The good news for Republicans is that Donald Trump has lots of admirers who want to make sure the Republican National Convention goes off without a hitch. The bad news is that those admirers are literal white supremacists and skinheads.
Traditionalist Worker Party spokesman Matt Parrott told McClatchy on Monday that about 30 members of his group, which held a rally at the California state capitol over the weekend where at least five people were stabbed, will head to the convention to “make sure that the Donald Trump supporters are defended from the leftist thugs.”
That was the thinking behind Sunday's rally in Sacramento, which was organized along with the Golden State Skinheads: to publicize what they see as acts of aggression against Trump supporters. The rally dissolved into chaos [...]
For those keeping score, the "Traditionalist Worker Party" is a white supremacist group (anti-Semitic, anti-black, and the usual flaming bag o' beliefs) tracked as hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and one that has already featured in previous Trump rally clashes—because what can we say, white supremacist groups are just that keen on helping Donald Trump win the presidency. (When you've spent your life pouting that you were born too late to help Hitler, you tend to be hard up for role models. So Trump it is, apparently.)
For bonus points, note that TWP founder Matthew Heimbach, the white nationalist involved in that previous Trump rally incident, also previously helped out the conservative cause by helping to disrupt a conservative conference panel on how not to be a racist asshole. Oh, and he's barred from the United Kingdom for the being-a-racist-asshole part. Your new conservative movement, America! They’ve been building toward this moment for years!
So let's see. The Trump campaign tapped the leader of one white supremacist group as an actual delegate. Meanwhile, the leaders of another promise their own white supremacists will be lending a hand as an impromptu pro-Trump security force, and the most public figure of that particular group appears to be magnetically attracted to accidental violence. And all of this is happening as a nontrivial chunk of the rest of the party works behind the scenes to deny Trump the nomination, no matter what Trump supporters might think.
Yeah, that all should work out fine.