Photo from Wikipedia

The Huffington Post recently published a brilliant piece of in-depth journalism detailing how a team of reporters exposed a white supremacist who went by the moniker “Grandpa Lampshade.” While that might seem like an odd name, it actually refers to Nazis making furniture out of Jewish Holocaust victims’ bones. And the story goes downhill from there.

Over the course of the story, the writers detail how Daniel Kenneth Jeffreys, aka Grandpa Lampshade, used online tools to develop his brand of hate. He used Gab, a far-right social media site, read The Daily Stormer, a popular neo — Nazi website and created an online radio show called “Daily Aryan.”

His background wasn’t surprising either. He was a heavily-bearded, blue-collar Texan who lived an unremarkable life, apart from the fact he broadcasted messages that played a role in sending Robert Bowers on a killing spree that left 11 people dead at a Wisconsin Jewish Center.

Jeffreys often warned about whites being outbred by black and brown people, and suggested eliminating Jews because they were funding so-called “white genocide.”

“We’re being served now with a cake that’s been poisoned. Cake with ingredients such as feminism, this racial demographic, multicultural time bomb,” said Jeffreys during a podcast. “All of these ingredients have been baked into this cake. And the baker is a hook-nosed rat Jew.”

Trump and Buchanan’s policies fell in line with Jeffreys white nationalist, anti-immigrant views. The only difference is now the GOP has moved so far the right, people like Buchanan are not shoved in the closet. Thirty years ago, the GOP used to be embarrassed by Buchanan when he ranted about Irish immigrants being able to integrate better than Zulus. Today, he would be offered a post in the Trump administration.

Not surprisingly, Jeffreys was a Donald Trump supporter and before that he was also backed Pat Buchanan, a former GOP presidential candidate, and Ron Paul.

And why not? Trump and Buchanan's policies fell in line with Jeffreys white nationalist, anti-immigrant views. The only difference is now the GOP has moved so far the right, people like Buchanan are not shoved in the closet. Thirty years ago, the GOP used to be embarrassed by Buchanan when he ranted about Irish immigrants being able to integrate better than Zulus. Today, he would be offered a post in the Trump administration.

After giving up on the presidency, Buchanan floated around the media, appearing as a pundit on CNN and MSNBC. He also continued to blog about his neo-Nazis views and shared them in several books.

The last time I saw him on cable TV was when he appeared alongside Rachel Maddow, and complained Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was an “affirmative action” appointment. MSNBC fired him in 2012 after they tired of his pro-Hitler and anti-black views. His book, “Suicide of a Superpower,” argued immigration from the Third World was dumbing down America. Who does that sound like?

Today Buchanan must be grinning like a Cheshire cat at the knowledge the GOP is finally implementing his ideas. In a recent column, Buchanan accused the Democratic Party of being “hostile to white men.” The article was retweeted by Trump, who once called Buchanan, a “Hitler-lover.”

However, Republicans have finally come round to Buchanan’s way of thinking — and that’s not a good thing. Trump’s white nationalist views are now government policies. Ironically, many of these policies have been implemented by Stephen Miller, who’s Jewish and the descendant of refugees.

Trump expressed some of these views during his lengthy State of the Union address where he again warned of violent, undocumented immigrants invading the country. And yet in the same breath, he said he wanted to see a record number of “legal immigration.” But he left out the caveat where he wanted them to be white.

So while Trump’s views are reprehensible, they aren’t new. Buchanan was spouting them 30 years ago. He just had to wait until his views came back in fashion.