A White Supremacist Trump Delegate Tweets Racial Slur While at RNC
An elected Trump delegate from Chicago known for months to be a white supremacist has had her credentials stripped by the Illinois Republican party after posting a racial slur to Facebook and making “threats of violence” against black people.
Lori Gayne, a Chicago-area mortgage banker, was attending the Republican National Convention and posted a photo on Sunday night of police officers standing on the roof of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where an opening party was taking place. She wrote the following caption, indicating that cops were prepared to shoot black protesters:
“Our brave snipers just waiting for some “n—- to try something. Love them.”
The Chicago Sun Times reported that she had used an abbreviation for the racial slur.
Gayne admitted to party officials and reporters that she authored the abhorrent post and later apologized in a statement.
“I strongly regret the offensive statements I recently made on social media. While I in no way intended to make racist or threatening statements, I now realize that they could be interpreted that way,” she said.
Illinois GOP Chairman Tim Schneider revoked Gayne’s credentials as a RNC delegate and told the Sun-Times that the party “has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone.”
Gayne was elected in March’s Illinois Republican Primary as a Trump delegate for the 5th Congressional District and was identified as early as May for her white-power loving social media posts under the Twitter handle “whitepride.”
In an interview with Chicago Tribune in May, Gayne said the following:
“With all the racism going on today, I’m very proud to be white. Just like black people are proud to be black and now, as white people, whenever we say something critical we’re punished as if we’re racists. I’m tired of it. I’m very proud,” Gayne said.
“I’m so angry I don’t even feel like I live in America. You can call me a racist. Black Lives Matter? Those people are out of control,” she said.
She used other social media accounts under different names to attack Muslims, the Tribune reported.
Gayne is not even the first Trump delegate to tout white supremacy.
Los Angeles doctor William Johnson resigned in May after Mother Jones revealed that he was the leader of the white nationalist American Freedom Party.
A day later, anti-Muslim pastor and fellow California delegate Guy St.-Onge resigned after racist social media posts surfaced, including “Barack Hussein Obama and his tranny wife Michelle hate the USA!”
The AFP claims that there are even more of its members who are delegates but have declined to identify them, Mother Jones reported.
Trump has also garnered the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and former Louisiana lawmaker David Duke, who said in February that it would be treason to white voters’ heritage to not cast a vote for the real estate magnate.
(h/t New York Daily News)