Donald Trump, the NY-based billionaire entrepreneur whose entry into the race in 2015 first drew mockery, jokes, and derision, is as of 3/4/2016 the front-runner in the GOP race, with huge victories on March 1’s (Super Tuesday) state primaries and the securing of 329 delegates.
Trump’s recent victories did not come without further controversy, however. Recent news have linked him to one of the most controversial and notorious organizations in US history, and it is an association that no politician would openly admit to let alone embrace should he have serious aspirations for office. That organization, of course, is the Ku Klux Klan.
Former Klansman David Duke was recently featured on news urging white Americans to support Trump. The media was quick to jump on this, presenting a picture of the Klan itself granting its official endorsement to Trump. Trump was in fact asked on TV whether he’d disavow Duke’s endorsement, which he did not do immediately, but did a few hours later on Twitter.
But Trump’s Klan-related troubles were far from over. Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan called out Trump on the Klan. Ryan was joined by Republican Party candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton in critiques of Trump’s slow disavowal of ostensible Klan support. However, recent media and press portrayals of Trump, all with the clear objective of implying that Trump is a racist and a bigot, did not inform the public that in August of 2015, Trump clearly declared he did not want nor need the endorsement of David Duke. In fact, Duke himself publicly stated that his support of Trump is limited to certain issues and that it is not an official endorsement.
Why was Trump targeted so aggressively over an organization he is not a member of over an official endorsement that was never given and because of a man (Duke) who has not been part of an organization (the Klan) for decades?
The answer to this is found in Duke’s previous Klan membership. There is no question that Duke has at times promulgated racist views. However, if shared views or support from a group like the Klan amounts to a person being unqualified for high office, American voters should keep in mind that en route to his 2008 election victory, Barack Obama received the endorsement of the late Robert Byrd in 2008 – an endorsement Obama never disavowed. Byrd spent much of his life in the Klan and once filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Obama’s Secretary of State (and former opponent in the 2008 election) Hillary Clinton has herself praised Byrd, calling him a “friend and mentor.”
Yet despite these facts, it is Trump alone who is singled out in accusations of racism and bigotry. Were the media to apply uniform standards to all candidates without any biases, then Byrd’s endorsement of Obama and Clinton’s praise of Byrd should receive similar attention. That Trump only is portrayed negatively because of non-official support from Duke – who, as I wrote above, is not at this time a member of the Ku Klux Klan and does not speak in any official capacity for the Klan – is nothing more than a smear campaign and character assassination.
And the Klan – if Republican candidates and members of the Democratic Party who have no qualms in assailing Trump’s morality (or lack thereof) on grounds of racism, perhaps they should perform a public service and tell the public that once upon a time, the Ku Klux Klan was essentially the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party. The Klan was established soon after the conclusion of the Civil War and Klansmen used threats of mortal violence to intimidate southern freedmen to vote Democrat – and if those freedmen ended up voting for Republicans, the Klan would kill those freedman. Klansmen likewise targeted white Republicans, killing them at times also.
Perhaps candidates from both parties – but especially those who make accusations of racism – should say, during debates on live national TV, that the pre-Civil War South witnessed strong Democrat support for slavery, that Democrats were adamantly opposed to Republican efforts in Congress to enact laws against lynching, and that when the 14th Amendment (which granted full citizenship to former slaves) was voted on and ratified a mere 3 years after the surrender of the Confederacy, that 94% of Republicans in Congress voted in favor – whereas no Democrat did so.
That is far more bigoted and racist than any potential endorsement that Trump – a lifelong businessman who has hired plenty of nonwhites – can be said to be guilty of.
The Modern Chronicler 