note: isn’t this common knowledge ? No, it isn’t. After I broke the story of James Edwards broadcasting live from the RNC, here on Daily Kos on July 20th and then on the Huffington Post on July 22, only three sub-mainstream media outlets (but no fully mainstream venues) noticed. First was Max Blumenthal, writing for Alternet, who noted that a prominent, fully mainstream Daily Beast reporter had even given an interview to the white nationalist radio show broadcasting from inside the RNC. Then, on July 24 Media Matters for America noticed, and on July 25th TalkingPointsMemo picked up the story.
It’s a replay, with very similar dynamics. While Trump “renounces” David Duke, Trump’s campaign gives Duke’s surrogates VIP media access.
The last time, when Donald Trump issued a tepid renunciation of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, only two days later one of Trump’s sons appeared in a nationally broadcast radio show March 1st interview with Duke’s political heir James Edwards, who had earlier gotten a VIP press pass to broadcast live from a Memphis Trump rally.
James Edwards serves both as director of the virulently racist American Freedom Party and as a director of the Council of Conservative Citizens (historically known as “the uptown Klan”). The CofCC’s racist website material is widely credited with having inspired Dylann Roof, accused of having murdered nine African-American members of a Charleston, South Carolina church prayer group.
Edwards’ Political Cesspool radio show has, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, become a “nexus for radio-based hate in the United States” and “is tailored for a Southern, neo-Confederate, white nationalist audience”. The show has featured white supremacists such as David Duke, neo-Nazis, holocaust deniers, Southern secessionists, and anti-immigrant far right British political party leaders.
Now, after David Duke declared his intent to campaign in Louisiana for a U.S. Senate seat, Donald Trump has told media he rebukes Duke “as quick as you can say it” and indicated he might even vote for a Democratic opponent running against Duke.
But once again, the sincerity of Donald Trump’s renunciation of Duke is undermined by the fact that only a few days ago the Trump campaign just gave an extended press pass, for the Republican National Convention, to David Duke’s “mini-me” white supremacist James Edwards.
Further, mainstream media hasn’t even carried that story. Rather, it’s buried it.
James Edwards, by his account, was broadcasting from the very center of the RNC press pool area, surrounded by journalists working for Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all the other mainstream media of note.
The idea that no one among those journalists knew who James Edwards was is absurd. It stretches credulity to the breaking point.
But not one of those journalists has publicly noted Edwards’ presence at the RNC, though one journalist who in 2008 called Edwards’ Political Cesspool radio show a “Neo-Nazi radio show” did grant an interview to the nationally syndicated white nationalist Liberty Roundtable radio show that was featuring Edwards during the RNC.
As I have exposed, on July 20, 2016 the Liberty Roundtable radio show broadcast a call, from an official adviser to the Trump campaign, for the execution of Hillary Clinton for alleged treason.
The Liberty Roundtable show is broadcast on the Liberty News Network, which goes out on a half-dozen-odd AM and FM stations across America and carries Edwards’ Political Cesspool show.
Now, let’ go back a few months:
Back on February 28, 2016, on CNN’s State of the Union, Jack Tapper asked Donald Trump to “unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election”. Trump’s response ? —
“I don’t know anything about David Duke. Okay? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists… I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.”
Of course, Donald Trump knew quite well who Duke was, at least judging by his past statements on Duke as chronicled by the Washington Post.
Two days later, on March 1st, Donald Trump, Jr. appeared together on a radio show with Political Cesspool radio show host James Edwards, whose radio show is one of the most important, influential radio shows for a range of constituencies across the nation that include overt white supremacists, white nationalists, Southern secessionists, neo-Nazis, and holocaust deniers.
After that interview, James Edwards remarked that the Trump, Jr. radio show appearance would energize and inspire his movement “like Napalm on a grassroots blaze".
According to Edwards, David Duke has supported the Political Cesspool since its inception ; the two men have co-organized major events ; they have attended fund-raisers together ; Edwards frequently appears on Duke’s radio show, and Duke appears on Edwards’ radio show ; they call each other good friends.
Most importantly, David Duke has pioneered the repackaging of white supremacy, into seemingly less toxic brands, such as white nationalism, “ethnopluralism”, “identitarianism”, and so on.
The younger James Edwards, who seems to consider Duke a mentor, has followed in Duke’s footsteps, especially by authoring the book “Racism, Schmacism : How Liberals Use The ‘R’ Word To Push The Obama Agenda” which, according to the book plug on Edwards’ website,
“proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that in today’s politically correct climate, “racist” simply means “white person” or “conservative white person.” And “racism” is simply anything a white person does that minorities and leftists don’t approve of.”
James Edwards is the new, upbeat, polite, cheerful, charming, well-manicured voice of white supremacy in America, and only a few days go he was broadcasting live from the Republican National Convention and interviewing figures ranging from nationally known pundits to Congressmen and governors.
That’s especially noteworthy in light of two leadership hats Edwards wears.
First, he is a board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, historically known as “the uptown Klan”, which was originally formed to fight desegregation. After losing that fight, the CofCC became dormant but has recently recrudesced as a crudely racist group.
During the Summer of 2015 the CofCC came to widespread national notice when media learned that its racist website material had inspired Dylann Roof, accused having gunned down nine members of an African-American Charleston, South Carolina church prayer group.
After the slayings, Memphis, TN media attempted to reach CofCC director James Edwards for comment. Edwards was unavailable.
Edwards also serves on the board of directors of the American Freedom Party, a virulently racist political party whose chairman has in the past called for the deportation of American citizens with,
‘any "ascertainable trace of Negro blood" or more than one-eighth "Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood" ‘
Throughout 2015, the AFP ran in various US states automated robocalls that informed citizens of an ongoing “genocide” against white Americans that was being implemented by non-white immigration, and in 2016 the AFP’s robocalls began explicitly supporting Donald Trump.
Even as those robocalls from the AFP plugged Trump, the Trump campaign vetted James Edwards and gave him a VIP press pass to a Memphis Trump rally, from which Edwards broadcast a live segment of his Political Cesspool radio show.
Then came Donald Trump, Jr.’s appearance, together with Edwards, in a March 1st, 2016 interview on the Liberty Roundtable radio show, which goes out across the nation to a half-dozen full power AM and FM radio stations, as well as over the Internet, on the Liberty Radio Network.
LRN broadcasts only three shows, including James Edwards’ Political Cesspool and Liberty Radio Network owner Sam Bushman, who hosts the Liberty Roundtable show that broadcast live, for five days in a row, from inside the 2016 Republican National Convention.
While the Liberty Roundtable show guests don’t tend to carry the extreme racial animus of Edwards’ Political Cesspool guests, Edwards and Bushman nonetheless frequently co-host each others' radio shows, and ads for Edwards' book Racism, Schmacism frequently run on Bushman's radio show.
Bushman's Liberty Roundtable show is far from immune from extreme politics ; on Wednesday, July 20th, while broadcasting live from the RNC, host Sam Bushman interviewed Donald Trump’s veterans affairs adviser, New Hampshire state representative Al Baldasaro, who called for the execution of presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for treason.
Duke, Edwards, and people in their movement are quite happy with their working arrangement with the Trump campaign ; they know that their brand of racism is not yet fully acceptable, at least coming from the mouth of a presidential candidate.
And they also know that, even as Donald Trump “renounces” David Duke, Trump’s campaign will help them mainstream their form of hatred by giving Duke’s surrogates media access that’s historically unprecedented, at least for leaders who promote virulent racism and holocaust denial.
It’s not that the Republican Party hasn’t in the past used dog-whistle terms that have been music to the ears of white supremacists. It has, and with fair frequency. And, the GOP has in the past been accused in the past of pandering to white supremacists and neo-Nazis :
In 1980, Ronald Reagan opened his presidential campaign with a speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi — the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1985, on a trip to West Germany, president Ron Reagan visited a Bittburg military cemetery where a number of members of the infamous Waffen-SS had been buried. Adding dark emphasis to the controversial visit was the fact that Reagan did not also visit the sites of former Nazi concentration camps.
Then, in 1988, a scandal enveloped the Republican National Committee when investigative journalist Russ Bellant exposed the GOP’s use, for ethnic outreach, of Eastern European emigres with WW2 ties to fascist and Nazi organizations.
But what’s happening now is different — the initial scandal, of James Edwards getting a press pass to a Memphis Trump rally (and broadcasting live from it), then interviewing Donald Trump, Jr., was covered by mainstream media in a quite subdued fashion.
And, the Trump campaign did not back down. It doubled down, by giving Edwards a press pass to the RNC.
As Media Matters For America’s Evan Popp revealed on July 21, Edwards was not the only white supremacist live broadcasting from the 2016 RNC.