Consider the case of Frank Gaffney, a far-right provocateur who alleges a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy in the Obama administration, who warns of “creeping Sharia,” referring to Islamic law, and who has played footsie with white supremacy. Respectable conservatives long ago abandoned Gaffney, but Trump Made Gaffney Safe Again.
Trump (joined by Cruz) appeared at a rally Gaffney organized in September. And, in his announcement that he would bar Muslims from immigrating, Trump cited a poll from Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy allegedly showing that 25 percent of Muslim Americans believe “violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad,” and 51 percent think Muslim Americans “should have the choice of being governed according to Sharia.”
The poll was garbage, an online opt-in survey of no statistical value. But after Trump embraced Gaffney in such a visible way, it didn’t cause much of a stir when Gaffney hosted a forum in Las Vegas before the GOP presidential debate there, and four Republican candidates participated: Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum and Cruz. “Frank is a patriot,” Cruz said in his remarks to Gaffney’s group. “He loves this country and he is clear-eyed about the incredible threat of radical Islamic terrorism.”
Racist views
Here’s what else he is:
In September, Gaffney hosted on his radio show Jared Taylor, a well-known white nationalist. On the show, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Gaffney told Taylor he “appreciated tremendously” the work Taylor does at his “wonderful” racist magazine and website, American Renaissance. Taylor has, among other things, described black people as “deviant” and “pathological.” He has encouraged white people to revive their “instinctive preference for their own people and culture” and has written that “when blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.”
