Today, I heard from this hateful Trump fan, and, unfortunately, my 12-year-old daughter had to hear his racist spew, too (Photo courtesy of Southern Poverty Law Center, which has a long rap sheet on this supposed "farmer").
As a new Iowan (or as new as one can be after returning to the state after 25 years away), I’ve learned not to answer any unknown calls during caucus season. Iowans, as you might imagine, are inundated with calls from pollsters, campaigns, organizations seeking focus group participants, robocalls, etc. to an absolutely maddening degree. One time this week, I forgot, picked up a ringing phone, and spent the next 25 minutes on the line with a Mason-Dixon pollster.
So early this afternoon, when the phone rang just as my daughter and I were preparing to leave the house for a workout at the gym and some errands, we obviously let it go straight to the machine. My daughter was in the kitchen gulping down a quick glass of water while I was putting my hair into a last-minute ponytail in the bathroom. Seconds later, she called out, clearly distressed, “Mom, Mom, get in here and listen to this.” I got to the kitchen just in time to hear someone identifying himself as Jared Taylor of American Renaissance yammering some nonsense about no more Muslims in the U.S. and only allowing “well-educated whites” who could “assimilate” into the country. This was followed by the final line, voiced by the man above: “I am William Johnson, a farmer and a white nationalist. Support Donald Trump. I paid for this through the super PAC.”
My daughter was shaken up and near tears, wondering how or why anyone would be allowed to call homes and vomit out such filth. I comforted her as best I could, while admitting I wondered the same thing. As a former Virginian of many years, I’d heard my share of awful robocalls, but never anything remotely like this. I jotted down a few notes and promised her I’d write it up on Daily Kos later where it would get many eyes, hopefully those of a reporter, who would make Trump’s campaign accountable for inciting such wretched racist garbage to be piped into Iowans’ homes on his behalf.
This comforted my daughter, who believes DK is capable of great things (it is). And now that she’s in bed and I’ve done some research, here is the full text of the robocall:
The American National Super PAC makes this call to support Donald Trump.
‘My name is Reverend Ronald Tan, host of the Christian radio talk show program For God and Country. First Corinthians states: God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise and God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. For the Iowa caucuses, please support Donald Trump. He is courageous and he speaks his mind. God Bless.’
‘I’m Jared Taylor with American Renaissance. I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America. We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.’
‘I am William Johnson, a farmer and a white nationalist. Support Donald Trump. I paid for this through the super PAC. [Telephone] (213) 718-3908. This call is not authorized by Donald Trump.
If you can stomach it, there is the audio, thanks to Talking Points Memo (talkingpointsmemo.com/...) , which seems to have be the only outlet to have picked up the story today. According to them, Johnson and his PAC are “blanketing” the state with this appeal to racists:
The American Freedom Party had issued a press release Friday announcing the launch of the robocall campaign, calling Trump its "Great White Hope."
Jared Taylor also serves as a spokesman for the Council of Conservative Citizens, which was cited in the manifesto written by Charleston shooter Dylann Roof as the group that opened his eyes to what he saw as the scourge of black-on-white crime in America. Roof went on a shooting rampage at a historically black church in June, killing nine parishioners.
As for the pictured William Johnson, who claims credit for the ad, he has quite the write up at the Southern Poverty Law Center (I would link, but have massive troubles with multiple links in DK):
William Daniel Johnson, a Los Angeles corporate lawyer, (NOTE: NOT “A FARMER”) is an uninspiring but determined white separatist. As early as 1985, Johnson proposed a constitutional amendment that would revoke the American citizenship of every nonwhite inhabitant of the United States. A quarter century later, in 2010, he was still actively supporting white nationalist causes, serving as chairman of the racist American Third Position political party (renamed American Freedom Party in 2013), established the prior year. The party wants to run racist candidates nationwide..
Quotes from the aforementioned “Farmer Johnson”:
"No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race. … Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States." — Excerpt from the "Pace Amendment" to the Constitution proposed by Johnson in 1985
"The Third Position insists that it is both healthy and divinely ordained that people should have a genuine love and preference for their own kind." — From a Dec. 31, 2009 video, "An Introduction to the American Third Position"
"One commercial for an upcoming rerun of a Harry Potter movie had Harry Potter kissing a Chinese girl. And of all of the little snippets that they could take out of the movies, why would the networks focus on Harry Potter kissing a Chinese girl? And if you look at all of the reality shows, there was miscegenation in every frame. This is what we're dealing with, this is what we're grappling with." — From a speech to the American Third Position National Conference on June 19, 2010
I really can’t articulate exactly why I wrote this diary other than that this call incensed me beyond belief, all the more so that my daughter heard the whole thing. How can it be that this carnival show barker is inciting actual neo-Nazis and self-professed white nationalists to crawl out from under their rocks to boldly start super PACs and blanket robocall an entire state and no one is calling him out? I was irate all day, and expected to find many, many articles about Trump inspiring such racist spew. I’m happy TPM is on board, but come on networks, major newspapers and 24-hour-cable channels. Wake up and smell the fascist racism!
I may be a newer resident, but I’m with the guy who sent TPM the recording of the same robocall, Dave Dwyer: "I've lived in Iowa a long time and I've never seen anything like this." I want Trump to be tarred and feathered by this, and for no racist to dare ever trying such a broad appeal ever again.
For my daughter.
