America's white nationalists have spoken, and they've spoken loud and clear: Donald Trump is their presidential candidate of choice.
From former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke on down, the proudly racist fringe of the American electorate supports Trump. For his part, the candidate is not welcoming their support.
"I don't need his endorsement," Trump told Bloomberg TV of Duke's praise. "I certainly wouldn't want his endorsement. I don't need anybody's endorsement."
Although he also told Bloomberg on Wednesday that he didn't know anything about Duke, in 2000, Trump even cited Duke as a reason he would not run as the Reform Party candidate. "The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani," he said at the time. "This is not company I wish to keep."
But, regardless of what Trump wants, at least eight top figures in the marginalized white nationalist movement said — in recent posts, podcasts, and interviews with BuzzFeed News — that they want Trump.
Visitors to the website for the Council of Conservative Citizens — a white nationalist group cited by Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof — will find a steady stream of pro-Trump articles. "Trump Surge Continues," "Jorge Ramos Deported From Trump Press Conference," "Trump's Nationalist Coalition," reads the front page of the site.
Earl Holt, the president of the organization, declined to comment on Trump.
But Jared Taylor, who runs the site American Renaissance — which argues that "one of the most destructive myths of modern times is that people of all races have the same average intelligence" — is an avid supporter of The Donald.
In a recent post, Taylor contended, "If Mr. Trump loses, this could be the last chance whites have to vote for a president who could actually do something useful for them and for their country."
In an interview on Wednesday with BuzzFeed News, Taylor further explained that his support for Trump was based on his desire for whites to remain the majority racial group in the United States.
"Why should whites want to be a minority?" he said. "Answer me that question. Why should we want to celebrate diversity when celebrating diversity means celebrating our dwindling numbers and influence? And to the extent that Trump succeeds in putting the brakes on immigration, he will also be succeeding at reducing the speed with which whites are reduced to a minority."
He added that this was the way "frankly that all whites feel, we just never dare say so."
Brad Griffin, who writes under the pseudonym Hunter Wallace for the white nationalist blog Occidental Dissent ("We don't want to see our peoples be submerged"), said in an interview that he supports Trump for other reasons. In addition to his staunch opposition to immigration, he also noted the candidate's positions on "trade, political correctness, and campaign finance."
"I like the fact that he's funny," Griffin added.
Peter Brimelow, the founder of the extreme anti-immigration Vdare.com, agrees.
"He just shoots from the hip but his hip seems to move in a very good direction," he said on a recent podcast.
"They are stunning," Brimelow said of Trump's immigration proposals. "They were stunning."
"In the Meet the Press interview he gave, just flat-out said they have to go. And he doesn't say that in his actual position paper, but of course it's good news and of course he's right they should go," Brimelow said later. "All of them."
The immigration plan is a particular winner with the white nationalists. In a weekly report last week, Rocky J. Suhayda, chair of the American Nazi Party, similarly praised Trump's immigration policy and attitude.
"Americans of ALL races are FED UP with this ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION — so he says that he'll BUILD a WALL to keep them out! CHEERS! He states that "Political Correctness" is disgusting and it's time to STOP IT! More CHEERS! He DARES to turn his guns on the paid morons of the system controlled MEDIA! And regular folks LOVE it," he wrote.
On a recent podcast, Stormfront radio co-host Don Advo affirmed Ann Coulter's description of Trump's immigration plan as "the greatest political document since the Magna Carta" — though he noted that was "a little bit of an exaggeration, but not very much of one."
Trump's critics, Advo said, are people "living on the pieces of silver that they get from their Jewish paymasters so that they can preside over our extermination, our disposition, and our ultimate disappearance from the face of the earth."
Advo's anti-Semitic language was in reference to conservative commentators like Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, and David Brooks.
On his podcast, Richard B. Spencer, the president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, said while what Trump is saying isn't that different from other Republicans, Trump's passion "inspired" him.
"Trump says things, says these in a way — mundane things — with such gusto, with such visceral energy and toughness, that's why he's gotten under the skin of his critics and that's why he's kind of inspired people like me is because he gives us the impression that he gets it maybe on a visceral level and maybe not on an intellectual or policy level," Spencer said.
This mirrors the comments of Advo, who believes that whether or not Trump wins, his campaign is "gonna give people the ability to come openly out of the shadows and really work very hard for something that will have a lasting effect."
"This anger, this fire, is not going to go away," he said. "It's not going to go away at all. And that has not been noticed by the neocons — or perhaps we should them neo-Cohens — in the Republican Party."
Sentiments like those are not uncommon among white nationalist Trump defenders.
Andrew Anglin, who edits the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, wrote an article on Wednesday contending that New Yorker writer Evan Osnos' recent story on white nationalist support for Trump was a product of the author being a "super-Jew."
"The Jew activism against Trump is just beginning," Anglin wrote. "Osnos' piece has set a narrative that people who support The Donald are 'neo-Nazis' and the rest of the Jew media is already running with it. Huffington Post just did a piece on it, and I've gotten three emails from newspapers plus one from CNN asking for comments on Trump."
Anglin clarified on Wednesday via email what he meant by "Jew activism against Trump," suggesting that BuzzFeed News was involved in this conspiracy, in spite of Trump framing himself, "for decades, as a proponent of the Jewish people."
"Although it is a bit ridiculous for me to explain what I mean by 'Jew activism' to a BuzzFeed reporter," Anglin wrote, "what I refer to is the Jewish-controlled media outlets and political groups which act in concert to push what can only be, in objective terms, viewed as a collective ethnic agenda."
He continued, "Aside from lobbying for unlimited money and weapons to be sent to Israel forever, lobbying for unlimited mass non-white immigration has for decades been at the core of Jewish political activism. All of these Jewish groups are entirely obsessed with flooding America with brown people.
"As such, I don't think Trump's repeatedly stated support for Israel is going to mean much to these aggressive ethnic activists, and they will instead throw their massive political and media clout behind trying to thwart him."
Yet there is also some doubt within the white nationalist ranks regarding whether Trump will be effective and whether he is sincere.
Asked about a comment Trump made Tuesday on the Simon Conway Show — "We have to bring the people out," but that it would be "very warm and humane" — Taylor, the American Renaissance editor, said, "If he does it in a warm and humane way, then he will ensure that practically no one actually self-deports. So I think that's a stupid idea and a very ineffective one."
Taylor has previously argued that an effective strategy of encouraging self-deportation would be to broadcast "television images of Mexican families dropped over the border with no more than they could carry."
In the same vein, Griffin, the Occidental Dissent blogger, said, "It troubles me that he wants to deport all the illegal aliens and then let them back."
After having called himself a supporter earlier in the conversation, Griffin added, "I'm not really supporting him at the moment. I'm kind of leaning toward it."
On his podcast, Don Black, a former KKK grand dragon who runs the popular white nationalist Stormfront.org, said he was skeptical of Trump. "He's by no means our savior," Black said of Trump's policy ideas on immigration, but added that he would "take what I can get for now."
By the same token, Taylor says he will remain behind Trump regardless of his doubts, because he's "the best of a very sorry lot."
And when asked whom he would support if something happened to Trump's campaign, Taylor would not answer.
"I realize that the purpose of your article is to discredit Donald Trump by, 'Look at these wicked horrible people who support him,'" he said, "so I don't think I would give you any ammunition against any other candidate."