Energized white supremacists cheer Trump convention message
CLEVELAND (AP) — They don't like to be called white supremacists.
The well-dressed men who gathered in Cleveland's Ritz-Carlton bar after Donald Trump's speech accepting the Republican nomination for president prefer the term "Europeanists," ''alt-right," or even "white nationalists." They are also die-hard Trump supporters.
And far from hiding in chat rooms or under white sheets, they cheered the GOP presidential nominee from inside the Republican National Convention over the last week. While not official delegates, they nevertheless obtained credentials to attend the party's highest-profile quadrennial gathering.
Seizing on that energy, former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke on Friday announced a bid for the Senate. The Louisiana Republican likened his policies on trade and immigration to Trump's in an announcement video.
"I'm overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues that I've championed for years," Duke said. "My slogan remains 'America First.'"
"America First" was first used in 1940 by the America First Committee, a short-lived isolationist faction that formed to pressure the U.S. government not to join the Allies' war against Germany.
Trump referred to "America First" repeatedly in his convention speech Thursday night, highlighting people murdered by immigrants in the country illegally and warning of rising inner-city crime. Earlier in the week, a convention screen displayed a tweet with the hashtag "#TrumpIsWithYou" from a self-described member of the alt-right, one of the thousands of tweets promoted over the course of the week.
"Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens," Trump charged in his speech.
