President Obama: Visual Aid for Hate Groups?

Prior to the November election, in October of 2008, I remember listening to radio (NPR) show that was discussing the new, more "evolved" "progressive" white supremacists, who planned to vote for President-elect Obama. Of course, my first reaction was disbelief until I heard the reason why they - Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, the National Socialist Movement, the Creativity Movement, the National Alliance, American White Knights, and some skinhead groups - planned on voting for Obama, and it made perfect sense.

You see, according to Ben Klassen, founder of the Creativity Movement, and author of several books espousing the white supremacist philosophy that states "the natural destiny of the White Race is to rule the world and thus fulfill the purpose of the universe", an African American president fits right into their overall vision, as he will provide the spark for the "all-out war with the 'mud races' (people of color, homosexuals, Jews, most Christians, especially Catholics, and White "race traitors").

Candidacy Fits Into Ideology

Part of the problem is that Obama is playing into the neo-Nazi and white supremacist narrative, said Brian Levin, who studies hate and extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

What the groups were saying — "Jews and blacks coming out of the urban areas are going to take over this white nation of ours" — has occurred, he said.

You only have to look to the Internet to see how white supremacist leaders such as David Duke are using Obama to rally their troops. Duke has called Obama a "visual aid for hate groups."

He says an Obama presidency would provide indisputable proof that whites have lost control of America.

"This is a cultural and racial battlefront," said Levin. "Barack Obama is symbol No. 1 of the worst the future has to offer."

While Obama may be an easy focus of discussion for haters, he hasn't unified them. In fact, in many ways, he has managed to divide the movement.

Catalyst For A Race War

Tim Zaal, a former white supremacist from Los Angeles, says the split Obama has created is almost generational — between old-school Ku Klux Klan types who are viscerally against a black man running for president and a new wave of haters.

"You have the more — kind-of strange to say it — progressive white attitude: The worse it gets, the better," said Zaal.

Zaal says the new generation is particularly focused on what they see as the coming race war. They have been trying to spark one for years. Some think, even hope, that an Obama presidency will do just that.

Zaal says some will actually vote for Obama to send the country into a tailspin. "The faster this country falls, the sooner white revolution will arise," he said.

That mindset is all over the neo-Nazi Web sites. On one, a man with the pen name "LastOfMyKind" wrote, "Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites."

This is what worries the police and the FBI.

Fast forward to April 7, 2009 and the Department of Homeland Security is reporting that "right-wing extremists in the United States are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the first black U.S. president."