White nationalism and the GOP
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When Donald Trump declined to explicitly condemn white supremacy during the presidential debate last fall, it was the latest in the president’s long pattern of placating white supremacist groups. And during that same debate, Trump told the far-right Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” — which quickly became the group’s new slogan.
White supremacists led the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, after being incited by Trump. In 2017, when a white supremacist rally turned violent in Charlottesville, Va., Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies found that attacks by far-right groups more than quadrupled between 2016 and 2017. But many experts say the seeds of white supremacy in the GOP were planted long before Trump — and some of it can be tied back to white Christians, a large base within the Republican Party.
Friday, host Kerri Miller talked with two experts in white supremacy within the GOP. How did it get this bad, and is it possible to extricate the two?
Guests:
Robert P. Jones is founder of the Public Religion Research Institute and the author of “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity”
Simon Clark is a senior resident at the Center for American Progress studying far-right extremism and white supremacy.
To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.
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