This is sort of a follow up to yesterday's post. Seems David Duke doesn't realize how successful he's been:
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke issued a warning to Republicans who have criticized House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) for speaking to a white nationalist group in 2002, saying they “better be looking over their shoulders.”
In an interview with Fusion, Duke said he has ties to politicians on both sides of the aisle, and he is ready to release names if criticism of Scalise continues:
via Huffington Post
No need to quote more. In a nutshell: If anyone criticizes Scalise for being a racist, Duke will expose them as racists too.
This is, indeed, the emptiest of threats. First off, as I pointed out yesterday, being a racist is now a feature, not a bug, for aspiring Republican candidates, except, perhaps, in obscure corners of Blue America. If Duke exposes Republican racists, he is all but endorsing them, and giving them a leg up on other Republicans whose racist bona fides have not been vouched for by Mr. Duke.
But, you say, Duke is only threatening to expose racists who are criticizing Scalise for being a racist. He's exposing hypocrisy, and that's the danger for these Republicans. To which I say, where have you been for the last 15 or so years? This is the Republican Party we're talking about. This is the party of David Vitter, the guy who patronized whores, who before and after being exposed proclaimed himself the patron saint of family values. He's still in the Senate, having been re-elected by the same people that have made Duke a household name. His hypocrisy cost him exactly zero votes, which is approximately the number of votes that Republican hypocrites have lost on that score nationwide since 2008, if not before.
So, there is absolutely no danger to any Republican seeking to have it both ways so far as Scalise is concerned. They can condemn him for his “bad judgment”, and when they are exposed as having similar “bad judgment”, they can reap some racist votes while ignoring the charge of hypocrisy, secure in the well founded belief that they have nothing to fear on that score from the press or their constituents. It's a win-win world for Republicans these days. Only Democrats are held to the standards that Republicans espouse: just ask Eliot Spitzer.
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