The benignly-named National Policy Institute held a meeting on Saturday, where 200 white nationalists and neo-Nazi types gathered to celebrate pushing extreme racism and anti-Semitism back into the mainstream courtesy of Donald Trump s elevation. Richard Spencer, NPI s leader, actually greeted them by shouting,  Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory! And the people cheered while raising their arms in the Nazi salute.Spencer is the person who coined the term  alt-right  to make his fascist movement sound more palatable, but it doesn t change who they are. These are people who share Spencer s dream of an  ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans,  meaning all white people who aren t Jewish. They re looking to restore purity to the  superior  white race.NPI s agenda for the conference included topics like,  Trump and the New White Voter,   The Future of the Alt-Right,  and  America and the Jewish Consciousness,  and the meeting was more heavily attended this year than it has been in years past. Spencer s opening remarks included: An awakening among everyone has occurred with this Trump election. We re not quite the establishment now, but I think we should start acting like it. Yes. Trump is their Hitler. Pretty much literally at this point.Anybody who doesn t find this terrifying ought to, because pushing Nazi ideology into the mainstream and into Trump s administration brings us way too close to the very thing that Republicans feared the most until this year: Horrific, fascist dictatorship. This isn t the America we re supposed to be.But it s the America that these people want, and, as the Holocaust showed us 80 years ago, people who think this way will do anything to achieve it.Spencer and his racist and anti-Semitic followers believe that the U.S. originally belonged to white Christians only, and they want to push us back there. That means widespread deportation of anyone who isn t  white enough,  and possibly worse. Given that the administration is actually, really discussing a registry for Muslims that could lead to internment, the idea that they can influence Trump against other groups, too, isn t all that far-fetched anymore.And the rise of hate incidents and crimes against anyone who isn t white serves as further evidence that these Nazi-types feel they ve been vindicated because of Trump s election.Haaretz reporter Peter Beinart called these  interesting times  on Twitter, as he watched Spencer spew anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric while waiting to pick up his son at a Jewish school. Interesting? Hardly. Downright frightening is more like it.Featured image via screen capture