1. This article by @liamstack on neo-Nazi Art Jones running for Congress in Illinois raises an interesting question: Why (and how) do white supremacists run for public office?
"He’s a Nazi, Republicans Warn, but He’s Their Likely Nominee for Congress"
nyti.ms/2BKqD7g
"He’s a Nazi, Republicans Warn, but He’s Their Likely Nominee for Congress"
nyti.ms/2BKqD7g
2. After all, Art Jones--who would be running against a "safe" Democratic incumbent--has no chance of actually winning the election. So why run? Over the years, I have observed that white supremacists tend to run for office in four main ways, each with their own sets of goals.
3. The first strategy is to run for a position on a major party ticket as an open white supremacist. Only rarely--imagine David Duke in LA decades ago--do they ever have a shot at winning. However, doing so can still get an extremist lots of free publicity & controversy, plus
4. false legitimacy. Often, as in the case of Jones in 2016 & 2018, they will seek to run in a primary against a "safe" incumbent (Republican or Democrat) if there are no other primary contenders or only equally obscure ones. In such instances, they can sometimes become the
5. official major party nominee, much to the dismay of that party. On some occasions (Glenn Miller in MO, Jim Condit Jr in Ohio), their main goal in running is to be able to place racist/anti-Semitic radio spots, claiming radio stations can't deny them bc they are candidates.
6. A second option is for a white supremacist to run as an open white supremacist with a third party or as an independent candidate. Here, they hope to get at least some scraps of publicity (some media will have features on all candidates, even obscure ones, for ex.), but they
7. can also hope to raise their own stature or that of their group within the white supremacist movement itself. White supremacist groups do this often, fielding their own "candidates," or occasionally trying to run as libertarians, natural law party, etc.
8. A third strategy is to run as a "stealth" candidate, not being open about one's white supremacist views, or at least downplaying them (Paul Nehlen in 2016 may be an example of this). The higher profile the office they run for, however, the greater the chance their true
9. nature will be exposed, dooming any chance they had. The final strategy I've observed is for white supremacists to run for very obscure or low level public offices (mosquito control board, for example) or even party office (county GOP committee, for example). Here the hope
10. is that there will be so very few people actually voting for this particular office that the extremist may have a chance to actually get in. Occasionally this actually happens. Here the goals (aside from hope for victory) are to obtain false legitimacy and to raise one's
11. stature within the white supremacist movement. Thus even when they have no realistic chance of winning an election, white supremacists can often have reasons of their own for trying--even though they hate the system they are running in.
