We just
wrote about Republican Congressional Leader Steve Scalise, who we just discovered spoke at a Klansman David Duke event in 2002 in Louisiana. Scalise has said he didn’t know he was speaking at a Klan and neo-Nazi event.
Republican leaders have been quick to support him, saying among other things that he is a good family man.
The Republicans in the South want it both ways. They want to run the Richard Nixon-Lee Atwater Southern Strategy of the Republican Party being the party of racists, but when caught acting as if there’s a mistake they take an attitude of “who me?”
I’ve had my life threatened multiple times over the 25 years of struggle against this racist strategy. My personal favorite threat was in Nacogdoches, Texas when the Klan called my Best Western hotel room and threatened to, “cut me from asshole to appetite.”
The best governor and last Democratic governor Georgia had, Roy Barnes, was defeated because he changed the state flag from the Rebel Stars and Bars to reflect all the flags that flew over Georgia.
Scalise didn’t make a mistake just like David Duke and Lee Atwater didn’t make mistakes when they made the Republican Party the political home of racists.
Steve Scalise is a racist and anti-Semite.
It is beyond hypocrisy and condescension when Republican leaders talk about reaching out to African-Americans and Latinos when they’ve built their party attacking these very same people.
Caricature of Steve Scalise by DonkeyHotey on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)