In the last few days of 2008 election I wrote about the desperate cry in an email contained by the then GOP chair of Tampa who called black people voting "the Threat". At the time I wondered why racism is never viewed as unpatriotic.
Two stories to mention:
1. The third ranking member in the House or Representatives House Majority Whip Steve Scalise:
Another potential candidate, state Rep. Steve Scalise (R), said he embraces many of the same “conservative” views as Duke, but is far more viable.
“The novelty of David Duke has worn off,” said Scalise. “The voters in this district are smart enough to realize that they need to get behind someone who not only believes in the issues they care about, but also can get elected. Duke has proven that he can’t get elected, and that’s the first and most important thing.”
This is the THIRD RANKING MEMBER of the House GOP saying he agrees with many of the same things that Davide Duke said.
Now let's try a though experiment.
Let's say instead of David Duke, he had said ISIS. Or communism.
His political career would not exist. It would be over. No one would accept an apology.
WHY? David Duke is a neo-Nazi. Think about this for a second. Is it because far right thought is actually within the mainstream of American political thought?
The answer I submit is obvious. Because the things David Duke has said are every bit as bad as anything that has come out of an ISIS leader's mouth.
2. One of Lindsey Graham's closest advisors is a man named Richard Quinn. Richard Quinn edited a magazine for years called the "Southern Partisan".
A selection from a great article in Buzz Feed:
It was in his capacity as editor that Quinn wrote that Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in the Civil Rights movement was “to lead his people into a perpetual dependence on the welfare state, a terrible bondage of body and soul.” He called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” and a “bad egg.” He wrote positively of David Duke’s election: “What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke?” In one column, he called Martin Luther King Day’s purpose “vitriolic and profane
Richard Quinn has long standing connections with the far right. The articles that were printed in the South represent outright rascism.
Irony: he advises a Senator who has been very vocal of accusing those who disagree with him as being unpatriotic.
So I return to the question at the top. Why isn't racism unpatriotic? It must be said LBJ came to conclude it WAS unpatriotic.
Obama said this at his second inaugural:
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
If American Exceptionalism exists, this is its summary. It is the story of principles articulated generally at our founding, and the story of them being systematically denied to various groups. This isn't unique: what IS unique is the struggle to live up to the ideas we claim to support. That is the struggle of America, and it has been with us since its founding.
What I am trying to say is that there are no more unpatriotic people alive that Scalise and Quinn. In their racism is the denial of the central idea of our history.
The fact that we don't view them as unpatriotic represents the gulf between who we claim to be and who we are.