'Make America White Again': Trump-inspired candidate sparks outrage with white supremacist billboards

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A Tennessee man running for a seat in the US House of Representatives ran on a simple platform, reminiscent of the so-far successful campaign of GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump: “Make America White Again”.

Billboards along the highway in Benton, a town almost 50 miles east of Chattanooga, donned Rick Tyler’s slogan. Mr Tyler - an Independent who is hoping to unseat Republican incumbent Chuck Fleischmann - immediately sparked criticism for his overtly white supremacist spin on Mr Trump’s pledge.

“When I designed the billboard, it was specifically to engender in people’s minds a thought process that would take them back to the 1960s,” Mr Tyler told NBC affiliate WRCB. “It was an America where you didn’t have to lock your doors. You didn’t have to worry about carjacking and home invasions. You didn’t have to worry about Muslim sleeper cells down the street. You didn’t have to worry about Islamic mosques radicalising people.

“It was an America that was far superior to the America that we live in today, and - not coincidentally - it was an America whose demographic was 85 per cent plus Caucasian.”

The sign - along with another that featured a picture of the White House surrounded by Confederate flags that read, “I have a dream” - was removed after residents complained.

Rep Fleischmann condemned Mr Tyler’s ads.

“There's no room for this type of hateful display in our political discourse,” he said in a statement. “Racism should be rejected in all its heinous forms in the Third Congressional District and around the country.”

The Trump campaign has not responded to Mr Tyler’s campaign at the time of this writing.

On Trump, however, Mr Tyler has said he believes the New York tycoon is addressing the proverbial “elephant in the room” when it comes to immigration to the US.

“His advocacy of a ‘temporary ban’ on Muslim immigration and the construction of a wall on the Southern border,” Mr Tyler wrote on his website, “have created a climate conducive to conversation relative to the elephant in the living room no one wants to talk about ... namely, the urgent and vital subject of race.”