Survey says a not insignificant subgroup of Americans think neo-Nazi and white supremacist views are acceptable

Source:  Washington Post-ABC News poll

Poll shows clear disapproval of how Trump responded to Charlottesville violence.  (Washington Post, 8/21/2017)

Related reading:
Fighting White Supremacy Means Owning Up to American History.  (The Nation, 8/14/2017)

The justification of white supremacy has often rested on a veneer of civility. Blatant and unabashed white supremacist language has rarely been used to uphold slavery. Instead, America’s putrid racism has often been cloaked by depictions intended to make it seem respectable. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Southern slaveholders said the Bible compelled them to hold slaves—that, in fact, civilizing black people was a good Christian way of “liberating” them from savagery. “Christians across the Confederacy were convinced that they were called not only to perpetuate slavery but also to ‘perfect’ it. And they understood the Bible to provide clear moral guidelines on how to properly practice it,” wrote Thom Bassett in The New York Times.  

During the civil-rights movement, segregationists used the country’s history as a reason for preserving racism. “This nation was never meant to be a unit of one…but a united of the many,” aid George Wallace in his famous 1963 “Segregation Forever” speech. “That is the exact reason our freedom loving forefathers established the states, so as to divide the rights and powers among the states, insuring that no central power could gain master government control.”