DeSantis Pushes White Supremacy, Vance Promotes Prophesy And Trump Plans A Day Of Sanctioned Rage
As usual, trump is getting all of the ink and the clicks, but his one-time adversary, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., is using his time under the radar to extend his far right agenda including promoting a far right, white supremacist, immigration opponent.
As the most crucial election day in U.S. history nears, trump’s rhetoric is getting ever darker and apocalyptic as he and his campaign turn to right wing evangelicals and far right commentators.
New College in Sarasota, Fla., was founded in 1960 as a private college for academically talented students. The one-time well known liberal institution was transformed by DeSantis into a bastion of right wing education. The college has invited Steve Sailer, an extremist writer, white supremacist and a leading proponent of “scientific racism” also referred to as the debunked theory of eugenics, to speak at a forum on October 8.
New College was in the eye of the hurricane of right wing opposition to the instruction of gender subjects related to the LGBTQ community and to instruction on critical race theory. New College has the smallest student enrollment in the State University System of Florida with 689 students as of 2022.
In January 2023, DeSantis vowed to transform the college known for liberal values into a conservative institution. DeSantis installed a new board of trustees, including Christopher Rufo, a right wing commentator who has led the movement in Florida and elsewhere to keep schools from teaching that racism is endemic throughout the society, a study known as critical race theory. Rufo also has opposed teachers discussing LGBTQ issues in schools, claiming that public schools are often “hunting grounds for sexual predators.”
Last month, following the debunked claims of Haitians eating cats, Rufo alleged that African migrants were eating cats in Dayton, Ohio, based on an August 2023 video of skinned animals being grilled. The animals resembled chickens and police said there was nothing “to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets.”
The board then appointed DeSantis’s “close ally,” Richard Corcoran, the state’s former education commissioner, as the new college president, at a salary of $699,000, a $400,000 raise over Corcoran’s predecessor, Patricia Okker.
DeSantis’s allies have abolished what they consider to be liberal disciplines, they have removed bathroom signage to provoke transgender people and have denied tenure to professors deemed to be liberal. The actions have led to the departure of more than a third of the faculty and given rise to various legal challenges.
In August 2024, the college eliminated hundreds of books from its library and now-defunct Gender and Diversity Center. After the action, Rufo tweeted, “We abolished the gender studies program. Now we’re taking out the trash.”
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, trump’s running mate, has pledged to follow DeSantis’s lead and to “aggressively attack the universities in this country.”
Sailer, 65, of California, is a far right author, blogger and columnist for Taki’s Magazine and VDARE, a website associated with white supremacy. Taki’s Magazine has published articles by far-right figures such as Gavin McInnes and the white supremacist Jared Taylor; the white supremacist Richard Spencer was an early Taki’s editor. Taki’s received criticism for publishing articles in support of the Greek neo-Nazi political party Golden Dawn.
VDARE promotes opposition to immigration to the United States and is associated with white supremacy, white nationalism and the alt-right. Established in 1999, the website’s editor is Peter Brimelow, who once said that “whites built American culture” and that “it is at risk from non-whites who would seek to change it.”
Sailer has been described as a white supremacist by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Columbia Journalism Review. His writings have been cited by white supremacists on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront.
Sailer popularized the term “human biodiversity” in the 1990s. The phrase is a euphemism for scientific racism also referred to as biological racism, a pseudoscientific belief that humanity is divided into biologically, distinct races and that empirical evidence justified racial discrimination, racial inferiority or racial superiority. Discussions of human biodiversity on Sailer’s blog generally end up with the conclusion that white people are inherently smarter than black people.
In writing for VDARE, Sailer described black people as tending “to possess poorer native judgment than members of better educated groups” and thus need stricter moral guidance from society. In a 2005 column, Sailer wrote that “African-Americans … tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society.”
Human biodiversity has been promoted by Milo Yiannopoulos, a far right commentator who has been accused of advocating for pedophilia. In 2022, Yiannopoulos was as an intern for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. He later worked with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West on West’s brief U.S. presidential election campaign. Human biodiversity also has influenced Stephen Miller, a close political advisor to trump and the chief architect of trump’s appalling immigration policies during his first term.
In demonizing immigration, Sailer popularized the term “invade the world, invite the world,” a term Saile used to mock U.S. foreign policy which is built around military intervention abroad and large scale immigration at home.
Sailer has promoted a philosophy he has labeled “citizenism,” arguing that nations should give overwhelming preference to the interests of its current citizens over foreigners. Sailer has said his philosophy of putting “Americans First,” would require a huge reduction in immigration levels. Again, the parallels with trump are clear. Critics have said that citizenism is a clandestine form of white nationalism.
Sailer coined the “Sailer Strategy,” which was similar to the approach used by trump in the 2016 presidential election to win support from rural white voters. In what seems to be a direct quote from a trump playbook, Sailer proposed that Republican candidates gain political support by appealing to working-class white workers with right-wing nationalist and economic populist positions. He suggested that Republicans support economic protectionism, identity politics, and express opposition to immigration, among other issues.
Sailer has been featured as a guest on The Political Cesspool, a far-right radio program which has been widely criticized for promoting anti-Semitism and white supremacy.
Sailer was the founder of an online electronic mailing list called Human Biodiversity Discussion Group which was connected with the euphemistically termed, Human Biodiversity Institute, that Sailer formed in the late 1990s. The institute is a far-right group of scientists, academics, and others associated with pseudoscientific race theories and neo-eugenics.
In an August 2003 article, Sailer characterized homosexuality as a “disease” that may be eliminated by parents in the future. Gregory Cochran, a member of the Human Bidiversity Institute, suggested that homosexuality may be caused by a gay germ. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Sailer has portrayed homosexuality as something that might possibly be “cured.”
DeSantis’s ongoing embrace of the far right is part of a strain of extremism that is becoming increasingly influential in the GOP with its strident, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, its goal to transform the government into a Christian theocracy and to stop immigration from overwhelming the nation’s white population.
Last week, trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, spoke in Monroeville, Pa., at the “Courage Tour,” a traveling neo-Charismatic Christian revival led by Christian nationalist preacher, Lance Wallnau. The tour features prophets and charismatic preachers promoting trump and MAGA. This year, the tour performed at 19 counties in nine states and focused on political mobilization within a spiritual warfare context.
Wallnau is a leader of the New Apostolic Reformation, an evangelical movement that believes in miracles, the supernatural and the existence of modern-day apostles and prophets who have the power to heal.
Walnau is a self-appointed “apostle” who thinks trump is destined to save America from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who Walnau claims was sent by the devil to “take Trump out.” The evangelical pastor has said that Harris is immoral in the “spirit of Jezebel” and that she used “witchcraft” during the televised debate with Trump.
Wallnau helped organize evangelical trump supporters in the “stop the steal” movement that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election in trump’s favor. He was scheduled to speak at the Jan. 6, 2021 rally preceding the violent storming of the Capitol by trump supporters. Wallnau claimed that the election was stolen from trump and that “Jan. 6 was not an insurrection. It was an election fraud intervention.”
Wallnau said trump will help reconstruct the nation and prevent cultural collapse, bringing about the apostolic reformation, rechristianization, and stability to other countries with the help of “anointed” Christians.
A longtime opponent of LGBTQ rights, Wallnau has referred to queer activists as the “trans Taliban.” He also has claimed that reformed “hookers” found God and then turned a gay man straight by having him take a bite of an “anointed cake.”
Wallnau has said that trump has been chosen by god and “is meant to be an Isaiah 45 Cyrus,” who will “restore the crumbling walls that separate us from cultural collapse.” The reference is to biblical, non-Jew King Cyrus, described in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 45, who freed the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BCE.
Wallnau has a television program on Daystar Television Network,The Lance Wallnau Show, and a podcast. He is a frequent guest on Kenneth Copeland’s prophecy program FlashPoint.
And while DeSantis is cheering far right, white supremacists and Vance is standing with evangelicals who think trump is sent by God, trump has been repeating his plan to prevent Armageddon.
Trump told supporters at a rally on Sept. 22 in Erie, Pa., that “the police aren’t allowed to do their job” and that crime could be stopped with “one really violent day. One rough hour and I mean real rough, the word would get out and it would end immediately. End immediately. You know? It will end immediately.”
Apparently trump has been watching too much of “The Purge,” a TV series based on a dystopian United States ruled by a totalitarian government that sanctions a 12-hour period which legalizes all crimes, including vandalism, theft, arson, and murder.
Trump’s ongoing efforts to vilify Democrats and terrify Americans into voting for him have ignored the fact that crime has gone down significantly in major urban areas. That didn’t deter trump from blaming his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris and the “liberal left” for crime.
Trump said shoplifting would quickly evaporate and order could be restored in the nation’s big cities if police were allowed to get “extraordinarily rough” with criminals for a single day. Also, with no substantiation, trump said police “aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told if you do anything, you’re going to lose your pension. You’re going to lose your family, your house, your car.”
One of his false, common talking points is that, while she was California attorney general, Harris supported legislation to decriminalize shoplifting. Trump was referring to Proposition 47, a ballot initiative passed in California in 2014 following a 2011Supreme Court ruling in 2011 that ordered California to reduce overcrowding in its state prisons.
Harris was not involved in drafting the law or passing it, and she was neutral on the initiative throughout the process. As California’s attorney general when the proposal took effect, Harris helped to write the finalized title and summary, and she verified that the proposition met the number of signatures required to be added to the ballot.
Under previously California state law, shoplifting goods worth up to $950 was often charged as a misdemeanor. In some cases, the crimes were also charged as burglaries, which could be a felony. But in an effort to meet the High Court order, under Proposition 47, shoplifters with prior serious or violent convictions would face county jail rather than state prison sentences. People convicted of misdemeanor shoplifting can still face up to six months in jail and fines up to $1,000.
More than half of all states have higher thresholds than California, including the Republican states of Arkansas, Nebraska and Texas, which have lower thresholds of $2,500 worth of stolen goods to warrant misdemeanor charges. Unlike California, other states also allow prosecutors to charge repeat lower-level offenders with felonies.
Trump blamed Harris in several reports of so-called flash robberies where groups of people enter stores, rob merchandise and quickly leave. In one event, a “mob of criminals” stole more than $300,000 worth of merchandise from the Westfield Topanga Shopping Center in Los Angeles. More than 30 people entered a Nordstrom store at once and grabbed merchandise from displays near the entrance shortly after 4 p.m. before fleeing.
A similar scene unfolded in nearby Glendale, where thieves stole $300,000 worth of property in a “bold, flash mob burglary” at an Yves Saint Laurent store.
“You know, she (Harris) created something in San Francisco, $950, you’re allowed to steal. Anything above that. You will be prosecuted,” trump said. “Well, it works out that the 950 is a misnomer because you can steal whatever you want. You can go way above, but you’d see it. Originally you saw kids walk in with calculators. They would calculate. They didn’t want to go over the $950 they’re standing with calculators, adding it up.”