I see that David Duke hasn’t moderated his views since he was an active politician in the early 1990’s. That’s unfortunate. Some people mature with time.
Instead, he’s feeling “a revolutionary spirit,” and is seriously considering making a challenge to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Duke has until June 22nd to qualify for the November ballot. Remember, Louisiana has those funky elections where the November election can serve as a primary of sorts if no one reaches 50% of the vote. In those cases, there is a subsequent runoff election.
I don’t remember if Duke is/was a Grand Wizard or an Exalted Cyclops or what exact honorific he used in the Ku Klux Klan.
“There are millions of people across the country who would like to have me in the Congress. I’d be the only person in Congress openly defending the rights and the heritage of European Americans,” he said. “We are on the offensive today. There’s no more defenses.”
He actually thinks he’d make a good running mate for Trump.
Duke compared himself to Donald Trump, who he endorsed for president.
“I’ve said everything that Donald Trump is saying and more,” he said. “I think Trump is riding a wave of anti-establishment feeling that I’ve been nurturing for 25 years.”
Yet, Duke is realistic enough to know that Trump is unlikely to put him on the ticket.
Trump won’t reach out to him because the candidate fears “offending the oligarchs,” a term Duke uses for the political establishment he said is controlled by Jewish, Hispanic and African American interests.
Aware of his checkered history, Duke said he welcomed the backlash that would come if he runs.
In most cases, it’s a cheap shot to highlight a candidate’s most unsavory supporters, particularly if that support is unsolicited and unrequited. But it’s noteworthy to see Duke feeling this energized by Trump’s success. He’s moved by the spirit to stop playing defense and run for office because he sees in Trump the fruition of a quarter century of race hatred that he’s been “nurturing.”
Maybe Duke is just misinterpreting Trump or the political moment or basic reality, but there’s little doubt about what Duke thinks he can accomplish under Trump’s leadership.
Should Duke make it to the House, he said one of his first goals would be to repeal the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, which liberalized immigration laws by eliminating race-based quotas.
Obviously, Duke thinks Trump is a fellow traveler, and he might have been bolstered in that impression back in February when Trump had tremendous difficulty finding one bad thing to say about the KKK.
When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday about David Duke and the KKK supporting his candidacy, Donald Trump passed on refuting them. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” he said. “So I don’t know. I don’t know — did [David Duke] endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.” When Tapper said he was specifically talking about the KKK, Trump continued saying, “I have to look at the group. I mean, I don’t know what group you’re talking about.” He then declared, “You wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. I’d have to look. If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them and certainly I would disavow if I thought there was something wrong. You may have groups in there that are totally fine — it would be very unfair. So give me a list of the groups and I’ll let you know.”
But who, really, knows nothing about the Ku Klux Klan?
Trump did disavow the Klan’s support, but so tepidly that Duke was obviously encouraged.
So encouraged, in fact, that he’s ready to take on the House Majority Whip. And, in case you’d forgotten or just didn’t know, Steve Scalise has in the past spoken to one of David Duke’s little hate groups (the European-American Unity and Rights Organization) and once campaigned as “David Duke without the baggage.”
If Duke does run, the people of Louisiana’s First District will get to decide if they want their David Duke with or without the baggage.
In the meantime, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Mary Fallin, is telling people that Donald Trump is a racial healer.
I’m just not seeing that.
If you pay attention to what white supremacists say and write, you’ll notice that they commonly refer to infiltrating the institutions of government, and not just legislatures. Getting white supremacists into police forces and into the armed forces is an explicit goal.
Well, you know, in a weird sort of way this is true. I can say that around here, he has succeeded in healing the hurt feelings of many who have had to involuntarily suppress their bigoted and racist attitudes for so long. We now have a few people freely flying their huge confederate flags from their pickup trucks and getting approving honks and waves from their like-minded brethren, not to mention people becoming much more comfortable in talking, not in code words anymore, but in outright racist language. Without a doubt, there are many folks around here who do feel like Trump has healed a wound of injustice they have suffered by not being able to embrace and espouse their loathing of all those “others” out there. But because of Trump, the genie is once again out of the bottle, and they couldn’t feel more whole and more proud. Their “healing” is getting more complete every day.
Well that would comport with the Ohio polls.
I think I’d seriously consider relocating, but I’m not rooted there.
It’s funny, but the long-established Republicans here just took their county party back from the Teabaggers this spring. Things are in a bit of a disarray at our GOP. They no longer have an office in the county. They Teabaggers so mismanaged things that they got evicted from one place they were renting, then couldn’t afford a cheaper place they moved to, not to mention they couldn’t keep it manned much at all. So they decided on having just a “virtual office”, but when you go the website it is a static webpage that says the site is still a work in progress. The Tea Party faction, still smarting over getting ousted, is kind of running a parallel proto-GOP operation, mostly online. And I get the feeling that a lot of the establishment GOP people are not too thrilled with Trump. We have the county fair coming up next week, and both county parties have had booths there for a very long time, not to mention the Libertarians, who have been there a shorter time. Well, we are hearing that this year, the GOP booth will be basically unmanned (possibly one person to hand out some literature), and will consist of a flat screen television playing a loop of video of some sort. Not sure what exactly that will be. Wondering if they just can’t bring themselves to publicly tout Mr. Trump as the face of their party.
It is hard to imagine, in a 70-30 Republican county, that they can be so screwed up when it comes to basic local party functions. But come election time, the county is swarming with American Crossroads people and other PAC supported groups. For all intents and purposes, there seems to be little actual local involvement in grassroots politics. But they hold virtually every office in the county.
June 22? Did he?
And relocation is only an easy option for those with income and prospects. US states haven’t created refugee camps from the seceded New Confederacy yet. Even then most Americans are not used to walking hundreds of miles to refuge.
to FSM’s ear!
(Or can pasta have ears?)
>>can pasta have ears?
it’s called Orecchiette
you win the internets
I asked could it HAVE ears, not could it BE ears!
(Just kidding, of course. Nicely turned!)
Noodly Appendages of The FSM (All Praise!) there are several with functioning Ears and many more with Orecchiette.
After all Man Does Not Live by Vermicelli (Little Worms) Alone. But also by Sphagettini and Conchiglioni
OT:
At the least, that should draw some attention to the Democratic National Convention, which this year would be useful to get media coverage. Uncertainty and about the inevitable.
I’m not sure about the FDR story. Anybody have info on that?
Look for the Clinton camp to try to convince Sanders delegates that it’s over and they need not show up and look for loyalty-testing rhetoric to drive early desertions from the Democratic Party. It is at this point that we will see how savvy and disciplined the Sanders delegates are.
If the Hobson’s choice can be put on the establishment Democrats, it will be interesting to see how scared of Trump they really are. Scared enough to bust their butts for a Democratic House?
Scared enough that if a Dump Clinton movement takes place, they will support the nominee (not guaranteed to be Sanders) in the general election?
Whatever it will be, it won’t be boring and will possibly draw in people to follow the reports of the politicking up through Wednesday, where they will hear what Democrats (not the media) say the Democratic Party stands for.
There is the possibility that yesterday was indeed the end of Sanders’s campaign, that despite the Trumpublicans going first the convention is a snooze, and the Democratic campaign machinery takes an August vacation from paying attention to the media.
There is also the possibility of returning to an open Vice-Presidential ballot instead of pre-selection by the Candidate.
I will be there. There are some Sanders delegates who I know who are pretty determined to have the roll call vote contested.
I still think the biggest leverage Sanders has is the sheer number of delegates in the hall. The Acceptance Speech is pretty important: if the Sanders people sit on their hands it will be noticed.