A letter that 169 congressional Democrats sent Wednesday to President-elect Donald Trump calls on him to fire Steve Bannon, his former campaign CEO who he recently appointed to be his chief strategist and senior advisor in the White House. The letter, spearheaded by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and signed by a vast majority of congressional Democrats, cites Bannon’s claim in July that Breitbart News had become “the platform of the alt-right” and says his “ties to the White Nationalist movement” make him unfit to be the President-elect’s top advisor. 169 Congressional Democrats Call On Trump To Fire Bannon, by Matt Shuham, TalkingPointsMemo, November 16, 2016

169 Congressional Democrats have sent a letter attacking Steve Bannon's appointment as Trump's chief advisor—and smearing VDARE.com editor Peter Brimelow as a "White Supremacist", apparently on the word of the SPLC. (For the record, VDARE.com is not White Supremacist, or even, really, "White Nationalist." The Congressional Democrats who have signed this include Peter Brimelow's own Congresswoman, Elizabeth Esty of the 5th District of Connecticut. ( Email her—especially if you, too, live in the 5th District of Connecticut.)

Here's the smear:

“Disturbingly, leading white supremacists like former KKK Grand Dragon David Duke, American Nazi Party Chairman Rocky J. Suhadya, Richard Spencer, Peter Brimelow, and Brad Griffin have praised the news of Mr. Bannon’s appointment,” the letter reads. “We believe it should concern you that civil rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, are widely opposed to Mr. Bannon’s appointment.”

I had actually never heard of the guy who's head of the American Nazi Party (which is almost nonexistent, of course) and and David Duke is still in the public eye only because he's useful as a foil for people like the ADL, SPLC, and of course, these Congresspersons.

But Peter Brimelow is a journalist and intellectual, and Richard Spencer runs a think tank called the National Policy Institute. (Brad Griffin is Hunter Wallace of Occidental Dissent—I don't know why they don't use that name.)

All of this is what I've had occasion to call Guilt By Association with no association.

In Peter Brimelow’s Alien Nation, you can read about a Raoul Lowery Contreras attack on a George Will column [A 'Nation of Immigrants' no More, July 29, 1993] which had quoted Peter Brimelow to the effect that supporters of current immigration policy “must explain why they wish to transform the American nation as it had evolved by 1965“.

Contreras said that the American of 1965 had “needed to be transformed and that's exactly what's happening, Brimelow, Will and Metzger notwithstanding.”[Racists Wish to Turn America as It Had Evolved in 1965 [sic] El Hispano (Sacramento), August 11, 1993].

In Alien Nation, Brimelow wrote in response:

“Tom Metzger is the leader of the neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance. In a 1990 case, he was held liable for civil damages on the theory that his views had inspired three of his followers to murder an Ethiopian immigrant. Contreras seems to have thrown him in to keep us company.”

Metzger is in no way associated with Will or Peter Brimelow. Contreras decided that what Brimelow said was racist, Will, in quoting him was racist, therefore: Nazi!

In the same way, the Congressional Democrats are insisting first that Bannon is to blame for people who've praised him, and second that that these people, since we're all targets of the SPLC, are in effect, to blame for each other. It's the same tactic the SPLC itself uses.

The DAILY BEAST's Gideon Resnick interviewed Peter Brimelow by email about Bannon when Trump hired Bannon in August, asking, among other things,

Have you had private conversations with Bannon? Met him for the first time last month, we talked for about 30 seconds. I told him he’d done a great job at Breitbart and he agreed. DAILY BEAST Smears Trump’s Man Steve Bannon With “Guilt By Association” With VDARE.com–But There’s NO ASSOCIATION August 17, 2016

The whole thing is nonsense, especially the part where the Congressional Democrats say they believe it should concern Trump that "civil rights groups" including "the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, are widely opposed to Mr. Bannon’s appointment."

Sure, but both groups were also widely opposed to

So why should Trump be concerned about what they think?