5.March.2016

Honey, I blew up the Party

Conservative HQ Chairman Richard Viguerie's keening lament, following props to his man:

"I think Ted Cruz did a good job in the debate tonight, but from the perspective of my 50+ years in conservative politics at the national level, it is clear that only two things can stop Donald Trump now: Trump himself or a united conservative movement."

Viguerie still imagines that "Donald Trump is perfectly capable of destroying his own campaign or at last doing serious damage to his prospects by not being presidential in his rhetoric or actions," against all facts in evidence. The bar for "being presidential" has been lowered to flush with the ground, so that even with clown shoes on, you can walk over it.

“The establishment media has failed to expose Trump’s past business dealings, lifestyle, bizarre statements, and liberal Democratic ideas–and had they become better known earlier, they would have unmasked Trump for the Big Government anti-conservative that he is.”

The NYT reports that the rank and file are adamant, no matter what Mitt Romney and John McCain and Steve Forbes say: they're sticking with Trump. (They've never heard of Richard Viguerie.) "I personally am disgusted by it — and I think it's disgraceful," Lola Butler said. Talking about Romney's statement. Calling Trump out for misogyny, vulgarity and dishonesty. Sounds like a condescending Democrat!

“There’s nothing short of Trump shooting my daughter in the street and my grandchildren — there is nothing and nobody that’s going to dissuade me from voting for Trump,” Ms. Butler said.

Some of them are as enthusiastic about Trump "doing damage to the Republican Party" as for Trump himself. Steve from Temecula, California, for example, had a message for Mr. Romney:

“The Republican electorate is not a bunch of completely ignorant fools. We know who Donald Trump is and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.”

But don't blame Trump for taking advantage of the opportunity the party's giving him. He's not the cause of the wave, he's just riding it. Never mind Trump's "uniquely grotesque" and "signature personality brew of deep-seated insecurities, vindictive narcissism, channeling of the darkest impulses, and gaudy, petty boasting," Glenn Greenwald points out that it's Trump's substance, not his style that's the issue:

"Trump is self-evidently a toxic authoritarian demagogue advocating morally monstrous positions, but in most cases where elite outrage is being vented, he is merely a natural extension of the mainstream rhetorical and policy framework that has been laid, not some radical departure from it. He’s their id. What establishment mavens most resent is not what Trump is, does, or says, but what he reflects: the unmistakable, undeniable signs of late-stage imperial collapse, along with the resentments and hatreds they have long deliberately and self-servingly stoked but which are now raging out of their control."

For our moral condemnation to be "genuinely valuable," it has to have some grounding, not just self-delusion and self-glorification. Sounds like too much work.

It's too much work for the other three remaining candidates running against Trump. He may be a "clown" and a "con artist" (who, ahem, "lacks the temperament to be president"), but he's their clown, and a pledge is a pledge, for them. For Trump? Who knows. He doesn't believe for a second that he's going to have make good on it, but if somehow he does get pushed out of the race, he'll do what he thinks is good for his business, or ego.

Ranch news

Today's the big day, dozens of rallies in memory of LaVoy Finicum. Boise's not on The Oregonian's interactive map there, huh. Story says one of the goals is "to collect signatures for a petition urging state and federal authorities to investigate how Finicum died," oddly. Authorities are certainly investigating it all, even as that's unlikely to satisfy those who think he was murdered.

"Many dispute the FBI's account of the confrontation and insist Finicum's death was preventable."

Indeed. All he had to do was surrender peacefully to law enforcement, not flee, not try to drive around a roadblock, not jump out of the car and appear to go for his gun.

Phil Taylor, writing for E&E Publishing, introduces us to the Klumps—BLM's pre-Bundy roundup nightmare. That headline's a little overblown, not least because the Klumps never caused enough trouble to make national headlines, and because there was a peaceable resolution in their case. It involved some jail time for Wally Klump, with an apparently successful deterrent to future transgression. The extended family still holds grazing permits on 11 allotments, and BLM said it "maintains a productive working relationship with these permittees." They were more the lone wrangler sort, didn't call out the militia to rally to their support. While the neighbors in Arizona "initially supported him," they reportedly "recoiled when he started talking about killing people."

In the Bundy's case, the BLM's not satisfying the curiosity of reporters (or others) wanting to know the particulars of the claim that Cliven owes $1 million. On the one hand, it sounds a little sketchy for grazing fees. On the other, after a slew of court cases and unsatisfied judgements, and by now, I'm sure Bundy and his supporters have cost taxpayers that much and more. Not even counting the room and board they're currently enjoying at government expense.

The Bend Bulletin reports a document dump from Oregon's Gov. Kate Brown, a thousand pages of emails and texts. A few days before the leaders were arrested in January, Brown wrote to the President and Attorney General to say:

“The residents of Harney County are being intimidated in their own hometown by armed criminals who appear to be seeking occasions for confrontation,” Brown wrote. “The harm being done to the innocent men, women and children of Harney County is real and manifest. With each passing day, tensions increase exponentially.”

4.March.2016

These little guys

It seems there was yet another Republican debate last night. We may be getting down to the tail end of the field, but the entertainment value—judging by James Hohmann's take and Twitter excerpts for WaPo—was OFF THE HOOK.

So much so that Bill Kristol had a religious experience:

Watching the debate, had a moment of mystical insight and clairvoyant vision: Could we end up with a Cruz-Kasich ticket?

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 4, 2016

What John Kasich said: "It's now March Madness."

And no matter how crazy, insulting, ridiculous, embarrassing, childish or frightening he may be, they all said they'd support the eventual nominee to come out of this.

"Even if it's not me?" Donald wanted to know.

But he couldn't believe that could ever happen, so he was willing to grant the other three guys credit they didn't deserve, in the most ungracious way imaginable.

The bullying of Wayne Hoffman

The head of Idaho's self-proclaimed "most influential" political organization, the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation Idaho Freedom Foundation has been hit, hard, judging by his over-the-top reaction to a legislator calling him out.

Joe Jaszewksi's photo of Wayne Hoffman, pulled out of the Idaho Statesman's files, is almost too precious, showing him on the Capitol steps blowing through a bullhorn. Bill Dentzer's story describes (and links to) Rep. Packer's weekly podcast with her statement,

“I don’t know that they’re necessarily an honest, conservative voice. There’s just a lot of ironies and hypocrisies that I see in place”

following her (persisently unnamed, weirdly) interlocutor's leading question about IFF's tactics, which "if they were employed on an elementary school level, they would be in the principal's office for bullying." He said "that's just my point of view," she said "I agree," he said "and I'm sure I'm going to get attacked for that," and here we are.

Packer said she thought it "was more concerted this session," and that she's "been surprised by them." She said that the "honesty" she'd hoped for from Wayne and his IFF "hasn't always been the case."

"I watch things that are happening up here that are really concerning to me. The Freedom Foundation, they're a 501(c)(3), which means that they cannot lobby, yet they're here on the Capitol on a regular basis lobbying. And there are a lot of ironies and hypocrisies. With a 501c3, those people that donated to them get a full tax deduction; they're not supposed to lobby, yet they do. In the campaign season, 2014 I think it was, they were puttin' up billboards smearing good conservatives over a voting record that is arbitrary..."

She said in her first year in the legislature she asked the IFF not to send her any more emails.

"Wayne Hoffman hates licensure, so any licensure bill's going to be a negative six, and ruin your score."

In her opinion, it seemed that the IFF's decisions about what legislation is "good" and "bad" is arbitrary, and depends on who's carrying the bill.

"Who are you two or three people to tell the rest of the state, and their representatives how they should vote?"

"They say they're all about fiscal conservative values, but yet they cost us money, thousands and thousands of dollars in costly document requests, in votes that make us come back for a special session or that extend our session time. They run bills that are unconstitutional, according to our AGs, which costs money. So I look at this and go, how's that conservative?"

The specific "bullying tactic" she identified was "don't vote the way I think you should? I'm going to give you a negative 6."

Of course, to the Idaho Freedom Foundation, "good government" is an oxymoron. Regulation is bad. because it costs money, and makes more government. Good people can disagree—strongly—about such matters of opinion, as well as about what is and is not "conservative." And what constitutes "bullying."

The question of what is and isn't legal in regard to a "charitable" organization lobbying the legislature is not cut and dried, as Dentzer pointed out:

"Federal law allows a sliding-scale portion of a charity’s expenditures to go toward lobbying. In 2014, for example, IFF reported $731,000 in expenditures. Under the law, it could have spent nearly $136,000 on lobbying. With three employees registered as lobbyists, it reported spending less than $16,000."

It's a gray area, and, like so much of our tax system generally depends on voluntary compliance, and self-reporting. The IFF self-assesses what constitutes "lobbying" and... came up with that interesting, de minimis, and self-serving number which is more than slightly incredible.

We're not sure that's honest, you might say.

But here comes Wayne Hoffman, with a press conference at the Capitol, to correct the record, and helpfully SoundClouding the audio on the IFF site. After extolling his organization for being The Most Influential in all the land and its Freedom Index as the "gold standard" of conservativism, Wayne wants to know why is everybody always pickin on me?

Before he accuses some unnamed legislator of slander, in a hypocritical way, with vague, but truly indignant innuendo. "The truth" is that IFF is a lobbying organization, which yes, it's plain to see. Hoffman claims it's all "lawfully," but that's not so clear, and the IRS' enforcement powers have been gutted by conservatives such as him.

Nobody ever goes after lefty organizations like Planned Parenthood, you know?

Hoffman has the unmitigated gall to accuse anyone who insists that his credibility is open to question that we want to use "the force of government to harass [your] donors." (Well, ok, into obeying the law.)

Asked by reporter Betsy Russell the direct question that this whole show is intended to provoke, Hoffman says "well I didn't mention her name," and only coyly acknowledging, who it was that he was there to bully and harass.

Voting records are matters of FACT, and public record, unlike the SECRET (or "private," if you like) identity of the "conservatives" who are paying IFF's expenses and Wayne Hoffman's salary.

Betsy presses on: "what, particularly, was a LIE?"

"The claim was that we were bullying legislators, and that we're harassing them into voting a certain way. None of that is true."

And yet, Hoffman proves the accusation against him with this press conference, held to make sure that the Kelley Packers of the legislature never have the temerity to call bullshit on the IFF.

"Whenever you distort the truth, that's bullying," Hoffman said. That's some creative word-slinging from a veteran slinger. Distortion is bullying, and bullying is lying and lying is slander. Got it.

For the voters in Rep. Packer's district, Hoffman was considerably more direct than vague innuendo about "some legislator," using robo-calls to accuse her of "slander," and to tar her with the ultimate insult. She "is a liberal."

That is some bad-ass bullying and harassment, Wayne.

3.March.2016

Call of the wild

Yesterday, we declined to be nationally researched for yet another two times (and a third shot in the dark, after we'd gone out), so figure any of those poll results you read are slanted away from people like us. Since we like us, that's good news from our perspective, compared to what you read about the latest polls. But the folks who are talking to pollsters, and a lot of the ones showing up to vote in Republican primaries are evoking observations such as this, about the front runner:

"I’ve never met a national politician so ill informed, so evasive, so bombastic and, frankly, so puerile."

Among supporters, that is apparently a good thing. It's "telling it like it is." Never mind, "political correctness," to hell with "correctness."

79% of Trump's statements Politifact looked at were mostly false, false, or pants-on-fire. Chances are 1 in 5 that anything factual he claims is wrong. Lottery tickets are a considerably better bet than the truth of a Trump blurt (or tweet).

Republicans have done so well at breaking government, making good on that "government is broken" marketing campaign they've been running, the idea of a powerful, bullying "outsider" seems like the best thing going to a mob sharpening their pitchforks and soaking the torches.

But unlike the unfortunate Chris Christie (facing a mob of New Jersey editorial boards, as he gamely bobble-heads for "Mr. Trump") and the random leader of the Idaho legislature, not all Republicans are prepared to say "yay." John Stemberger, President and General Counsel of Florida Family Action, has a short and unconvincing list of things to like about Trump (including how "straight shooting" he is, appealing to those "feeling lied to by so many politicians"), followed by three questions (with answers provided):

1. What is Donald Trump's political history and voting record?
2. Do Donald Trump's liberal positions on policy issues tell us how he would govern as president?
3. Does Donald Trump have the kind of character and integrity that can be trusted?

Maybe it'll be more persuasive with the angle about how we didn't really "do a background check" on Obama before electing him president. (Uh, twice, now.) Stemberger seems as concerned about Trump winning the nomination and losing the election, but he's arguing against taking the chance that Trump would win, too:

"Trump's outrageous insults, double talk and baggage would surely destroy him in a general election. But what happens if he did win the general election and became the next president? What happens when the job is no longer fun? Would he just walk out and leave the job? Does he have the character to go the distance?"

Or would he just hand it over to Vice-President Chris Christie? (Not that Christie would get Trump's nod for Veep. He seems more likely to go with his own daughter.)

The Speaker of the House (and last time's failed Veep candidate) says he'd hold his nose and vote for whomever, while the lame duck Majority Leader of the Senate is looking out for number one,

"remind[ing] colleagues of his own 1996 re-election campaign, when he won comfortably amid President Bill Clinton’s easy re-election. Of Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell has said, “We’ll drop him like a hot rock,” according to his colleagues."

Maybe he would make it his top priority as Minority Leader to ensure that Donald Trump is a one-term president.

And this just in, Mitt Romney made his case against Trump in a speech in Utah this morning.

“Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,” Mr. Romney said. “His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.”

The NYT First Draft found somebody in one of those lousy hats to rebut. A one-time Romney-backer, even:

Max Chaz, who backed Mr. Romney in 2012, arrived in a “Make America Great Again” hat that is the hallmark of Mr. Trump’s campaign. He was turned off by Mr. Romney’s late effort to tilt the election and said it was “bordering on tyranny when the party turns around at this date after Trump has been so successful and decide they don’t like the outcome.”

You don't need me (or the New York Times) to tell you that Trump responded "quickly and forcefully" about the guy who "ran one of the worst campaigns, as you know, in presidential history." But further down the First Draft, it's interesting to note that Trump found his way back to the politically correct position on white supremacist David Duke, now "a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years," as opposed to "I don't know anything about David Duke, ok?" On Sunday. Maybe Trump is more generous on Sundays.

2.March.2016

Home again

Here's more on Scott Kelley, mostly put together from before yesterday's return in the Soyuz capsule, but with some lovely video footage we didn't see live yesterday: Nsikan Akpan for the PBS Newshour, I couldn't sleep last night, because Scott Kelly came home.

Update: PBS put together an hour-long show, A Year in Space that aired March 2, and that you can watch online ICYMI. Very clever to do all that ahead of time and splice in the return to cap it off.

Politically incorrect

Bit of news to me that Ross Douthat constitutes the "last bastion of rationality on the right," but hold that thought. William Saletan goes on to say that "the delusion that Obama caused Trump" has now infected Douthat too.

"Obama was for fiscal responsibility and compromise, so Republicans were for absolutism and drama," which is not to say Obama made them do it. "In Trump, Republican voters have found their anti-Obama. Trump spurns not just political correctness, but correctness of any kind."

Let Douthat have his say. "Obama-era trends in liberal politics have helped feed the Trump phenomenon," says he, with "liberal" italicized just so you don't miss his point.

"Such a recognition wouldn’t require letting the Republican Party off the hook. The Trump uprising is first and foremost a Republican and conservative problem: There would be no Trumpism if George W. Bush’s presidency hadn’t cratered, no Trumpism if the party hadn’t alternated between stoking and ignoring working-class grievances, no Trump as front-runner if the party leadership and his rivals had committed fully to stopping him before now."

Aaaand, hold your buts. Obama didn't do all he could to stop the usurpation of executive power so artfully crafted by Dick Cheney and his acolyte, thus producing the Trump phenomenon? So much for the bastion of rationality.

Postscript: Douthat's post-Tuesday take is that Trump "basically has the devil’s luck," which I guess is good? I don't remember that part of my Catechism.

Did I say that out loud?

NYT reader Ken Fitzpatrick is featured in outgoing Public Editor Margaret Sullivan's explanation of How Trump's "Off the Record" Remarks Crept Out which is being treated by some (including said Trumpster) as a horrific breach of ethical standards, as if we needed a further injection of (tragi-)comedy into the proceedings of the current Republican race for the nomination. I'm with Fitzpatrick:

"Can you please elucidate why the NYT is conducting any part of an interview with a Presidential candidate off the record?

"Obviously if you have informed someone that part of the interview is off the record, going back on that would be unethical. But why, oh why, would you ever agree to that in the first place? You’re not interviewing someone whose cat was rescued from a tree. ..."

There's a lengthy, convoluted and (dare we say) politically correct explanation. Technically, while it was "off the record," it was recorded. Unlike the movies, no one reached across the table for dramatic effect and hit the PAUSE button on the cassette recorder. The Time's executive editor isn't planning to pursue a leak investigation, and

he also said that he found the idea of an off-the-record agreement when there are “30 people in the room” to be difficult to enforce and probably impractical.

As conscience for the operation, Sullivan is bound to acknowledge that the organization "was and is obligated to honor that arrangement," no matter how preposterous it might have been, and gee, maybe they shouldn't put themselves in that position again. Nothing wrong with an off-the-record, pre-endorsement meeting with dozens of disparate board members and one hopeful prospect, but just don't mix it up any news-gathering.

You know, the way Donald Trump and the other candidates are so careful to compartmentalize themselves into formality and informality.

So anyway, what was leaked, exactly? To read the Buzzfeed account, it sounds like nothing other than a hint in a Gail Collins column (who was there as part of... the editorial board? Can't tell; it says "19 journalists" but only lists 16, and the story is that 30-some people were there), which, I have to tell you, has nothing that sounds like insider information in it. The supposed money quote:

"The most optimistic analysis of Trump as a presidential candidate is that he just doesn’t believe in positions, except the ones you adopt for strategic purposes when you’re making a deal. So you obviously can’t explain how you’re going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, because it’s going to be the first bid in some future monster negotiation session."

That's not a leak, it's a duh. Did we not all read The Art of the Deal? (Ok, I didn't.) Did we not hear about the "Trump University" scam selling a make-believe connection to Trump, now working its way through lawsuits? Did we not see more than enough of The Apprentice to want to tear our eyes out of their sockets?

Speaking of tearing your eyes out of your sockets, the manufactured "controversy" (at least something about Trump is Made in USA) is that there is a recording of the off-the-record part of the discussion that had parts that were on-the-record too. As Trump told to Sean Hannity, on Fox News, accusing the NYT of doing something... is there any evidence they did?

"Yeah, of course they're leaking it," said Trump. "The most dishonest media group. And it's also failing. I call it the failing New York Times. It's doing so badly, it's dying. But I did. We had a board meeting. It was off the record. All of a sudden, they leak it. It's all over the place."

"They said you said it's negotiable on the wall," said Hannity.

Trump did not miss a step. "It's negotiable," he said. "Things are negotiable. I'll be honest with you -- I'll make the wall two feet shorter, or something. I mean, everything's negotiable."

"It's not negotiable to build it?" asked Hannity.

"No!" said Trump. "Building it? Not negotiable."

"Would it be negotiable about the 11 million?" asked Hannity, referring to the frequently cited estimate of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. "Maybe let some people stay if they register in a period of time?"

"I would say this," said Trump. "I've always said, look, we have some great people over here. And they're going to go out, but we're going to work out a system that's fair."

There's your dealy art. Innuendo and bluster from a lying gasbag free to fling his feces any which way, abetted by oily sycophants like Sean Hannity, who accidentally helped Donald spill more "trade secrets" than anyone at the NYT had revealed. Whatever the hell "it" is, it's "all over the place" coming out of the mouth of Trump, but not so much in the real world.

Welcome to your Super Tuesday hangover, with two and some remainder hopeless also-rans clinging to their fractional chances so firmly that Trump's plurality will be his ticket to splitting the party in two, leaving durable partisans (such as Idaho's GOP leaders) to grit their teeth and go down with the ship. The NOT-TRUMP results from the day:

• Alaska: 66.5%
• Alabama: 56.6%
• Arkansas: 63.7%
• Georgia: 61.2%
• Massachusetts 50.8%
• Minnesota: 78.8%
• Oklahoma: 71.7%
• Tennessee: 61.1%
• Texas: 73.2%
• Virginia: 65.3%
• Vermont: 67.3%

Rubio is looking ever-less likely, but he's got 106 out of 681 delegates so far, just enough to keep him dangling on. Cruz has 226, way more than enough to keep him trudging forward (or as his fundraising message this morning puts it, "March to Victory!"), but only a third of the total. Trump's 46% plurality is plenty in a five-way race, or even a three-way. Rubio-Cruz voters aren't fungible, and Cruz's insistence that "I am the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump AND Hillary Clinton" is as unconvincing as his melodramatic cadence.

Super Tuesday

Big picture view

Scott Kelly Reflects On His Year Off The Planet before he comes back down this evening, with a nice selection of the many, great, big photos he's taken. The return story on Wired had a replay of the goodbye hugs and closing of the Soyuz hatch. Undocking set for 18:05 MST, landing 21:05.

Trump mania

Robert Kagan: The GOP's Frankenstein.

Amanda Taub: American authoritarianism. Trump could be the first of many Trumps.

Jonathan Chait: How Donald Trump Made Republicans Half-Aware of Racism. "Donald Trump represents a threat to conservatism in two ways. He is extremely likely to lose if nominated, and even if elected, he engenders little confidence that he will see the party agenda through."

Hmm, I missed it when David Brooks started hitting the panic button in mid-January. I think my head would have exploded trying to wrap around our need for "a coalition that combines Huey Long, Charles Colson and Theodore Roosevelt."

Dumbfounding

Peter Wehner is among those of us who can't understand how "Christian" and "Donald Trump" go together. His NYT op-ed asks What Wouldn't Jesus Do? Spoiler alert: He sure as hell wouldn't vote for that Trump character. (Which made me wonder; was Jesus a voter? I don't remember any Bible passages about election day.)

News to me, Trump has collected endorsements from Liberty U. president Jerry Falwell Jr. and Christian Broadcasting Networker Pat Robertson, quoted as saying, to Trump's face, "You inspire us all." It makes perfect sense if Pat was speaking for all media personalities making a living off donations from a credulous audience. He's truly an inspiration! But for the rest of us, not so much.

"Mr. Trump’s character is antithetical to many of the qualities evangelicals should prize in a political leader: integrity, compassion and reasoned convictions, wisdom and prudence, trustworthiness, a commitment to the moral good."

Never mind evangelicals, shouldn't we all prize integrity, compassion and reasoned convictions, wisdom and prudence, trustworthiness, a commitment to the moral good? And deprecate "a moral degenerate"?

Whether or not Jesus ever found his way to a polling booth, he did have some things to say about the separation of church and state. He would certainly have valued personal integrity and moral behavior over bluster and bullying. Evangelical fervor does not seem to be the prime mover in any Trump supporter's decision-making. Wehner offers what's "utterly captivating" about Trump's persona:

“Part of the explanation is that many evangelicals feel increasingly powerless, beaten down, aggrieved and under attack. A sense of ressentiment, or a “narrative of injury,” is leading them to look for scapegoats to explain their growing impotence. People filled with anger and grievances are easily exploited. As the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis wrote, “We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement and where everyone has a grievance.”

You don't need to be Christian (let alone evangelical) to recognize a great deal wrong with Donald Trump and the increasingly unruly mob drawn to his candidacy. As Jeanette responded when I read some of Wehner's stirring denunciation to her, "the man makes some good points mixed in with his creedal obsession." Never mind Christianity and Plato's warnings about Sophists, we went through this just last century in a World War, now fading from memory one funeral at a time. Lest we forget, Trump's bringing back golden oldies, lauding the wit and wisdom of Benito Mussolini.

After yesterday's "bad earpiece" explanation, I actually saw the exchange between CNN's Jake Tapper and Trump (thanks to all of Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah and Larry Wilmore lampooning it), and there was absolutely no evidence of bad sound, first of all, and secondly, it wasn't just 16 years ago that Trump specifically rejected David Duke, he did it again last August. In Trump's defense (seriously), the CBS News report last summer makes Trump's rejection sound rather generic and off-the-cuff, like so much of what he says. ("I don't need his endorsement; I certainly wouldn't want his endorsement," Trump said during an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday. "I don't need anyone's endorsement.")

What Duke likes about Trump's supposed position is the anti-immigration part, even though "we can't trust him." And Duke insists that he's not endorsing Trump, even though he's voting for him, and urges others to vote for him, too, and work on Trump's campagin. "Strategically." "To promote the illegal immigration issue," and against the other two Republicans [sic] who are "traitors." (Also, Cruz is "a bald-faced liar.")

Duke points out that he's not in the KKK anymore. That was 40 years ago, and he "was only a KKK spokesman for about 3 years," and that was "a non-violent Klan group." Also, Duke got out of the Klan a lot earlier than one-time Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd did, and Byrd got to be President Pro Tem of the U.S. Senate, endorsed by none other than Barack Obama! (I'm not sure anyone has told Duke that Byrd is dead. It's a bit late to be going after him.) But he's not not not a white supremacist, and he says it every day of the week on his radio show.

Duke's 1970s go with the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (the KKKK) was a marketing thing, "a new brand of Klansman: well-groomed, engaged, and professional. Duke also reformed the organization, promoting nonviolence and legality, and, for the first time in the Klan's history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership" according to the interesting, long Wikipedia entry for him. (I have to wonder how many women and Catholics signed up.) That didn't stick, so he went on to form the National Association for the Advancement of White People, yet another marketing program that didn't catch fire.

After changing his spots from Democratic to Republican (with a go at "Independent Populist" for President in 1988), he made it into the Louisiana House with a narrow victory in a special election, in which George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan supported his Democratic opponent. (The Democrat made the mistake of saying he'd consider a property tax increase in a suburban district.) Duke's version is that he was a full member of the Republican caucus, with "a perfect Republican voting record." The Republican "party bosses" in Louisiana "betrayed" him after he'd made it as far as a two-way runoff for Governor in 1991. "I'm the one who changed the Republican Party," Duke says. His platform has become the "mainstream," he said, citing the New York Times for evidence. (The media are ok when they say things he likes.)

It didn't take too much effort to find Jeremy Alford's piece on New Year's Eve, 2014, when we were talking about House Majority Whip Steve Scalise's stumbling into a white supremacist group: Much of David Duke’s ’91 Campaign Is Now in Louisiana Mainstream, even though "mainstream" Republicans keep running away from the guy. Back in the day, Duke

"focused on anti-big government and anti-tax mantras that preceded the Tea Party movement. His decision to run to the right of the field is now a common maneuver in Louisiana’s open primary system.

"Mr. Duke supported forcing welfare recipients to take birth control. Now there are near-perennial attempts by members of the Louisiana Legislature to give welfare recipients drug tests.

"After being elected to the state House of Representatives in 1989, Mr. Duke filed nine bills, including measures implementing stricter guidelines for residents of public housing, repealing affirmative action programs and eliminating minority set-asides."

And perhaps more relevant, and bringing today's story full circle, Scalise's 2002 presentation that seemed like a mistake 12 years later was, by one account (quoted in Alford's story), “the typical mainstream Republican thing” and not “too far right.”

“He touched on how America was founded on Christian principles, Christian men who founded this country, and how it was believed it would go forward as a Christian nation and how we’re getting away from that,”

according to a representative of Duke's "European Unity and Rights Organization" back then.

raveling

Tom von Alten