David Duke on the Rallies and on Trump
And some comments on Trumps' anemic rhetoric.
While the President may be equivocating on what has been happening in Charlottesville, VA, David Duke has clarity:
David Duke: "We are determined to take our country back." #Charlottesville https://t.co/dfTnZlUgT7 pic.twitter.com/akZaO6RxSe
— USA TODAY Video (@usatodayvideo) August 12, 2017
Indeed, he reinforced his position on Twitter in the face of the President’s anemic criticisms:
I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists. https://t.co/Rkfs7O2Ykr
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 12, 2017
That President Trump has not distanced himself from these comments brings shame to himself and his presidency. While I do not expect that he, himself, would necessarily have seen either this clip or the tweet in question, his staff should be aware. Further, it would be impossible to ignore the general pro-Trump tenor of the events in question and their explicit linkages to white nationalism and, indeed to neo-nazism. That the president could not bring himself to condemn those elements, and that he saw no need to distance himself from this support in any way, shows at a bare minimum an acknowledgement of his need for the support of this movement. At worst is shows endorsement.* His foray in perhaps the worst case of “both sides do it” in American history was a shameful display (as was his eschewal of any responsibility):
We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time.
I expect that the phrase “on many sides” will be one that will go down in historic infamy.
I am not willing to accept the notion that he is soft-pedaling these events out of ignorance or strategy. This is a man who, just this week, significantly escalated rhetoric about a potential nuclear confrontation with North Korea and went straight to talking about military options in Venezuela. He is not known for his subtle touch or his desire to avoid confrontational rhetoric. Indeed, as David French noted yesterday at NRO’s The Corner (emphasis mine):
if there ever was a time in recent American political history for an American president to make a clear, unequivocal statement against the alt-right, it was today. Instead, we got a vague condemnation of “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” This is unacceptable, especially given that Trump can be quite specific when he’s truly angry. Just ask the Khan family, Judge Curiel, James Comey, or any other person he considers a personal enemy. Even worse, members of the alt-right openly celebrated Trump’s statement, taking it as a not-so-veiled decision to stand against media calls to condemn their movement.
As Doug Mataconic tweeted this morning:
Things @RealDonaldTrump will critize: Mtch McConnell, JRobert Mueller
Things he won't critize: Vladimir Putin, White Supremacists
— Doug Mataconis (@dmataconis) August 13, 2017
Further, some in the neo-nazi world took solace in Trump’s words (Neo-nazis and white supremacists are celebrating Trump’s remarks about the Charlottesville riots):
The founder of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white supremacist website that considers itself a part of the alt-right, celebrated the fact that Trump “outright refused to disavow” the white nationalist rally and movement.
“People saying he cucked are shills and kikes,” wrote the founder, Andrew Anglin. “He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room.”
It is worth noting, as per the tweet earlier in the post, David Duke saw the president’s remarks as too critical of the marchers.
To conclude on Duke, I will share this tweet that I saw on his feed this morning:
Who is handing Trump these insane Globalist & Israeli first policies – WHO?!
Who is influencing Trump to abandon his campaign policies? pic.twitter.com/FN3Qk2Zmri
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 13, 2017
Just in case anyone was confused as to Duke’s views.
—-
*It is not unfair to point out that the administration’s policies on immigration, and Stephen Miller’s confrontation with Jim Acosta, give solace to the views espoused by the marchers–just to name two examples.
Duke’s tweeting of the photo of Jared and Ivanka, with their identifying “badges,” is useful because it confirms that the alt-right’s real hatred is of Jews. Of course they hate blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Muslims. But they reserve their true, undying animus for Jews, whom they regard as the evil force creating unrest among the non-Caucasian.
Of course the alt-right welcomes Nazis. They are Nazis.
@CSK:
Queue it up, get ready for the ‘yes but … ‘ stuff.
Hatred of Jews is timeless; oh it ebbs and flows, but it never goes away.
This stuff, these cockroaches, it’s all out in the open now, we don’t have to wonder who they are and where they are. What’s disturbing is the ambivalence (I’m being kind here) of the White House and many Republicans toward these empowered and emboldened Alt.Right White Nationalists.
This is today’s Republican Party.
Why would Trump condemn it?
Sorry Duke, you can’t have “your” country back, it is dead and buried under 5 decades worth of history. Besides, the Koch brothers aren’t selling.
Sorry Duke, you can’t have “your” country back, it is dead and buried under 5 decades worth of history. Besides, the Koch brothers aren’t selling.
Huh, for some reason I double commented.
Yesterday, I got the “We have detected that comment has already been made” message, but when I looked my comment wasn’t there. Went back 15 mins later and there it was.
Weird.
Trump doesn’t condemn these guys because Trump is “these guys”. I can easily list ten things that demonstrate Trump is a total racist. But let me challenge those who want to give him the benefit of the doubt: if a foreign leader had appointed Bannon, Miller and Gorka as some of his closest advisors, would you be so reluctant to call him out as a racist himself?
Incite mongrels, get the rabies. There is no entitlement to mow people down with a car. None.
The man-baby pretend time “president” is a widening danger to the U.S.
It doesn’t seem off-topic to remind everyone that some 1/2 of self-identified Republicans in a recent national poll said they were completely OK with the hypothetical ‘delaying’ of the 2020 election if Mr Trump explained that culling out illegal votes made such a postponement necessary.
Are we sleeping as well as the good citizens of Guam, now?
@al-Ameda: What’s disturbing is the ambivalence (I’m being kind here) of the White House and many Republicans toward these empowered and emboldened Alt.Right White Nationalists.
Clinton’s deplorables speech was tone deaf in delivery since it attacked a voting block instead of the enabling candidate (Trump) and his senior advisers (Bannon, Ailes and others who have been cultivating the alt-right types for years), but the content was dead on. Think about it. Trump hired Bannon as his campaign manager and senior adviser. He was one of the people who gave the alt-right a voice. And that got no traction as a national story? He might as well have hired David Duke.
@Senyordave:
Good point.
You know, I think many of the people who voted for Trump thought they were voting for less regulation, lower taxes on the rich. The alt.right and White Nationalism stuff wasn’t on their radar. That’s certainly true for the many Trump voters in my family.
@Senyordave:
Note that Clinton herself made that very point during the second presidential debate:
“Well within hours I said I was sorry about the way I talked about that because my argument is not with his supporters, it’s with him and the divisive campaign he has run and the inciting of violence at his rallies and the very brutal kinds of comments about not just women, but all Americans.”
And I think that’s the key point. On the other thread last night I pointed out how her comment has been distorted by people who say she was condemning all Trump supporters, when she clearly used the word “half.” But still, it was a careless remark, and she had no way of knowing what the exact percentage was. People who are actively involved in the organized “alt right” movement almost certainly constitute but a tiny percentage of Trump supporters. But there’s a lot of evidence that casually racist attitudes are widespread among Republican voters, though that was true long before Trump’s rise. The difference with Trump is in the degree to which he and his team have embraced these attitudes openly, and embraced the organized movement devoted to perpetuating them.
@al-Ameda:
My question for them would be, did they vote for him in the primaries? Or did they support him in the general election simply because they’d have supported anyone with an R after their name, and he happened to be the one who filled that slot?
In the primaries, practically everything that distinguished Trump from the other candidates concerned issues having to do with race. He began his campaign with a blistering speech about Mexican rapists. He upped the ante by calling for a total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. And that’s not to mention that his entry into GOP politics four years earlier revolved around his embrace of the “birther” conspiracy theory about President Obama. Other candidates in the race engaged in Muslim-baiting and immigrant-baiting, but never quite as explicitly or centrally as Trump did. GOP primary voters who were looking for a nonpolitician could have supported Carly Fiorina or Ben Carson. Instead, they supported Donald Trump. Why is that?
@Kylopod:
Fiorina and Carson were not taken seriously by anything near a plurality, let alone a majority, of Republican voters.
The field of Republican candidates was easily vanquished by Trump. Trump humiliated the entire lot, and they melted away. Trump was the last one standing and none of the Republican voters were going to not-vote-for Trump and instead vote for Hillary. That was never going to happen. Trump was going to be the celebrity-CEO guy who goes to Washington to “drain the swamp.” Trump has this television-celebrity-image of can-do, forceful, businessman success! Well over 50% of Republican voters were clearly sold on the excitement, and the long shot possibility that Trump could win and Republicans could finally pillage Washington and get what they want, take what they want.
At least that’s my take on it.
@al-Ameda: The point is that nobody paying attention during the primaries would have failed to notice that Trump absolutely owned, shall we say, racially charged issues. He was never the favorite candidate of Republicans who were interested in tax cuts and deregulation. Indeed, it was far from clear at the time that he was even reliable on those issues. He had a well-known history of backing single-payer health care and tax increases on rich people. He was the only candidate who pledged not to cut Medicare and Social Security. And he came out boldly against free trade.
@al-Ameda: While you’re of course right that many trump supporters didn’t have alt-right and white supremacist stuff on their radar . . . . but if they had been paying attention during the campaign they couldn’t have missed it. It was clearly there for all to see.
@OzarkHillbilly: Why were the police slow to get on this thing and get it under control ?
A bunch of these supremists show up who look like they just walk out of a “Mad Max” movie or WWE Monday night Raw ! Those kind of people are not their for some peaceful demonstration. They gave up their right to free speech and assemble at that point. They should have been rounded up and sent out of town immediately: if some judge doesn’t like it let them come in and take control of things. “This field trip is over !” There are rules and responsibility governing free speech and assemble. What we saw was anarchy.
On Sunday the leader of the racist extremists decided to hold some kind of press conference. Great, whose bright idea was that ? Rioting almost resumed right there.
Counter demonstrators: The last thing needed in this situation was another group of coming in. The police should have sealed the town and kept outsiders out. They should have kept the groups far apart. There were a lot of fighting.
The counter demonstrators did not start this, but they’re where a lot of fights: it takes too to tango. Many of them had all kinds of weapons and battle gear on too.
Police were assaulted, struck, and pushed around. Anyone who did that should be hunted down and arrested for the animals that they are.
The governor declared an emergency. Why was there not an immediate corfew ? The governor should have come there immediately, hit the streets, and taken control of the situation. The locals were undermanned from the start.
Some of the people involved in all this behaved and acted peacefully.
Shameful that this mess took place when the students are coming in to the university and getting ready for school to start.
There needs to be a thorough investigation and lots of time given out to a lot of these racist extremist demonstrators; time to be served at some prison camp out in a Georgia swamp.
I will be looking at some news services for more facts. (Bloomberg, Scholastic, Channel One, Newsela, PBS, USA Today).
Bravo to Doug on that tweet.
@al-Ameda:
I’m with you in so far that many Trump voters probably didn’t explicitly vote for white supremacy.
But, as others have remarked, the “alt.right and White Nationalism stuff” was also impossible to miss for anyone paying the slightest bit of attention.
Which means that it wasn’t on their radar only because they didn’t care; and because they knew they weren’t going to be the ones to suffer the consequences.
Going along with evil out of convenience, laziness, or a deliberate lack of curiosity – even when one lacks a distinctly evil intention oneself – is however exactly what Hannah Arendt once called “the banality of evil” (in Eichmann in Jerusalem).
I think most of us can agree that the banality of Eichmann’s evil didn’t relieve him of moral responsibility for his actions.
All this is, is another way of saying that the “alt.right and White Nationalism stuff” should have been on voters’ radar. Moreover, the fact that it wasn’t, is damning in itself.
In practical terms, this means that American voters should be rather more like the French. As soon as an election comes down to a run-off between a Nazi and a not-Nazi, you hold your nose (if necessary) and vote for the not-Nazi.
Even more specifically, since the GOP is currently the party enabling(*) Nazis and white supremacists, you should always, ALWAYS vote for the Democrat. This is not hard.
(*) Despite the occasional furrowed brows and deep concerns.
@Kylopod:
Conservatives can say, well, sure, there are some racists in the party, but I’m not racist, and my educated republican peers aren’t either. And I might even believe them. But racism isn’t a deal-breaker, is the problem. They’ll vote for the racist ideologue anyway, all so that David Koch can pollute more and leave his kids 50 billion dollars instead of 45. Remember that thing about evil spreading cause ‘good people’ did nothing?
@OzarkHillbilly:,
@CSK: ,
@al-Ameda:
Never mind the
bollocksKoch’s, here’s theSex PistolsRothschild’s.The classics never go out of style.
Duke is keeping his eyes on the prize. The other races are mud people, but Jews are the secret controllers.
Besides, Duke has to talk tough because my accountant fronts fiercer than he does.
@drj:
I agree. All of this was on display during the campaign season.
People tended to down play or give limited credence to the possibility that these alt.right White nationalists would be openly aggressive in going after liberals. Even now I suspect that many on the Right will say that the coverage of the incidents at Charlottesville was biased, and they do agree with Trump that, you know, both sides so it.
It’s all in the open now, no one can say that we don’t know that this kind of thing is going on. None of that plays any more.
@al-Ameda:
John Scalzi had a great comment on this. Maybe you wanted big tax cuts and lower regulation, but you still voted for racism. No, I didn’t want racism! Just jobs and tax cuts! Well, you still voted for racism. And it’s impossible for me to believe that all of that racist talk just washed over you without any impact.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/11/10/the-cinemax-theory-of-racism/
@Facebones: In this entire discussion, nobody’s pointing out the obvious, which is that the primary rationalization of reluctant Trump supporters wasn’t tax cuts (that describes the view of Paul Ryan and other elites and power-brokers, not the average Republican voter) but three simple words: “Hillary was worse.”
Of course this was utter horsesh!t. But it was by far the most frequent justification I heard. And it’s a justification I fully expect them to cling to forever, no matter how bad things get. If the whole world melts down in nuclear Armageddon, they’ll be standing by the charred remains of what’s left of the land and muttering “It’s all the Dems’ fault for nominating Hillzilla.”
@Facebones:
I have personally witnesses a remarkable amount of denial on this topic.
@Kylopod:
I am still seeing a lot this, even from people who are horrified by Trump and abstained in voting for President in 2016. It is deeply disappointing.
So, yeah:
You don’t have to point out something as superficial as Miller’s interaction with Acosta. Miller is a straight up white nationalist who got his start in politics working along side Richard Spencer.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/trumps-newest-senior-adviser-seen-ally-white-nationalists/
@Neil Hudelson: Well, sure. I know that and you know that, but the broader audience will have seen the Acosta thing, but probably don’t know anything about Miller beyond that.
@Facebones:
I mentioned this in another thread, but I have a friend who voted for Trump who was not aware of the racism or his ties to white supremacists until I told him about them after the election. Based on his stunned reaction to the evidence I showed him, I truly believe that he wasn’t aware of it. I was as stunned that he didn’t know about as he was to find out it was happening.
If they got their news only from right wing sources and closed themselves off from anything outside of it, it’s possible they were unaware.
@drj:
The problem is that 90% of voters aren’t even paying that required tiny bit of attention. All most voters could tell you about Trump is that he said: “You’re fired!”. Seriously, about five million Americans are interested in politics on one side or another. They generate a lot of web traffic, go to rallies and marches, write letters and so on. That’s a lot of people. But its only a couple percent of eligible voters. Most people didn’t spend five minutes on the election. They voted for their team, without even the foggiest idea of who was on their team or what they said.
Its impossible to miss if you’re paying attention. But most people are either too busy, or too indifferent, or too cynical to pay attention.
There’s a Farside cartoon where an upset cow stands up and says something like “Grass! This is grass we’re eating!” That describes most voters.
Talking to old friends before the election, 90% could only tell me two things about the candidates:
1) Trump said “You’re fired!”
2) Hillary was Bill Clinton’s wife.
They said they were going to vote for the party they always voted for, and looked bored when I wanted to continue the discussion.
I’ve no idea how to deal with indifference. I can deal with hate – I’m first nations, I’m used to it, and often I can turn around people’s opinions (as often as not I’m the first ‘Indian’ the haters have actually really talked to). And because they’re engaged, they’re often as passionate for you afterwards as they were against you previously. But indifference? I’ve never made even the slightest progress with it.
And as you say, that is particularly damning. How can you not care?
@george:
There is a tremendous amount of explanatory power in that phrase.
@Steven L. Taylor:
What Is the percentage of folks who are essentially locked on to a party preference by age 25? It is higher than even I expect, and I am a person who thinks that tribalism trumps nearly every other factor in identification and voting patterns.
I used to get a high number of down-votes when I would comment that politics is almost never about policy. I figured out that people thought that I was talking about them and there recent comments. Hence the reaction.
Politics as practiced is rarely about policy, but geography, class, race, education, gender, but most of all it is about *self-identification*.
Policy is quite often the place filler for an us vs. them self-identity battle where people who are with me are “good” and people against me are “bad.”
Folks lock into those tribal (read as partisan in modern American context) preferences hard and fairly early in their lives. And policy prefences are subordinate to the tribal / party preference. If you choose party A you are mostly constrained to policy endorsed by party A. People rarely pick policy outside of acceptable parameters and then use that as their belwether to pick their tribe.
As a general rule self-identity determines tribe; birth tribe influences self-identity but does not set it. And all the rest is blather. Yeah, it’s hyperbole, but …
@de stijl: A major problem in our politics is that our system basically forces two parties and this makes almost all political choices binary. Since it is the case that most people lock into a partisan ID, binary choices lead to binary thinking.
I know I harp on it constantly, but our electoral system is a major problem. Until we face up to that, the problem is unlikely to get better, save by happenstance.
(And the system to elect the president is even worse than that for congress, since one can lose and still win).
@Kylopod: There is a few memes going around: The world drowning in flood waters, or being destroyed in a mushroom cloud, with the words, “But her emails!” over it. And then there’s the cartoon of a father and his emaciated children, dressed in rags while sitting in a cave before a small fire. The father tells the kids, “For one bright shining moment, I got to refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton! If you could see how many people on Facebook were impressed with me at the time, you’d understand.”
@de stijl: @de stijl: I was a mostly nonpartisan, Democratic-leaning independent until I was in my 40’s. What happened then? Barack Obama, a man who I, as an African-American, was immensely proud of, was elected, and was treated like trash by many Republicans. I used to think that there were good Republicans. I have a very hard time thinking that anymore.
@Monala:
I suspect you’re projecting onto all Republicans (some 50 million people) the words and actions of their most vocal group (a couple million at most, who dominate talk shows, web sites, rallies). Most Republicans I’ve met (and I’m first nations – ‘Indian’ to most people), like most non-first nations I’ve met, are initially cautious and uncomfortable around me, but I can live with that, much of it is cultural. Most warm up given time and interactions.
About 10% of Republicans are hostile, the kind of Republicans you’re talking about. The rest are just politically so indifferent that they’ve no idea what the GOP stands for – they’re members of the GOP because their parents were, and got signed up somewhere along the way. Most of them couldn’t tell you a single thing any Republican (or Democratic) politician has said, including Trump (other than “You’re fired!). They’re like say Yankee fans in New York who’ve never watched a game, couldn’t name more than one or two current players and none of those player’s stats, but are Yankee’s fans because its socially convenient to be considered one around the water cooler.
I’ve met many Republicans who I’d consider good people. They’re people I’ve worked with, played recreational sports with, some are old friends. Most couldn’t tell you a single thing about any politician let alone policies, but they’re part of the party. You’re not going to change their opinions about politics, because they have none. That isn’t a good thing. But I’d trust many of them personally, and have gotten generous help from a few when I needed it.
There’s no use in stereotyping people. Any group numbering in the millions is far too diverse for that to be useful.
@george: I know some Republicans I consider good people, too. My boss is one — he despises Trump, and left the line for President blank on his ballot last fall. And as others have pointed out, James and Doug at this site seem to be decent human beings.
I should have specified that overall, I no longer trust Republican politicians. Although I always voted primarily Democratic, I used to consider Republican politicians based on their merits in the past (and even voted for a few). Now I think most of them are vile, and even those who seem decent rarely are willing to stand up to the vile base. (Note: the base is not all Republican voters).
@Monala:
Now that is a statement I can completely agree with.