The Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has announced it will support Donald Trump in the US elections, saying the rise of the Republican nominee is part of the same groundswell of “patriotism” and anti-immigrant fervor that they hope will soon see their party take power in Greece.

“Golden Dawn will be the first electoral force in Greece. And this is the optimistic message, because such a patriotic wind is blowing across all of Europe,” party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris said in a speech to the Greek Parliament last week.

“It’s blowing in the United States, where it appears that the next president will be a patriot president,” he said. “A president who doesn’t want illegal immigrants in his country.”

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

Though he does not mention Trump by name, he accuses Greece’s other major parties of supporting Clinton.

Golden Dawn, with its swastika-like flag, gangs of black-shirted thugs who attack immigrants and its ideology of Greek racial superiority, is currently the third largest party in the Greek Parliament.

Kasidiaris, who is best known for the swastika tattoo on his shoulder and for punching a female Communist Party member in the face during a live television debate, predicted that the US would elect “a president who doesn’t want illegal immigrants in his country, who wants the citizens of each country to be the masters in those countries and not the foreigners.”

“The geopolitical balance will change. And most interesting of all is that tomorrow’s president of the United States is supported in Greece only by Golden Dawn,” said Kasidiaris, who has also read out passages of the the anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in parliament.

Kasidiaris’ remarks were translated and posted to YouTube by Golden Dawn’s American branch.

Over the last two years the Greek government has led a crackdown on Golden Dawn, jailing several of its leaders and accusing them of running a criminal organization. But the effort has not diminished public support for the group, which has been blamed for dozens of violent attacks on immigrants in Greece.

Golden Dawn emerged from obscurity in 2012 to become the country’s third largest political party, riding a wave of fear and despair brought on by Greece’s devastating economic crisis — coupled with a large influx of illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia.