David Duke Urges His Fellow Racists To Support Donald Trump
Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who also ended up being the Republican nominee for Governor of Louisiana back in the 1990s at one point, is urging his fellow racists to get out in force for Donald Trump:
David Duke, a white nationalist and former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard, told his audience Wednesday that voting for anyone besides Donald Trump “is really treason to your heritage.”
“Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage,” Duke said on the David Duke Radio Program. BuzzFeed News first reported the comments.
“I’m not saying I endorse everything about Trump. In fact, I haven’t formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”
The former Louisiana representative told listeners to start volunteering for Trump.
“And I am telling you that it is your job now to get active. Get off your duff. Get off your rear end that’s getting fatter and fatter for many of you everyday on your chairs. When this show’s over, go out, call the Republican Party, but call Donald Trump’s headquarters, volunteer,” he said. “They’re screaming for volunteers. Go in there, you’re gonna meet people who are going to have the same kind of mind-set that you have.”
This comment from Duke is telling:
“He’s made it OK to talk about these incredible concerns of European Americans today, because I think European Americans know they are the only group that can’t defend their own essential interests and their point of view,” Duke said. “He’s meant a lot for the human rights of European Americans.”
Basically what Duke is saying here is that Trump has made it socially acceptable to be a racist xenophobe. What’s unfortunate is not only is he right in some sense, but that despite this Trump is currently the leader for the nomination of a major American political party.
On another note, I have to wonder whether Duke is aware that Trump’s daughter Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism when she married her husband and is raising her two, soon to be three, children in that religion.
Here’s as serious question to you Doug: given this sort of thing, would you still vote third party if its HRC vs. Trump, and Virginia is close?
“What’s unfortunate is not only is he right in some sense, but that
despite thisbecause of this Trump is currently the leader for the nomination of a major American political party.”FTFY.
@Moosebreath:
Tell that to the dozens of Republicans I know personally who are already saying they will not vote for Trump if he’s the nominee. I doubt they’re alone, and that’s one reason why Trump would lose a General Election in a landslide.
@Doug Mataconis:
“Tell that to the dozens of Republicans I know personally who are already saying they will not vote for Trump if he’s the nominee.”
Right — Republicans opposing Trump don’t support him for this reason. That says nothing about why Republicans who do support him (which are currently a plurality of the Republican Party) do.
“I doubt they’re alone, and that’s one reason why Trump would lose a General Election in a landslide.”
I don’t disagree with this one bit. But that’s because this view is not popular outside of the Republican base and turns off both non-base Republicans and non-Republicans. Again, it does not speak to the views of the Republican base.
Socialists will tell you that Bernie Sanders is *not* one of them. But apparently, racists will tell you that Trump *is* one of them.
@Moosebreath: When faced with a Hillary-picked nominee for the Supreme Court, and a Trump-picked nominee, some Republicans will hold their noses and vote for Trump anyway.
@Doug Mataconis:
You should ask them again after the conventions, when it’s clear that either Trump or Clinton will win the election.
On another thread there’s some discussion of who is and isn’t racist. I don’t recall ever meeting anyone who thought himself racist. I wondered how long it would take to find Duke saying he’s not racist. Not long.
You just can’t make this stuff up anymore.
Best campaign season EVER!
@gVOR08:
Reading some historical books and documents, it surprised me to learn that this tendency predates the civil rights era. When Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on the States’ Rights ticket, while he used the N-word in public and openly preached segregation, he fervently denied his campaign was about “race hatred,” and he claimed that his policies would benefit Negroes. He even did some things to distance himself from the most extreme racists of the time, opposing poll taxes and denouncing the preacher Gerald L.K. Smith.
The evolution of the word racism itself bears this out. It was coined in the 1930s when it was first applied to Nazi Germany, and for the next couple of decades it was a term you used only when describing official government policies. When people wanted to talk about what we would call racism in individuals, they used phrases like race hatred and race prejudice. For example, in young Harry Truman’s letters to Bess while he was courting her, he confessed to harboring “race prejudice” (a fact he didn’t seem ashamed of, but the way he put it suggested there already were some taboos about admitting it outright).
Nowadays, many white supremacists like to call themselves racialists, the older form of the term, because it sounds like a fairly neutral descriptor of a particular doctrine and lacks the connotations of raging bigotry that the word racism calls up.
@Doug Mataconis: From your lips to God’s ears.