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On running against Trump: Advice from those who defeated David Duke.

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  john-russell  •  5 years ago  •  52 comments

On running against Trump: Advice from those who defeated David Duke.
Progressives and liberals have this odd but unjustified faith in the power of pure reason. We tend to think people make rational decisions about self-interest and vote accordingly. But they don’t. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because Donald Trump would still be a second-rate game show host rather than President of the United States.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T


Progressives and liberals have this odd but unjustified faith in the power of pure reason. We tend to think people make rational decisions about self-interest and vote accordingly. But they don’t. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because Donald Trump would still be a second-rate game show host rather than President of the United States.



Jonathan Tilove





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On running against Trump: Advice from those who defeated David Duke.







     





Good Day Austin:

Last week, Tim Wise, a veteran of the successful campaigns against David Duke led by the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism when Duke ran for U.S. senator from Louisiana in 1990 and for governor of Louisiana in 1991, tweeted a widely viewed and commented-on thread about the lessons of those campaigns for Democrats trying to figure out how to defeat Donald Trump for re-election in 2020.

Considering that is the essential task facing the 20 Democratic candidates debating in Detroit tonight and tomorrow night, and the degree to which the president is spiraling deeper and deeper into Duke-like rhetoric, I am reprising selections from that thread, and a complementary  Medium  post by Wise covering the same territory.

After that, I recount my interview last week with  Lance Hill,  who as a graduate student in history at Tulane University, led the coalition. I got to know Lance when I wrote about race for  Newhouse News Service  and then as a Washington reporter with the  New Orleans Times-Picayune , and time and again talked with him at great length about race and Louisiana and the South and America, when he was teaching history at Tulane and directing the Southern Institute for Education and Research, which worked on tolerance education.

I spoke to Hill by phone from Lakeway, where I was talking to voters about President Trump for a  story  that appeared in Sunday’s Statesman.




Here is Wise’s Medium  piece The Choice in 2020 is Simple: It’s Trumpism vs. America


Ever since Donald Trump was elected, many have insisted that the vulgar racism upon which he bases so much of his appeal is “unprecedented,” and “abnormal.”

And sure enough, there are things about the way he deploys racial, ethnic, and cultural hostilities that are new, even in the long and disturbing pantheon of American politics.

For instance, referring to some among a crowd of white supremacists as “very fine people” — as Trump did after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville — was indisputably unique.

So too, telling four congresswomen of color to “go back” where they came from is something past presidents, no matter their racial biases, have managed to steer clear of doing.

But at the same time, much of Trump’s approach isn’t unique at all.

Playing upon white fears and hostility is one of the oldest plays in the American playbook. Unfortunately, it’s one against which those playing defense have often fallen short.

The good news is, there is an example from recent history that could serve as a guide for Democrats hoping to defeat Trump and the racial hostility to which he has given voice. But so far, few have applied its lessons to the present moment: namely, the 1990 and 1991 campaigns against white supremacist and former Klan leader, David Duke, in Louisiana.

I was centrally involved in those efforts, as a staffer for the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the organization founded for the purpose of defeating Duke in his bids for the U.S. Senate and Governor. And what we learned in those years was rather simple: to deflate a movement whose yeast is racism, you have to make it clear that the choice for voters is a moral one. It’s about the kind of people they want to be and the kind of nation in which they want to live.


You can’t defeat such a movement with policy ideas. Even trying to do this normalizes the extremist by treating them like any other candidate. To debate David Duke on jobs policy or taxes would have been absurd. Likewise, to think one can defeat Trump with detailed plans for taking on Wall Street, college affordability, or anything else misses the point. His voters did not vote for him over policy. Most voted for him as a walking embodiment of their rage. He hates who they hate, and that is all that matters.

Duke retained over 90 percent of his voters from the first to the second race, and Trump will likely do the same next year. Why? Because turning on Trump now, as with Duke, would require those who voted for him to acknowledge they voted for a monster. Most will never do that, at least not in the short term.

What ultimately stopped Duke was the crafting of a moral message against hate: one that could inspire the progressive base (especially people of color), yet also appeal to reasonable conservatives and moderates. While those folks might never have been able to agree on policy, by uniting to defeat the politics of prejudice, we could all live to fight another day over those things. But first things first.

Sadly, it took a while for us to learn this lesson. In the Senate race, consultants advised us we shouldn’t focus too much on Duke’s racist appeals. And some of the more conservative members of our Board, for their own ideological reasons, agreed. Yes, we should point out his Klan past and his ongoing affiliations with Nazis, but we shouldn’t try and challenge his contemporary racial messaging around welfare, immigration or crime. To do so, they said, would “play into his hands.” Instead, they encouraged us to talk about the fact that Duke had paid his taxes late or avoided service in Vietnam.

Acutely aware of the valuable purse strings to which some of our more conservative principals had access, we felt as though we had little choice but to play that game. And so we ultimately spent close to half of our budget on an overly-stylized, too-cute-by-half TV ad, which combined references to Duke’s ongoing Nazi affiliations with information about late tax payments and draft-dodging, as if these had been remotely equal in importance.

It was absurd and ineffective. By mixing the messages, we undersold the centrality of Duke’s extremism. After all, a voter might say, if Duke were really this awful white supremacist, why are they talking about Vietnam and taxes? To some, it no doubt felt like we were trying to throw anything at Duke to beat him, out of desperation rather than principle.

The results weren’t pretty. Duke got 44 percent of the vote: 60 percent of the white vote. Even though Duke lost, Duke-ism had proved itself potent. As my boss at the Coalition, Lance Hill, put it, “We had a referendum on hate and hate won.”


The second time around, having shed many of our right-leaning board members (and no longer listening to overpriced consultants), we were free to focus on Duke’s racism and the existential threat it posed to the state and nation.

We ran statewide radio commercials — and the Democratic Party later ran similar spots on TV — featuring an interview Duke had given, along with a self-proclaimed Nazi. On the tape, the other man, Joe Fields, excitedly says, “Hitler started with seven men,” to which Duke replies, “Right, and don’t you think we could do the same thing if we put the right package together?” It was a powerful hit, and its message was clear: it wasn’t Duke’s past we feared, it was his (and our) future.

We took out full-page ads challenging Duke’s “politics of prejudice,” and calling upon Louisianans to reject his message of hate and division, to reject racial scapegoating for the state’s economic problems, and to stand up for multiracial democracy. We got evangelical leaders to speak out against Duke’s claims of Christian piety by noting how his racism and anti-Semitism belied his protestations of faith.

That was the message. It wasn’t about Duke’s war service or tax payments, and it wasn’t even about how the Democratic candidate had a better plan for job creation. It was about the fundamental danger posed by hate: to Louisiana and America.

Although some in the pundit class insisted that only the threat of an economic boycott turned voters again Duke, this was absurd. It certainly didn’t take that threat to drive black voters to the polls — the racism was quite sufficient — and even the effect of that message on whites had its roots in a moral imperative. After all, it was Duke’s bigotry that would drive businesses and tourists away, and justifiably so. Had people not been convinced of his extremism, threats of boycotts would have fallen flat. It was because Duke’s racism made him a moral monster that the economic boycott threat had real legs.

Even our bumper stickers — “Vote for the Crook, It’s Important” — were based on the premise that whatever one might think of the ethically-challenged past of Democrat (and three-time Governor) Edwin Edwards, Nazism was worse. Much worse. And so the choice was clear.

The results? Duke still got the majority of the white vote; indeed, he got 65,000 more votes the second time around than the first. But his vote share fell to 39 percent overall and 55 percent among whites because progressive whites showed up in more significant numbers as did moderates inspired by the moral message. And black turnout surged. In 1990, white turnout had been 70 percent versus 64 percent for blacks. By 1991, white turnout had risen to 79 percent, but black turnout shot up to a comparable 78 percent.





The lesson? Democrats must make this election about the threat of Trumpism. Not about how their plan for health care is better, or cheaper, or more realistic than those of the other Democrats, let alone Trump. Not about the minutiae of policy at all. That’s not to say policy doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t drive voters. Trying to wow folks with “look-how-much-I’ve-thought about-this” stuff is not going to move the needle in 2020.

Progressives and liberals have this odd but unjustified faith in the power of pure reason. We tend to think people make rational decisions about self-interest and vote accordingly. But they don’t. If they did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because Donald Trump would still be a second-rate game show host rather than President of the United States.



Those who say (and many do) that the Democrats should ignore Trump’s race-baiting because it’s some genius political strategy calculated to distract us, are fools. He is not a genius. And to downplay his bigotry is to normalize him just as some would have had us normalize Duke. But Trump is governing as a white nationalist, and authoritarian. He and his movement are a threat to the future of the nation. That is the message that will drive turnout — not debates over marginal tax rates, or funding for schools, and surely not talk of Russia.

Trumpism is the threat to America, far more than Vladimir Putin. So when Donald Trump says “The Squad” hates America, or that anyone who opposes him does, we must say in unison, no.

It is you, Mr. President, you and your cult, who hate this country. The only version of it you love is America, circa 1957. But that America is no longer, and we are better for it.

America is a nation in the process of becoming a pluralistic, multiracial, multicultural democracy. You and your cult hate that America: the only one that actually exists. You despise the very notion of it.

But there are some of us who dearly love it, no matter how strongly you insist otherwise. And we are willing to bet everything on the proposition that there are more of us than there are of you. We may not be able to agree on everything, or even most things. But there is one thing we agree on — that you and your movement are toxic and must be stopped.

So Democrats, take note. America is on the table, bleeding out from a terrible, self-inflicted wound. Now is not the time to fight over the perfect plan for the nation’s long-term health and recovery.

It is time for triage.


Time to stop the bleeding.



Time to save the patient.


When I called Lance he was impressed with the powerful reaction to Wise’s thread and agreed with Wise’s analysis.

Lance Hill:   2020 is about restoring democracy. It’s not about Medicare for all. It’s not about forgiving student loans. It is not about class warfare. This is about democracy. And this is exactly the debate that occurred in Germany in the early ’30s. The Social Democrats were saying, now is the time to pause and make alliances with everyone,with every group that favors democracy because our very existence is threatened. And the mantra from people on the left and other progressives was, no this is the time we forge forward with our own agenda ... and that side lost, at a tremendous price. So you don’t have to go too far back in history, but I think all the answers are there.


Hill cites a 1932 quote from Kurt Schumacher, a Social Democratic leader in Germany, who said that, “one thing we admire about the National Socialists is that they have succeeded ... for the first time in German politics, in the complete mobilization of human stupidity.”

Hill:   I feel confident that in the long run that we are going to come up with a candidate that can put it in park and if you want all this other stuff, then wait until 2024

I sound like the tired, old aging leftist I never thought I’d devolve into, because everything I am arguing for now I was against when I was in my prime in the 60s.

While Wise and Hill say the biggest task is driving up turnout from those already opposed to Duke or Trump, Hill said here are white voters inclined to vote for Duke or Trump who can be moved.

Hiill:  You have to do what the Civil Rights Movement did and convince white people there are consequences for their behavior.

In the Duke campaign, the white people who could be moved away, wedged away, were white people that didn’t want conflict.

The reason they moved to the suburbs, and the reason why they wanted an all-white America, is they don’t want trouble. They’re not fighters. And if that’s the case you’ve got to convince them there are consequences for their behavior, that everywhere they go in this country they are going to be ashamed of being from Louisiana. There was an ad I wanted to do, it showed a young LSU grad going to a job interview and the interviewer asks, “Where did you go to school?” And he says, “Louisiana State University,” and the guy punches a button and the chair drops through the floor. I thought it was brilliant, but I couldn’t convince the ad people that it was.



What that played on was that people were coming back from Destin (a beach community on the Florida Panhandle) and they were embarrassed to say they were from Louisiana and everybody wanted to talk about David Duke. In politics they call it cross-pressuring. Voters are pressured to vote for one candidate but there are countervailing forces, and, in our case, the image America has of itself. which is as an egalitarian society, and nobody wants to be associated with opposing that.

The answer to what do you do when one of your relatives say they are going to vote for Duke? You make life miserable for them.

When you get to the point that Trump people feel they are being shamed and feel like there are consequences to be paid, it’s a change you can’t divine by polling, but it’s very much real.

The left tends to think people are rational and they make decisions based on reason, but they’re not. They make decisions for emotional reasons, for irrational reasons and you have to adjust your strategy to that. But even when people were making the wrong decision based on their own emotional interest, they can change.


Fifteen years after the governor’s race a graduate student who was doing a paper on the race got in touch with me. She couldn’t find a single white voter who would admit to voting for Duke.

That was an example of when you turn a political campaign into a moral campaign, that even though you might have 60% of the (white) vote against you, that (with Duke’s defeat in 1991) his movement disintegrates overnight. Within a week after the gubernatorial election, Duke’s whole organization crumbled, and then within 15 years, no one could even admit that they supported him.

Right now you can try to find white people in Mississippi who will say they were opposed to the Civil Rights Act. You’re not going to find any. They won’t admit it and they will have some story for you. Civil rights was imposed on white voters in the South in 1964. It would not have passed a referendum in the United States, let alone in the South, but now, 40, 50 years later, the core principles of the Civil Rights Act are accepted by white people in the South.

To me it was always intriguing how you could use coercion, force and moral suasion, but primarily force, to impose values, to assert national values over regional values, and it would eventually transform the regional values.

You can’t nickel and dime the white voter back into the human race How about if we waive your student loan debt, will you support a multicultural democracy? It just doesn’t work that way. People have to feel they are part of a movement greater than they are. They have to feel they are rising above their own pettiness and self-interest and doing something timeless and great.

All the talk about flyover country and the heart of America. Those are just euphemisms for white.

I can see it as a regional conflict, just like the Civil War. The Whigs did all they could to avoid he issue of slavery and they disintegrated, which is what the Republican Party is doing now. And that America is divided now, not between North and South but urban and rural, or urban and suburban but there are two different Americas, and one is part of a multi-racial democracy and people who are proud to be a part of that and defend it. And the other side are the ones that feel threatened by a multi-racial democracy and justifiably so. It means they will forgo privileges and status and control, and they are not going to surrender that easily. I don’t want to call it urban-rural divide because only 1% of Americans are farmers. It’s not rural in the classic sense people think about. But it’s probably based on education. Even back in the 90s I could pretty much predict who was going to be a Duke supporter by how much education they had.


Hill recalls sitting at a grill during the 1991 campaign next to a white guy he expected be a Duke supporter.

When Hill’s companion introduced Hill to the man, identifying Hill as a Tulane historian working to defeat Duke, the man looked up and said of Duke, “Yeah I don’t like him, because I took history in college and I know exactly who he is.”

Some with less education might not have that exposure to the lessons of history, said Hill, recalling an episode of  Leave it to Beave r where Wally’s telling Beaver they cut off the heads off kings and queens, and Beaver says to Wally, “Gee, I never heard that.” And Wally replies, “Yeah, you don’t get to that until high school.”


Hill believes Trump and the 2020 campaign will define a generation.


Hill :  Every generation needs a challenge to redefine the values of the country. For the 60s generation it was the war. For the Millennial generation, it’s Trump, and you’re actually quite fortunate to be part of a generation that has its values challenged because values really mean nothing unless they are challenged.

What I fear is the one thing they don’t have experience with as voters is how they can jeopardize the possibilities. For me it is very easy to say that 2020 is about restoring democracy and nothing more than that. If you want socialism, if you want some great change in the system, you have to wait until 2024 because this might be the last election that we have, and I know that sounds melodramatic, but I know too much about history to not believe that history can go backwards.

I live in the South where after the defeat of the South, and after Reconstruction, beginning with the great Redemption, history went backwards for 80 years for black people. Millennials see crisis as an opportunity, but this is not the time to gamble with our political future. I think no matter what people say, kitchen table issues or pocketbook issues, mean nothing. Bottom line, when people go to vote in 2020, i″s going to be either to save he country or destroy it for it for people of color. That’s the way to remember it.



Hill:  ( Democrats) could make a mistake and see this as an opportunity for progress rather than an opportunity to restore people’s democracy. Those two choices will be in tension with one another. I can’t predict how they will go.

All this talk (among the Democratic candidates) about winning support because they could prosecute Trump. First of all, no one can prosecute Trump. Hillary Clinton was a lawyer, a Yale-trained lawyer and she was very smart and she was not able to prosecute him effectively. When someone is s pathological liar like Trump, you don’t nail them in a debate.



When you are willing to lie at that level, you are not going to be trapped in a debate. Journalists who thought he was delusional, they were delusional to think that they could spring the right question.


It’s not a matter of left or right, but you could nominate a candidate that helps Trump. It’s entirely possible.

I asked Hill who he thought emerge as a formidbale opponent for Trump.

Hill:   I think there is actually some hope for Beto O’Rourke because he is doing the right thing recently. He’s retooling his image into Biden without the baggage. I think if Kamala Harris and Warren eclipse Biden, I think voters are still going to be looking for someone who is less threatening. Beto has the credentials and not much of the baggage. If I were his campaign adviser, I’d tell him to hang in there. Someone like him stands a chance. The other person would be Klobuchar who has played it pretty close to the middle.





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Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
[]
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago
Trumpism is the threat to America, far more than Vladimir Putin. So when Donald Trump says “The Squad” hates America, or that anyone who opposes him does, we must say in unison, no.

It is you, Mr. President, you and your cult, who hate this country. The only version of it you love is America, circa 1957. But that America is no longer, and we are better for it.

America is a nation in the process of becoming a pluralistic, multiracial, multicultural democracy. You and your cult hate that America: the only one that actually exists. You despise the very notion of it.
 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

Since the day he came down the Trump Tower escalator to appear before an audience that was paid to be there , and almost the first words out of his mouth were that Mexicans are rapists, the major threat to America has been Trumpism, a plague on our nation that of course includes Trump, but is most chiefly described as a collection of many of his followers. 

Just as on the eve of the Civil War in 1860 the national issue was "what is to be done with slavery", the issue before us now is what is to be done with Trumpism.  The seeded article knows what time it is. 

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3  Dismayed Patriot    5 years ago

"The reason they moved to the suburbs, and the reason why they wanted an all-white America, is they don’t want trouble. They’re not fighters. "

This line stuck out to me because I'd read something similar in the thread about white flight. Someone made the comment that white flight wasn't just about race, people were moving their families away from "unrest". It's as if they're making the argument for those in the neighborhood who saw the black family move in and said "Well, I'm not racist, but I know some of the other neighbors are and this fight is going to get nasty, so we decided to move to avoid the "unrest". Personally, I see little difference between those who moved because they couldn't stand to live next to a black family and those who chose to move to avoid any racial conflicts that might arise in a racially mixed neighborhood. They are two sides of the same coin, whose choices end with the same result.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
4  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago
You can’t defeat such a movement with policy ideas. Even trying to do this normalizes the extremist by treating them like any other candidate. To debate David Duke on jobs policy or taxes would have been absurd. Likewise, to think one can defeat Trump with detailed plans for taking on Wall Street, college affordability, or anything else misses the point. His voters did not vote for him over policy. Most voted for him as a walking embodiment of their rage. He hates who they hate, and that is all that matters.

I wouldnt word it exactly like this, but it is close enough. We have a poison being fed daily and hourly into our national bloodstream by Trump and Trumpism, and that is where the fight is, not over the details of any policy, most of which will be there as issues after Trump and his plague are gone. 

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
4.1  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  JohnRussell @4    5 years ago
We have a poison being fed daily and hourly into our national bloodstream by Trump and Trumpism, and that is where the fight is, not over the details of any policy, most of which will be there as issues after Trump and his plague are gone. 

What's different in this political climate is that both sides basically agree on that, Trump is feeding poison into the political bloodstream. What they don't agree on is that poisoning the political blood stream is a bad thing. For most Americans they view it as a bad thing (well over 50% disapprove of Trumps job as President) and want to stop the poison. For Trump supporters, they see the patient (the American political system) as a convicted felon and couldn't be happier as Trump attempts to euthanize it.

It's why we feel so divided, one side wants to save the patient, and the other side doesn't think the patient is worth saving. We both agree it's sick, it's broken, conservatives just feel it's more like a horse with a broken leg than should be put down instead of spending a lot of work on nursing it back to health with no guarantee it will ever walk again. Personally, I feel this 240 year experiment in a constitutional Republic is worth saving, worth trying to heal. But I believe the gangrene, the poison injected by Trump and many religious conservatives supporting him, is what needs to be amputated, not our diversity, not our freedoms, not our progressive ideals moving us ever forward towards a more perfect union by embracing equality instead of clinging to xenophobia and fear.

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
5  JBB    5 years ago

Got Hate? The Ku Klux Klan has endorsed Donald Trump for reelection in 2020...

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
5.1  MrFrost  replied to  JBB @5    5 years ago

[deleted]

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
5.1.2  Trout Giggles  replied to  XDm9mm @5.1.1    5 years ago

Did it occur to you that Frost is saying "true" because they endorsed the man in 2016...why not endorse him in 2020? Do you seriously believe that the KKK is going to endorse the Democratic nominee?

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
5.1.4  Trout Giggles  replied to  XDm9mm @5.1.3    5 years ago

I did read JBB's comment. I took it as a joke, satire, humor....but you probably don't understand those words.....

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
5.1.5  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  XDm9mm @5.1.1    5 years ago
[Robb said] that while the Crusader wasn’t officially endorsing Trump, his article signaled the publication’s enthusiastic support for the Republican billionaire’s candidacy. “Overall, we do like his nationalist views and his words about shutting down the border to illegal aliens,” Robb said. “It’s not an endorsement because, like anybody, there’s things you disagree with. But he kind of reflects what’s happening throughout the world. There seems to be a surge of nationalism worldwide as nationals reclaim their borders.”

Seriously? That's what you're using to claim the KKK endorsement of Trump somehow bogus? Basically a KKK news letter admitting that they like Trump, his views, his words about shutting down the border and words on illegal aliens and the publication would be enthusiastically supporting Trumps candidacy, but don't view that as an endorsement... ? Really?

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
6  Nerm_L    5 years ago

Hillary Clinton ran against Trumpism.  How'd that work out?

Everyone knew who and what Trump was before the last election.  And the public has been constantly reminded by the punditry since the election.

The Democratic Party invented racial politics in the United States.  The Ku Klux Klan was established by Democrats to pander to white voters and intimidate black voters on racial issues.  How is Antifa any different?  Democrats invented political correctness before the Civil War and enforced it with violence.  The Democratic Party hasn't changed.

Apparently Democrats fear losing black (and brown) voters so are revitalizing their KKK past.  As the seeded article points out, violent opposition to Trumpism is really about targeting, intimidating, and pandering to white voters.  But make no mistake, violently opposing Trumpism is really about intimidating black voters into remaining faithful to the Democratic Party.  Democrats have only exchanged black hoods for their white ones.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
6.1  Tessylo  replied to  Nerm_L @6    5 years ago

[deleted]

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2  MrFrost  replied to  Nerm_L @6    5 years ago
Apparently Democrats fear losing black (and brown) voters so are revitalizing their KKK past.

Nerm...if the Dems fear losing Black voters, how would embracing the KKK's values help? Are you suggesting the KKK loves black people? The KKK of TODAY, (not 180 years ago), is all right wing. 

David Duke ran for public office as a Dem several times and couldn't get elected. He joined the Republican party and the first time he ran as a Republican, he won. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
6.2.1  Sean Treacy  replied to  MrFrost @6.2    5 years ago
for public office as a Dem several times and couldn't get elected. He joined the Republican party and the first time he ran as a Republican, he won.

David Duke votes for Democrats now. Funny how the boogeyman the Democrats hold up as pure evil now endorses Democrats. 

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
6.2.2  Texan1211  replied to  MrFrost @6.2    5 years ago
David Duke ran for public office as a Dem several times and couldn't get elected. He joined the Republican party and the first time he ran as a Republican, he won.

As a STATE rep.

And yes, he ran as a Republican--just like Bernie ran as a Democrat --and his OPPONENT was endorsed by Bush and Reagan, so please don;t confuse him winning a state legislature seat with the GOP endorsing him.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.3  MrFrost  replied to  Sean Treacy @6.2.1    5 years ago
David Duke votes for Democrats now.

Um, no....

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.4  MrFrost  replied to  Texan1211 @6.2.2    5 years ago
And yes, he ran as a Republican--just like Bernie ran as a Democrat --

And when was Bernie the Grand Wizard of the KKK?

Never. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
6.2.5  Sean Treacy  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.3    5 years ago

Um., Yeah....

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
6.2.6  Nerm_L  replied to  MrFrost @6.2    5 years ago
Nerm...if the Dems fear losing Black voters, how would embracing the KKK's values help? Are you suggesting the KKK loves black people? The KKK of TODAY, (not 180 years ago), is all right wing. 

Intimidation works; that's the lesson Democrats learned from their creation of the KKK.  Intimidation is what the seeded article is advocating.

David Duke ran for public office as a Dem several times and couldn't get elected. He joined the Republican party and the first time he ran as a Republican, he won.

Yeah, so?  The Democratic Party has quite enough racially divisive politicians; Democrats don't need more.  Just because Duke panders to and intimidates the wrong racial voting block doesn't really defend Democrat's racial politics.

But Democrat's creation of Trumpism is different.  More blacks have been vocal in their support of Trump.  Violently opposing Trumpism is really about intimidating black voters by creating fear of the Democratic Party's past.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.7  MrFrost  replied to  Sean Treacy @6.2.5    5 years ago

Oh for FFS Sean, he supports someone that hates Israel. ONE Dem. Not the entire Democratic party. The KKK and David Duke are anti Semites and they endorse trump in 2020. Of course Duke is going to support someone, (anyone for that matter), that hates Jews. 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.8  MrFrost  replied to  Nerm_L @6.2.6    5 years ago
Intimidation works; that's the lesson Democrats learned from their creation of the KKK.  Intimidation is what the seeded article is advocating.

Nerm, take a look at that picture I posted. Learn from it. That's the KKK's official newspaper. Who is that on the front page of the paper? Not a democrat. 

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
6.2.9  Nerm_L  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.7    5 years ago
The KKK and David Duke are anti Semites and they endorse trump in 2020. Of course Duke is going to support someone, (anyone for that matter), that hates Jews. 

So is Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.  Farrakhan and Duke are brothers from different mothers.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
6.2.10  Texan1211  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.4    5 years ago
And when was Bernie the Grand Wizard of the KKK?

I didn't see where anyone claimed that bullshit.

But, hey, way to miss the point!

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.11  MrFrost  replied to  Nerm_L @6.2.6    5 years ago
Yeah, so?

So? Because Dems don't typically vote for RACISTS. That why he switched to the Republican party. 

Enough with the creation of the KKK, in THIS millenium, the KKK is all right wing. 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.12  MrFrost  replied to  Texan1211 @6.2.10    5 years ago
I didn't see where anyone claimed that bullshit.

Then why did you bring him up in comparison to David Duke? 

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
6.2.13  Tessylo  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.12    5 years ago

Deflection?  Trolling?

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
6.2.14  MrFrost  replied to  Nerm_L @6.2.9    5 years ago
So is Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

Wow, you are just all over the place today. I proved you wrong so now you just jump to the next talking point. You have a good day Nerm. 

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
6.2.15  Texan1211  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.12    5 years ago
Then why did you bring him up in comparison to David Duke?

Do I really need to spell it out?

Bernie was NOT a Democrat. He ran in the Democratic primaries. Democrats were powerless to stop him. Doesn't mean Democrats endorsed him.

Duke ran as a Republican. The GOP was powerless to stop it. The leaders of the GOP endorsed his opposition.

Starting to see it now?

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
6.2.16  Sean Treacy  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.7    5 years ago
, he supports someone that hates Israel. ONE Dem. Not the entire Democratic party

Do you know how Presidential  elections work?  You only endorse one candidate. 

The candidate David Duke feels  most aligned with his views is a Democrat.  Sad for those whose entire argument consists of equating one guy with Republicans. The Democrats and their friends in the media have spent years giving this guy as platform in order to demonize Republicans and now he's a democrat again.  

 
 
 
Nerm_L
Professor Expert
6.2.17  Nerm_L  replied to  MrFrost @6.2.14    5 years ago
Wow, you are just all over the place today. I proved you wrong so now you just jump to the next talking point. You have a good day Nerm. 

You didn't 'prove' anything.  As I pointed out Democrats have only exchanged black hoods for their white ones.  Antifa is replacing the Black Panthers as the Democrat's new KKK.  Democrats are still engaged in the politics of racial intimidation just as Democrats have done throughout the history of the Party.

Democrats refuse to accept that their 'white trash' politics is racist.  For Democrats Caucasian isn't a race, it's a deplorable accident of nature.  As the seeded article explains, it's necessary to intimidate Caucasians into submission.  That is what Tim Wise is advocating.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
6.2.18  Tessylo  replied to  Sean Treacy @6.2.5    5 years ago

Um, no.

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
6.3  Trout Giggles  replied to  Nerm_L @6    5 years ago

What kind of mustard do you want for that pretzel you're twisting yourself into?

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
7  Sean Treacy    5 years ago

So the lesson is Republicans need to adopt this strategy against Democrats, since the Democratic Party is the party that David Duke now supports.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
7.1  MrFrost  replied to  Sean Treacy @7    5 years ago

[deleted]

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Expert
7.2  MrFrost  replied to  Sean Treacy @7    5 years ago

So the lesson is Republicans need to adopt this strategy against Democrats, since the Democratic Party is the party that David Duke now supports.

Weird that he and the KKK voted for trump last time, and endorse him in 2020. I think you have your parties confused. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
7.2.2  Sean Treacy  replied to  XDm9mm @7.2.1    5 years ago

You almost have to feel sorry for them. Democrats and their media allies built up Duke over 30 years as the embodiment of evil and used a single special election from 30 years ago in a state house election to tie him to all Republicans.  Think how much media time he's gotten from the liberal media for that purpose.

And now the villain they created announces his views are more in line with a mainstream Democratic candidate for President. Whoops!

Now Duke gets forgotten down the memory hole and they have to have to start all over again building up some guy with access to a Xerox machine as the embodiment of evil.  Expect the media to hype whatever this guy manages to xerox to his 30 followers as major news if it can be used against Trump.  

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
8  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

We see all this babbling and babbling and babbling from Trump supporters , desperately trying to muddy up Democrats on the race issue. What other choice do they have considering the pig that is their hero? 

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
9  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

Over 95%  of all African Americans who have been elected to the House or the Senate since 1930 have done so as DEMOCRATS.   Do any of you Trumpsters realize how that one fact destroys all your arguments? 

[Deleted]

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
10  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

Trump tweet last night

"I am the least racist person in the world"

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Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
10.1  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  JohnRussell @10    5 years ago
"I am the least racist person in the world"

His plan has been to just throw out so many lies that his opponents will eventually stop even bothering to fact check him and his supporters will continue to buy the bullshit because its what they want to hear. They're likely all repeating the same thing while still waving their confederate flags, protecting the confederate monuments, still ranting about how Obama was a secret Muslim born in Kenya, and wondering what was so bad about Trumps supporters at a rally chanting "Send her back!". Many likely look themselves in the mirror and say "I am the least racist person in the world, just like my hero Trump... It's just those inferior minorities who are racists!"...

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
11  seeder  JohnRussell    5 years ago

Locked. You can thank the moderators. 

 
 

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