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PBS Story Features Apparent White Supremacist Volunteering For Trump

The tattoos were the first clue.

It's always heartwarming to see stories about people previously disengaged from the political process who get so excited about their candidate that they leap in with both feet and hands, tattoos and all, to volunteer for their candidate.

Even if they do appear to be white supremacists.

Gawker reports:

Above, you see Grace phone banking for Donald Trump, with the Celtic Cross tattoo on her right hand. Despite the tattoo being in plain view of PBS’ cameras, the story never acknowledges that it is interviewing a walking white power billboard. The Anti-Defamation League explains that the Celtic Cross is one of the most “commonly used white supremacist symbols.” Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the ADL, tells me:

The Celtic Cross is an ancient and revered Christian symbol typically not associated with extremism at all. However, one particular version of the Celtic Cross—a squarish cross with a thick circle intersecting with it (also known as Odin’s Cross), has become one of the most popular white supremacist symbols around. In the past 20 years, its popularity has done little but grow, thanks to its use as the logo by Stormfront, the largest white supremacist website in the world.

That caused Trump apologists to crawl out of the woodwork, crying that a Celtic cross is just not a leading indicator of white supremacy. Except, that's not all there is.

And as the ADL explains, that's not just a pretty set of two 8s there.

88 is a white supremacist numerical code for "Heil Hitler." H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 = HH = Heil Hitler. One of the most common white supremacist symbols, 88 is used throughout the entire white supremacist movement, not just neo-Nazis. One can find it as a tattoo or graphic symbol; as part of the name of a group, publication or website; or as part of a screenname or e-mail address. It is even sometimes used as a greeting or sign-off (particularly in messages on social networking websites).

It's sort of amazing that the PBS producers didn't catch this, but in a way I'm glad they didn't. This family is a prototypical Trump-supporting group of people.

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