Donald Trump Missed the Deadline to Dump White Nationalist From His Delegate List
The Donald Trump campaign formalized its association with America’s Stormfront posters yesterday when it named William Johnson, a well-known and avowed white nationalist, as one of its delegates in California. (The campaign attributed Johnson’s selection to a database error, but that seems unlikely.) Now, as Trump’s people continue to backpedal, the Huffington Post reports that they’ve missed the formal deadline to boot Johnson from the list.
According to a spokesperson for the California secretary of state, the deadline for candidates to revise their lists of candidates in the state was yesterday. The Trump campaign attempted to remove Johnson after Mother Jones broke the story yesterday, the spokesperson said, but was turned down because of the deadline.
Johnson first attracted the notice of those of us who are unconcerned about securing a future for white children a few months ago, when his explicitly pro-white American National Super PAC made explicitly pro-white robocalls to primary voters on Trump’s behalf. “I can be a white nationalist and be a strong supporter of Donald Trump and be a good example to everybody,” Johnson told Mother Jones after he learned that the campaign had chosen him as an official representative.
Sadly, Trump may still have a way out. Johnson has said that he will resign as delegate if they ask him to, and according to a California Republican Party spokesperson who talked to HuffPo, in that case Trump would be able to pick someone else. But even if Johnson’s official ties to the campaign are severed, his spirit will live on. The ideas that made Trump appeal to people like him in the first place aren’t going anywhere.
