White Power Candidates Make 2012 Power Grab

Published on July 20th, 2011
Written by Public Record Finder Staff

A growing list of candidates affiliated with the white-power movement plan to seek office in 2012. Many of these candidates prefer the terms "racial realist" or "white nationalist" to the term "white supremacist" and believe that they are representing what they call "white civil rights." Both current and former Neo-Nazis, Klu Klux Klan members, and Neo-Confederates point to the massive public debt, rising unemployment, a large illegal immigration problem, and four years with an African-American president as the reason for their need to step up and take charge. These candidates are seeking both small and large offices, including a GOP Presidential nomination bid from David Duke, one of the most famous white-power advocates in America.

When David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan and member of the Louisiana House of Representatives until 2000, ran for governor of Louisiana in the 1990s he garnered almost 40 percent of the vote. Now in his bid for the presidential nomination, he plans to launch a tour of 25 states and has already produced several viral online videos (although many of the views are undoubtedly from opponents).

Jeff Hall, an open neo-Nazi in his hometown of Riverside, California, earned almost 30 percent of his community's vote in his election for a water board position before he was murdered by his 10-year-old son in a bizarre crime.

Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, speculates that the spike in white-supremacist candidates could have been caused by the landmark election in 2008, when the first African-American President in U.S. history was elected amidst massive economic turmoil. The response from white-power candidates was outrage, a possible cause pushing them to seek office.

Though few of the candidates in the recent surge will actually get elected to office, they indicate the growing prevalence of white-supremacist views. As more office-hopefuls come forward with election bids, the media is having a field day exploiting their extremist views and the details of their lives, using public records to seek out any indiscretion.

According to the United Klans of Tennessee and a chapter of the Neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in Tennessee, the best way to place white-power candidates into office is by hiding their affiliations with the supremacist movements. These are mayors, county commissioners, and other political officers who "have hair, no ink, no piercings" as Brian Culpepper, a NSM leader says.

Fear, and not outrage, could be another motivator. John Abarr, a former organizer for the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, has his sights set on Montana's lone U.S. House seat. He has stated, "White people need to wake up to the fact that we're becoming a minority in our country." Fear of becoming a minority in their country for the first time (Obama's election coincided with a surge in U.S. children born to minorities -- 48 percent in 2008 compared to 37 percent in 1990) motivates many of these candidates. Only time will tell if their fear and their extremist views will affect the entire nation.