By David Harsanyi
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
When David Duke announced in the Louisiana last week that
he would be running for Senate, GOP Chairman Reince Priebus swiftly sent out a
tweet assuring America that the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard’s “hateful
bigotry [has] no place in the Republican Party; the RNC will never support his
candidacy under any circumstance.”
No major party should ever consider supporting a
candidate with a long history of vile bigotry — even if the candidate had a
shot at winning his or her race. But the argument itself, doesn’t really mesh
with what Priebus and others have been telling me this cycle.
What if there were a large field of GOP presidential
candidates and, due to a confluence of events, someone like Duke fairly
captured the Republican nomination; would conservatives cast their votes for
him in the general over someone as disagreeable as Hillary Clinton? I mean, you
all know how terrible she is!
What if Duke promised to nominate conservative Supreme
Court justices? Let’s say he drew up an extensive list of Federalist
Society-approved justices that conservatives simply loved? Would they then vote
for him then? Sean Spicer says no. Please don’t tell me you’re willing to
surrender the court to a progressive agenda for a generation. If you don’t vote
for Duke, it would be tantamount to abandoning law and order. As pro-Trump
Republicans often stress, national elections are a binary choice.
It’s not just about justices, either. Duke would almost
certainly build an impenetrable wall along the Mexican border to stop the flow
of illegal immigration. Duke would promise to dismantle “sanctuary cities.”
This would, I’ve been assured, save American lives and livelihoods. Polls show
that most Republicans desire a more secure border. So what if he says some
shocking things about Jews and African-Americans from time to time?
Duke would also limit Islamic immigration to keep America
safe again. Duke would shut down “unfair” trade agreements with Mexico, China,
and others; deals that purportedly cost millions of American jobs and destroy
our manufacturing base. Duke might even pull out of the unfair World Trade
Organization and punish unpatriotic companies that move their headquarters
abroad.
On foreign policy, he would demand Baltic states pay up.
If not, he would leave their fate to the whims of an autocratic Russia. Duke
would rein in American involvement in the Middle East and Asia. Duke opposed
the Iraq War, which, according to Trump, makes him one of the leading foreign
policy experts in the nation.
These issues are the main thrust of Trumpism; the
positions that rouse the base and distinguish the billionaire from a
lily-livered GOPe that’s failed its constituency for the past 30 years.
You know elitists would simply hate Duke. Probably because the Klansman refuses to be constrained
by political correctness. And if shunning political correctness is, in and of
itself, a position worth celebrating in a candidate, Trump is a mere piker in
comparison. Why not put the resources of the RNC behind someone who can discuss
white working-class struggles in even starker terms? Americans are mad. They
are scared. Duke will fight for them.
Let’s also not forget that Duke is not indebted to Wall
Street or big donors like Mitt Romney. He does not answer to lobbyists like Jeb
Bush. He is not an ordinary politician like Marco Rubio. He does not play by
the rules. Shouldn’t this be enough?
Duke also won the primary process fair and square.
Wouldn’t Republicans be obligated to support him? Doesn’t the “will of the
people” transcend the piddling concerns of the sore losers? Isn’t opposing the will
of the majority tantamount to being a traitor to your cause? According to some
of Trump’s greatest allies in the Republican Party, imploring people to vote
their conscience is now a “chilling” display of nonconformity. What could
possibly be more important than unification of a political party?
No, I’m not arguing that Trump’s aims and positions are
indistinguishable from Duke’s. The Republican nominee has already rebuked Duke
“as quick as you can say it.” If Trump’s positions and disposition please you,
feel free to support him. What I am contending is that arguments made by
Trump’s Republican allies meant to convince recalcitrant conservatives to vote
for him are vacuous logical fallacies.
As a Duke candidacy proves, it’s possible to find people
morally reprehensible, even if their views happen to intersect with yours on
various issues. It is possible to sporadically agree with someone and also
believe that this person undermines your cause in the long run. It is possible
to believe that a candidate who confuses vulgarity and fury with political
incorrectness will corrode the idealism of your movement and push away voters
who might one day see it your way. It is possible to find candidates from both
parties unpalatable at the same time.
Is David Duke preferable to Hillary Clinton? At this
point — although I’d be somewhat nervous to hear the polling results — I
suspect a large majority of Republicans would contend that he’s not. If this is
true, it’s because, to one extent or another, even partisans are forced to make
moral calculations about the worthiness of candidates. In scale, Trump is not
David Duke. But let’s stop pretending that an election is always a simple
choice.
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