The New York Times has recently reported on the election of a KKK endorsed white supremacist to a local GOP committee position in what the Times notes is a heavily Jewish populated West Palm Beach County. The article also includes reporting saying that this is not sitting very well with other local Republicans. But given how slowly Republicans are stepping forward to denounce their own party's racist tendencies, the internal fight in the Sunshine State is underscoring how some minority groups are morally compromised as Republicans. And these minority groups have done some of the GOP's dirtiest work in the past.
Some details. Interestingly, the results of an election appear to be being voided by those unhappy with the results, on something of a technicality. Where have we seen that before?
West Palm Beach Journal
A Local Election’s Results Raise Major Questions on Race
By DAMIEN CAVE
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Officially, the Republican Party of Palm Beach County rejected Derek Black’s recent election as a committeeman because he failed to sign a loyalty oath.
But such technicalities hardly explain how a minuscule election — Mr. Black won 167 of 287 votes — has attracted the attention of hate groups nationwide and opponents like the Anti-Defamation League. This, rather, seems to reflect heightened sensitivity to issues of race in the age of Obama, and the intrusive power of history.
Palm Beach County after all, is a hive of Jewish retirees like Sid Dinerstein, 62, the county’s Republican chairman, while Mr. Black is more than just a gangly 19-year-old college student with a taste for politics.
He is also the son of Don Black, a former national grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. At age 11, he contributed a "kids page" to his father’s "white nationalist" Web site, Stormfront.org, where the message boards disparage nonwhites and have singled out Mr. Dinerstein, describing him as "another filthy stinking Jew." The younger Mr. Black denies being a white supremacist.
Evidence suggests otherwise. For instance,
Last month, at a "Euro-American" conference in Tennessee organized by David Duke, one of the nation’s best-known white supremacists, Mr. Black gave a speech comparing his campaign to George C. Wallace’s resistance to desegregation in the 1960s. In an audio recording posted online, Mr. Black can be heard telling the crowd that he sees local Republican politics, "especially with the election of Obama, as the way white people will have to respond."
"We can infiltrate," he said, adding, "We could politically take the country back."
And yet, it's hard to sympathize with the likes of Sid Dinerstein, given the nastiness of such organizations as The Republican Jewish Coalition and its ads such as this.
(along with their rather gratuitous Lieberman love)
I have previously diaried about the RJC being loyal GOP foot soldiers, as have others. Dinnerstein is also both the chairman of the Republican Party of Palm Beach and member of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
That the Republican Party, and specifically, the Republican Party of Palm Beach have a KKK problem, i,.e., a problem of being institutionally racist, which they have, in large part brought upon themselves, ia not surprising. Theirs is a party dominated by scared old, white conservatives. Being a minority and yet also a scared old, white conservatives can do terrible things to one's soul, it seems.