Vanderbilt professor says Trump campaign opened doors for white nationalist messages
NASHVILLE, Tenn.--A Vanderbilt University professor says the Donald Trump campaign has "given the white nationalist movement a long-awaited opportunity to spread its message to a national audience.”
Post-doctoral fellow and anthropology lecturer Sophie Bjork-James tracks white nationalist Internet groups ans says there has been a large spike in white supremacist activity on the Internet. Bjork-James believes the spike coincides with Trump's statements on banning Muslims and limiting immigration, but it is not limited to those two groups of people. She says Jewish journalists have also been targeted by white supremacist organizations that are "ratcheting up anti-Semitic language."
Bjork-James supports her research by pointing to a rise in traffic for several websites. The white nationalist site Stormfront has allegedly seen a 30-40% rise in traffic following Trump's statements on Muslims and immigration. A neo-Nazi site called the Daily Stormer has seen a jump of 700,000 views per month. Also included in her research is the conservative website Breitbart.com, which was formerly chaired by Steve Bannon, now the Trump campaign's CEO. Bjork-James says the site has jumped from 32 million views per month last year to 75 million visits per month in September.
