From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: David Duke and the Politics of Hate
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 08:15:10 GMT

INSIGHT FEATURES / September 1992

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/** nfd.ifeatures: 32.6 **/
** Written  8:17 pm  Sep  8, 1992 by ihandler in cdp:nfd.ifeatures **
Book Review / 890 Words

Essays on David Duke 
and the Politics of Hate

The Emergence of David Duke
and the Politics of Race. 
Edited by Douglas Rose. 1992.  
The University of North Carolina Press.

By the Monitor
Insight Features

     After three Louisiana political campaigns and a short run in
the Republican presidential primaries, David Duke has dropped off
the political radar screen.  Pat Buchanan stole much of Duke's
thunder, with his race-hardened challenge on the Republican Party's
right flank.  Since Duke has faded, over a dozen other white su-
premacists are campaigning for office.

     The best known is Thom Robb, the national leader of the
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who is running  for Arkansas state
representative. time neo-Nazi Joe Fields is running for state
assembly from southern California.  Former Klansman Scott Shepherd
is running as a Republican for state representative in Tennessee. 
Ralph Forbes, who has alternately belonged to neo-Nazi groups and
the Klan, is running as an independent for Congress from Arkansas.

     Then there is the Populist Party, a haven for former Klansmen,
neo-Nazis and other far rightists since its formation in 1984. 
This year former Special Forces Col.  Bo Gritz is their candidate. 
Washington state Klan
leader K.A. Badynski is running Gritz's local campaign there and is
a state Populist Party officer.

     If you want to understand the sources of Duke's past electoral
strength and the potential of those that follow, The Emergence of
David Duke is indispensable.  Tulane University political scientist
Doug Rose has assembled a collection of cogent essays examining the
Duke phenomenon.  Historian Lawrence Powell uses statistical
analysis to find the working class core of Duke's constituency in
Metairie's 81st legislative district.  Lance Hill, who became the
executive director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and
Nazism, the primary anti-Duke organization in Louisiana, compares
Duke's core beliefs to Nazi race doctrine.  Elizabeth Rickey
presents a first-hand account of her losing battle to have the
Louisiana Republican Party repudiate Duke.  In the process, she
gives a chilling account of the triumph of evil.  William
C.McMahon, who covered the statehouse for the Baton Rouge Morning
Advocate, gives a bird's eye view of Duke's career as a state
legislator.

     Other authors cover southern politics, the media, Duke's
history in the Klan and his Senate and Governor's campaigns. 
Presentation and analysis of polling data on white attitudes to-
wards Duke, racism and politics, is interspersed throughout. 
Although there is some analysis of opposition to Duke within the
general population, there is a significant lack of analysis of the
African American community's relationship to Duke campaigns.

     African Americans were the object of Duke's public calumny, as
well as the principal source of his ultimate electoral defeat in
199 1. This omission is glaring.  Emergence would have been a
stronger book if it had examined the range of opinion in the
African American community towards his election.

     Several authors examine the difference between old-style white
supremacy-the belief in the genetic superiority of white people-and
what they term symbolic racism.  According to pollster Susan Howell
and others, symbolic racism is a constellation which includes
"individualism, a belief in the work ethic, beliefs about how the
environment has not disadvantaged blacks, and plain fear of and
anger towards blacks. "Exploiting these themes has been the core of
the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy" since George Wallace's
1968 vote was captured by Richard Nixon in 1972.

     Howell, Rose and others assert that Duke's campaigns were
based on the themes of symbolic racism and his support could be
measured by polling these indicators.  On the other hand, Hill
convincingly demonstrates that Duke is motivated by old-fashioned
white supremacy rather than symbolic racism.  Powell carries the
analysis a step further.  He notes Duke's 1989 legislative campaign
was based on "attacks on affirmative action, objections to forced
integration, an d the need to curtail the growth of the black
'underclass,"' all conservative staples.  But, Powell continues,
Duke's "new look was in keeping with the far right's attempt to
mainstream its movement ... a tactical shift' Duke pioneered. 
Powell notes that Duke believes that culture and character (the
core of Susan Howell's "symbolic racism") are the result of
genes (the essence of old-fashioned white supremacy).

     It is this reviewer's belief that the danger Duke posed was
his effort (and success) in transforming the inchoate beliefs of
normative white attitudes (symbolic racism) into a coherent white
supremacist ideology and organized fascist movement.  In the end,
Duke's movement foundered on the same rocks as the Man's movement
in the 1960s: the resistance of African Americans and a significant
minority of whites.

     Emergence is thoughtful and provocative.  It is a welcome
antidote to the half-baked biography by Michael Zatarain published
last year.  Douglas Rose has compiled the most complete treatment
of the wellsprings of racist electioneering to date.

     Although the book is focused on Duke's campaigns, much of the
analysis can be extended to understanding the strength of Pat
Buchanan's primary bid last spring or the saliency of the Willie
Horton ads in 1988.  Unfortunately, it also has much light to shed
on the presidential campaign this Fall.

     This book is not available from CDR, but you can order The
Emergence of David Duke and the Politics of Race from your local
bookstore. It is well worth your time. 

                            -- 30 --

   The Monitor is the newsletter of the Center for Democratic
Renewal, PO Box 50469, Atlanta GA 30302.
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