This past week, Donald Trump, whose mouth charges headlong into all sorts of rash statements, had a hard time deciding whether to renounce the support of David Duke. Duke is a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and former state representative from Metairie, Louisiana; he ran unsuccessfully for Congress and the governorship. (I'll have more on him in this blog tomorrow.)
Trump supporters have been desperately trying to tie the KKK to the Democratic Party lately. The KKK certainly was part of the Democratic coalition back in the days of buggy whips and flivvers -- even though that coalition also included Jews, Catholics and labor unions, groups the KKK has always been dead set against.
But as Democrats began to embrace the civil rights movement from the 1940s on, racists like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms started to leave the party, bringing the KKK along with them. That exodus grew from a trickle to a flood as Democrats became the party of Civil Rights and Republicans became the party of Southern Strategy. The Republican Party doesn't like to talk openly about their racist supporters, but has been happy to have their votes.
And now the Donald has gained the support of another erstwhile embarrassment to the Democratic Party, Louis Farrakhan. And to think I doubted Republicans' talk of having a "big tent."
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