone-deaf attempts to court black voters and as Republicans desperately fight to maintain control of Congress in a number of key battleground states, the last thing they need is the unrelenting endorsement of the nation’s most prominent white nationalist. But they have it.Trump has and now that he has it is resisting any temptation to walk away from it.

On Sunday, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence condemned Duke’s effusive praise of Trump, after the former klansman said he was “overjoyed” to see the Republican nominee’s campaign “embrace most of the issues that I have championed for years.” In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Pence said Duke’s backing upset him, adding, “We don’t want the support of people who think like David Duke.” and yet again Pence is at olds with his running mate Trump. Trump himself has not yet distanced himself from this huge alt right rolls royce endorsement.

But the former K.K.K. grand wizard was apparently unperturbed by Pence’s disavowal. Instead of distancing himself from the Trump campaign, Duke lent his voice to robocalls that are going out to Louisiana voters, BuzzFeed News reported Monday, urging them to support both his senate bid and Trump for president in November. “Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we’ll be outnumbered and outvoted in our own nation. It’s happening,” Duke says in the robocalls. “Look at the Super Bowl salute to the black Panther cop killers. It’s time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for president and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate.”

The Trump campaign distanced itself from the recording. In a statement to Politico, a spokesperson said: “There is no place for this in the Republican Party or our country. We have knowledge of these calls and related activities, but strongly condemn and disavow.”. The statement however did not come from Trump's headquarters in Trump Towers rather from their little token office in California , A State Hillary Clinton leads by 27% . But Duke’s unsolicited plaudit for Trump comes at an inauspicious time for the campaign. In recent weeks, the Trump campaign has faced a deluge of criticism for its outreach to black voters. Trump’s frank pitch to African-American voters—“What the hell do you have to lose?”—was condemned for relying heavily on stereotypes of the African-American community. Over the weekend, the Republican standard bearer faced a fresh wave of backlash for his use of Dwyane Wade’s cousin’s death in a callous tweet to encourage votes in his favor.

The Trump campaign’s Duke headaches, however, date back well before it decided to ramp up its efforts to reach black voters. The presidential hopeful was slow to disavow the K.K.K. leader’s endorsement of his candidacy earlier this year and still hasn't done so conclusively. And while Trump did later say that he didn’t need Duke’s endorsement, but welcomed all endorsements, the damage was done. Since then, his campaign has struggled to distance itself from Duke and the white-supremacist movement—a battle it is not alone in fighting. The Republican Party of Louisiana is trying to prevent Duke from running as a member of the Party of Lincoln in the future, the Daily Beast reports. “David Duke is a convicted felon and a hate-filled fraud who does not embody the values of the Republican Party,” Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger F. Villere Jr., said in a statement. G.O.P. lawmakers in the state reportedly hope to change Louisiana’s bylaws to prevent convicted felons and individuals with links to hate groups from running for public office.

Duke’s fervent support for Trump, meanwhile, is a boon for Hillary Clinton, whose latest strategy involves linking her Republican opponent to the most hateful voices among his right-wing base. In a speech last week, Clinton excoriated the billionaire for hiring Stephen Bannon, a former Breitbart News executive, as his campaign C.E.O., and accused Trump of “reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.” That same day, the Democratic nominee also released a campaign ad rife with racially charged imagery and a man identified as a klansman explaining why he supports Trump. The Republican’s campaign reacted with outrage, but white nationalists who saw the speech were thrilled to get the recognition. Duke, despite being spurned, is apparently still a Trump supporter, too.