As far back as 1973, he learned how easily he could manipulate the media with a proven formula for winning attention: tap into white fears and frustrations by seizing on hot-button issues and relying on the media to publicize his views and activities.
It didn’t matter if he exaggerated or embellished his accomplishments so long as it got him the attention he needed and craved.
His followers were adamant in saying they were “more interested in what he’ll do than what he’s done in the past. It wouldn’t influence me one bit what he did in the past.”
Television became all-important for him. His sound bites came across particularly well as television news began airing stories on his campaign virtually every night.
“If I can do it, with the political machine against me now, with my character savaged for weeks on end…if I can overcome tremendous spending by the opposition, you, ladies and gentlemen, can do the same thing.”
He was at his best when tapping into whites’ frustration by denouncing special interests and a government more concerned with helping undeserving people on welfare than with the “hard-working, taxpaying middle-class.” Once in office, however, he found it more difficult to actually put his ideas into law.
“The greatest problem we face in this country is the rising welfare class,” he said at every rally.
“He says in public what we all talk about in private,” said one supporter. They echoed that thought repeatedly throughout the campaign. But his rallies had a darker side. His followers were angry and when he pushed hot-button issues, they thrust their fists in the air, stomped their feet and chanted his name over and over.
Even though his crowds were huge, he felt a need to make them even larger, so he fudged the numbers unrealistically upward.
A lawmaker said he was all about polarization and driving a wedge but he insisted he was the only candidate speaking to the anxieties of voters.
Voters’ first response to the truth about his past activities was defensive. To admit he was a fraud and a racist was to admit that they were being misled or were bigots themselves. When a mirror was held up to the electorate, they were being shown that they and their candidate were one and the same.
In one focus group setting during the campaign, a moderator asked a series of questions about a hypothetical candidate. “What would you think of a candidate who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War and lied about it later?”
“I can’t imagine a man who wouldn’t serve his country,” said one respondent.
“What would you think of a candidate who hadn’t paid his taxes?”
“I pay my taxes,” a woman replied, “and I expect a politician to.”
Then, with a second focus group, the same questions were asked but the candidate was named this time.
When asked about the draft evasion, one man said, “Everybody of that generation was trying to evade the draft. I went to Vietnam, but I would have evaded going there if I could have.”
What about his not paying taxes?
“Only dumb people pay taxes,” a woman said. “Politicians and millionaires don’t because they’re smart. He must be smart.”
What had been unacceptable character flaws in an anonymous candidate were suddenly acceptable when the candidate’s name was revealed.
Voters were faced with a difficult decision in the election: who was worse, a bigot or a crook? While that prospect paralyzed many voters, it energized others.
He did not like strategy sessions. He cared more about ideas than tactics. He figured his approach was succeeding thus far, so why change?
One observer said he thought that if the candidate won, the (nation) would be set adrift.
Of his supporters, one veteran political observer said, “They’re educated people. They’re not hicks. But they’re mad as hell, they’re saying, ‘Screw the establishment. Throw the bums out.’ That’s what he stands for.”
Another political insider said he had an “enduring faith” in the basic wisdom and decency of the American people. But the anger and hate in one female supporter’s voice scared him.
He would make such outrageous claims during the debates that opponents had no way to prepare responses.
He attacked his opponents for selling out the hard-pressed middle class by raising taxes.
At the same time, he also pushed two other hot-button issues, calling for a clampdown on illegal immigration and advocating “fair trade,” not “free trade,” with Mexico.
His call for an “America First” position became his mantra throughout his campaign.
There was a “cult-like figure aspect” to the candidate, one opponent said. “That only lasts a short time, until people catch on to the reality,” he said.
He skillfully tapped into the grievances of frustrated white voters, voters described as “very dissatisfied with the political system in this country,” said one pollster. “I think it’s about half racist and half ‘I’m just hacked off, and how can I send a message?’”
Nearly half the people who voted for his opponent did so because they did not want him elected.
Think you recognize the candidate described here?
Nope, it’s not Trump.
It’s Louisiana’s very own neo-Nazi David Duke as described in several passages throughout Tyler Bridges’s frighteningly insightful book, The Rise and Fall of David Duke.
Bridges has done an incredibly thorough job of researching the political odyssey of Duke and laying out his dangerous philosophy. I recommend the book to anyone and everyone who truly loves this country and is concerned with the nasty mood of those who hold themselves to be somehow better than others because of the color of their skin.
Oddly enough, Bridges notes, Duke wasn’t nearly as obsessed with African Americans as he was and continues to be with Jews. The fact is, he simply hates Jews and idolizes Adolf Hitler.
I purchased the book from Bridges at last November’s Louisiana State Library Book Fair and it’s a volume that will occupy a special place in my library. I don’t want to ever forget exactly what this guy stands for because his ideas are dangerous and, well, sick.
Bridges did devote a passing reference to Trump that is especially telling. “Non-traditional conservatives, however, found him candid, authentic and refreshing. Duke saw something of himself in Trump’s approach.”
Later, Bridges quotes Duke as saying, “I do support his (Trump’s) candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action.”
A few pages further, there is this: “Andrew Anglin, editor of the Daily Stormer, a popular website among neo-Nazis, said, ‘Virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign.'”
Following the Charlottesville white supremacist rally attended by Duke and led by Richard Spencer (complete with his “Hail Trump” salute) at which white supremacist James Fields plowed his Dodge Charger into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, Trump couldn’t bring himself to condemn the Nazis. Instead, he made reference to “violence on many sides. On many sides.”
Stephanie Grace, a writer for the New Orleans Advocate, weighed in. “As for those, like Trump, who still can’t or choose not to see what’s right in front of them, here’s a handy rule of thumb that might help sort through the ‘many sides’ confusion: If David Duke is on one side, you belong on the other.”
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