By Quin Hillyer;

Conservatives who write, blog, and tweet against Donald Trump have made almost a parlor game of sharing with each other the nasty responses we get from white supremacists for Trump. The racism from these goons is so outlandish that it’s almost self-satirical — except that it’s not funny; it’s sick and twisted.

In that light, it is no surprise that the man in America most famous for his KKK leadership and neo-Nazi ties and proposals, David Duke, came out the other day with a 20-minute-plus endorsement of the flamboyant billionaire (or alleged billionaire).

As it is, a well-known part of my biography (or at least well-known among those who actually know who I am) was my three years fighting against Duke when he seemed to have an ascendant political career in Louisiana in 1989–91, which culminated with his winning a spot in a general-election runoff for governor — halfway through which Duke was in a statistical tie (about two points down) with famous scofflaw governor Edwin Edwards.

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For three years, Duke had played the media like a fiddle (he was the best media manipulator I had ever seen until Trump started running for president), claiming to have put his racist days behind him and pretending to be merely an anti-establishment, anti-tax, anti-political-correctness heir to Ronald Reagan. And for three years his supporters — only a minority of whom were motivated primarily by race — did the hear-no-evil-see-no-evil routine, refusing even to consider a single fact showing that Duke remained a neo-Nazi and also a shady businessman. Like millions of good Americans who support Trump, these good Louisianans wanted a vehicle to express their anger and shake things up….

National Review specifically asked me to write about David Duke’s endorsement of Trump. With some hesitation, but wanting to ensure that the right distinctions were made, I agreed. Please read it carefully: Read the whole thing here.

 

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