Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist

by Eli Saslow

For all of Don’s life, theirs had been an insurgent movement, explicitly condemned by nearly every establishment politician as a basic requirement of electability, but now it felt as if they had covert allies in surprising places. A few weeks earlier, the Supreme Court had voted 5 to 4 to overturn a key part of the Voting Rights Act, allowing for a new wave of voting restrictions throughout the South and effectively erasing one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s signature achievements on the fiftieth anniversary of his March on Washington. The resurgent Tea Party Caucus had stalled Obama’s attempts at immigration reform by relying on nativist talking points. Alabama congressman Mo Brooks had gone on Laura Ingraham’s radio show to echo the idea of white genocide by warning constituents of the “war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party.” Iowa representative Steve King had become one of the most powerful Republican voices against immigration, and he used his platform to peddle misinformation and anti-immigrant stereotypes. “For every one immigrant who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert,” King said. He also told voters that America could not restore the country to greatness with “somebody else’s babies.”