Maybe you’re feeling a little dispirited, maybe a little nervous, after watching the spectacle of the 2016 Republican National Convention. If so, this will not help:
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on Friday announced he will run for U.S. Senate, linking his decision to Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency.
Saying he was “overjoyed” at Trump’s successful campaign to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Duke said he will advocate for the “rights and heritage of European Americans” in Congress.
“We must stop the massive immigration and ethnic cleansing of people whose forefathers created America,” Duke said in a video posted to his website.
I warned you that this might happen back on July 13th.
David Duke is “overjoyed” at Trump’s success in taking over the Republican Party and sees in it a natural invitation for white supremacists, like himself, to make a political comeback in this country.
And, I guess the thing to really think about is why Duke is reacting this way and why many people reject Duke’s racial politics but are attracted to Trump anyway.
I think the answer is that people had a lot of reasons to want to kick the dysfunctional Weimar Republic in the teeth, and many reasons besides hatred or religious or racial hatred to support the National Socialist movement in Germany.
It’s not that Trump is going to round anyone up and gas them to death. That’s not the similarity that should concern Trump supporters (at least, not the gassing part of it). What should concern them is that they might be getting in bed with people that they will inadvertently empower. Yes, Congress seems like it can’t do anything and could use a swift kick in the ass. Yes, you only want our border enforcement laws to work better and be enforced. Yes, you prefer Trump’s opposition to free trade over the Trans-Pacific Partnership pushed by President Obama and (until recently) by Hillary Clinton. We can find reasons for people to take a long look at Trump despite all the warning bells.
But we’ve been here before. Decent people using toxic outlets for their frustrations and inadvertently empowering people like David Duke is a possibility that should be front and center as a risk factor in people’s decision making.
For some reason, Trump’s campaign has opened the door for white supremacists to come out of dormancy and believe themselves a viable part of the political mainstream again. I think that’s a reason not to vote for him.
How about you?
“For some reason, Trump’s campaign has opened the door for white supremacists to come out of dormancy …”
TRUMP’S Campaign? Think rather 30 years of RW radio hate, Fox News, Reagan’s welfare queens, Willie Horton, Police brutality, swiftboat, a complete and utter disregard for truth in any form, a science denial worse than any in western European history INCLUDING Pope Urban VIII and the wholesale fearmongering of 3 generations of leadership.
Shit, TRUMP is the least of reasons for David Duke feeling empowered.
Correct. Trump isn’t the reason; he’s the apotheosis of the forces that lured the white supremacists from under their rocks.
I agree. Trump is just the final logical outcome of 30+ years of the Southern Strategy, which is well documented and acknowledged.
I place more blame on Fox and Hate Radio, plus spurious “Christian” broadcasting/mega Churches for the rise of white supremacy.
Plus there was the quashing of Homeland Security’s Report on Rightwing Hate & Extremist groups by the GOP in Congress. The demonizing of the Southern Poverty Law Center that tracks and identifies these groups.
We have PDs randomly and often murdering AA in cold blood, but the Bundy gang can threaten Fed officers with a gang with guns and get clean away with it… until their total witless stupidity final lands them in the Big House.
Frankly the GOP and fellow travelers have been encouraging and inciting white supremacists for a long long time. Trump is just one of the many outcomes that those of us on the left have been predicting and warning about since forever.
Should Trump hopefully lose this year, I fully expect someone of a similar, but probably worse, ilk to take his place. Yeah, no wonder David Duke is emboldened to run for office. It was only a matter of time, and sad to say, he’ll have a likelihood of winning.
Thanks, GOP.
I think what Booman is saying is that “the success of” Trump’s campaign is the signal telling David Duke et al that the forces of hate have reached a boiling point where he may have relevancy in politics again. The Republican Party of Louisiana, to its credit, literally threw an election for the US Senate rather than send David Duke to Washington as their Senator back in the 90’s. The white supremacists now believe that their time in the wilderness is over, the forces of “political correctness” are on the wane, and the sign is the strength of the Trump campaign.
Trump didn’t create this situation – as you say, decades of conservative hate-mongering and right-wing conspiracies to destroy the media have built this monster, but the fact that he’s the Republican nominee demonstrates how powerful racism and bigotry have become in white America, and it’s got the David Dukes of the world very excited.
Sometimes it’s better to bring them out into the open so that they can be culled from society.
Agreed. I’d go so far to say that its ALWAYS better to bring them out from under their rock.
I have a different view, I think under a rock is where they belong. I want them to be ashamed to tell their own kids how they really feel.
All this crap about ‘freedom of speech’ we’ve heard from the Right for a decade is really the freedom to be a bigot and not be rightly criticised for it; looking at you, Sarah Palin.
Public discourse since Obama’s 2008 campaign has encouraged the public declaration of bigotry without tolerance for criticism. That’s not ‘free speech’. These are not smart folks, they are resentful and entitled nincompoops who exercise their emotional bigotry and then elaborate arguments in an attempt to defend the indefensible.
Shaming them back under their rocks seems the best we can hope for in the short term.
Unless, of course, you live in the former Yugoslavia
Yep.
The good news: I can report Trump turned a big Bernie supporting friend who was busy finding reasons not to vote for Hillary into a Hillary supporter last night. All hands on deck kicked in, I guess.
God – is Clinton such an awful candidate that this is actually an argument we have to make?
well, that’s the problem. all the comments trying to convince readers of this blog not to vote for Trump [and more Sanders-supporters- bashing, thanks], – what’s the point? the problem is offering a compelling dem alternative now that Trump is co-opting the Sanders campaign language – which is what he had in his speech last night. we know he won’t carry out a progressive program. the problem is his taking voters away from default dem [“at least he understands our issues even if he can’t do anything about it”] and depressing dem turnout with his HRC attacks.
The numbers folks at 538 collected all the available data on the favorability ratings of presidential candidates. And all of the contenders fell into a fairly narrow range of slightly-more-liked-than-disliked to slightly-more-disliked-than-liked.
Except for Hillary Clinton, who soared far above them in her own rarefied air of contemptibility. And of course Donald Trump, who surpassed her in this as much as she surpassed all others.
So yes, she is an historically awful candidate.
Or she is seen as a continuation of what 70% of the population sees as wrong track, eh?
Absolutely!
It’s not at ALL like a sustained 20+ year campaign of the RW (and mainstream) media and 5 nakedly partisan Congressional Inquiries to demonize her has had an effect on the opinions of the American publlc! Oh no! It’s because Shillary is the most horrible-est candidate ever!
And there’s not a dimes worth of difference between Trump and the Ultimate Monster Hitlery,so everything will be both hunky AND dory when Trumplethinskin gets elected!
Hell it’s not as if old white folks are going to be all that inconvenienced by our new fascist overlords!!
It doesnt matter how it is, but it is. If you support HRC you owe it to your candidate to look at the reality in the face rather than complaining uselessly about how it came to be. That helps her not at all. There was also nothing in there about equivalency save the numbers which are facts. Take a breath calm down and you’ll be a more effective advocate for HRC.
that “Shillary is [NOT] the most horrible-est candidate ever” then somehow proceeded to a completely contradictory “conclusion”! Again, here he is doing so:
self-contradiction there (unless it’s just general cluelessness!), that is:
Hard to imagine how it could get any more ludicrously self-contradictory and self-refuting than that.
No, she’s not. Sanders v Clinton is an argument, Clinton v Trump is a no brainer. Sort of like Gore v Bush was a no brainer, to anybody with a brain.
RE:
Even if we posit that some do, what proportion might that be? More to the point, how many who seem to do so are just pretending out of . . . wait for it . . . “political correctness”(!!!!!!!) that they feel REQUIRES them to “reject Duke’s racial politics” no matter how much they actually agree with them?
Knight of the Long Knives – 1934
The brownshirted thugs of the SA (Sturmabteilung) were useful for as long as they were, as street fighters and body guards for the top Nazis. But ultimately Hitler found that kind of unfocused raw anger and violence to be not as useful as the more focused violence of the SS. And took his own focused and targeted violent steps to behead the leadership of the SA.
Is Trump today’s Hitler? Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean that Duke and like minded folk are not the Rohm and the SA/Brownshirts of our own day. Raw violence unleashed is almost by definition uncontrollable in the end.
(Trump would probably congratulate Hitler for the decisive actions taken in 1934. THAT is how you handle things.)
(sheesh)
Knight of the Long Knives sounds pretty interesting though
The last time he ran for office I believe he got the majority of white voters in Louisiana.
And, quite honestly, as despicable as Duke is, he’s not so different from a lot of other Republicans.
Has everyone forgotten “Vote for the Crook, it’s important!” lol
http://www.visionandvalues.org/2016/03/vote-for-the-crook-its-important/
That’s what Booman is saying!
I keep forgetting that David Duke and Phyllis Schafley haven’t gone away. For some perspective, Duke has run for office more times that Stassen ever did:
2002 convicted of tax evasion and mail fraud; served 15 months.
Thus, he predates (and will likely postdate) the Trump phenom.
(Ex-wife. Duke and Don Black remain tight. Fanjul was Rubio’s sugar daddy)
A pox on both their houses.
yeah. ’cause they’re both the same.
at the core
Have you told your “I didn’t leave the Democratic party…the Democratic Party left me” story yet? That’s always a good one.
Tim Kaine is running for VP.
Looks like we’re supposed to remain focused on David Duke here.
I wonder what the odds are now for passing TPP.
Let’s put it this way, placing a bet that it won’t pass is a waste of money and with a payoff of a penny on a buck if it does pass isn’t worth the effort to wager on.
This election is like a game of hearts. Trump is trying a go for it all while not holding the top three or more hearts. He may also be holding the spade queen. She has the best hand and just got passed to her the hearts to fill out her top hand giving her the ability to make him eat the spade queen. If she plays her hand perfectly she can take them all.