U.S. Nazi leader Rocky Suhayda says Trump victory would be "real opportunity."

U.S. Nazi Leader: Trump Win Would Be “Real Opportunity” for “Pro-White” Cause

U.S. Nazi Leader: Trump Win Would Be “Real Opportunity” for “Pro-White” Cause

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Aug. 7 2016 1:16 PM

U.S. Nazi Leader: Trump Win Would Be “Real Opportunity” for “Pro-White” Cause

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Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on May 25, 2016 in Anaheim, California.

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The chairman of the American Nazi Party, Rocky Suhayda, said on his radio show last month that Donald Trump could do wonders for the white nationalist cause. Suhayda said that he expected Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton, which would help the party move forward with its agenda. “Now, if Trump does win, okay, it’s going to be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that, and to go and start—you know how you have the black political caucus and what not in Congress, and, everything, to start building on something like that, okay,” Suhayda said in audio that was first posted by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kacynski. “It doesn’t have to be anti, like the movement’s been for decades, so much as it has to be pro-white.”

Suhayda has avoided publicly commenting on Trump, saying that he was well aware it could hurt the Republican candidate to be associated with him. But last year, the American Nazi leader said that Trump’s statements on the campaign trail made it clear that the Nazi views aren’t really all that unpopular. “We have a wonderful OPPORTUNITY here folks, that may never come again, at the RIGHT time,” he wrote on his website. “Donald Trump’s campaign statements, if nothing else, have SHOWN that ‘our views’ are NOT so ‘unpopular’ as the Political Correctness crowd have told everyone they are!”

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Suhayda is hardly the first white supremacist to express support for Trump’s candidacy. Earlier this year, the Washington Post talked to the national organizer for the Knights Party who said Trump’s candidacy had become a good tool to recruit new members and has energized white supremacists.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who is running for Senate, told NPR this week that he is “100 percent behind” Trump’s agenda. "Donald Trump is not a racist,” Duke said. “And the truth is in this country if you simply defend the heritage of European American people then you're automatically a racist.”

Daniel Politi has been contributing to Slate since 2004 and wrote the Today’s Papers column from 2006 to 2009. Follow him on Twitter.