Former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke planned to emerge from a 17-year political hiatus here Friday to qualify for the U.S. Senate race in a state already roiling with racial tension. He even claimed in the YouTube announcement he coined the term “America first”, a staple of Trump’s often fiery campaign rhetoric.
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Duke’s candidacy comes one day after Donald Trump accepted the GOP nomination for president, and Duke said he’s espoused principles for years that are similar to the themes Republicans are now supporting in Trump’s campaign, on issues such as immigration and trade. As Jacob Sullum previously noted, Duke is the only presidential candidate (he ran back in 1992) to have higher unfavorable ratings than Trump.
In his comments to reporters, Duke called the Black Lives Matter protest movement that arose after a series of killings of black men by police in various USA cities a “terrorist group”. The organization sprung up soon after slavery was abolished in 1866, and is best known for torturing, menacing, and lynching black families across the South while covered in all-white sheets with eyeholes.
He said: “I’m proud to announce my candidacy for the United States Senate”.
“Just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?”
Duke said that “European-Americans” need a politician to fight for their interests and that white people are threatened in the United States.
Duke, a convicted felon and registered Republican, is seeking to succeed retiring Sen. He served one term in the Louisiana state house.
“I believe my time has come”, the former Ku Klux Klan leader said after submitting his paperwork for the ballot.
On Friday, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Trump “has disavowed David Duke and will continue to do so”.
“David Duke is a convicted felon and a hate-filled fraud who does not embody the values of the Republican Party”, chairman Roger Villere said in a statement.
There had been speculation that Duke would run for a U.S. Congressional seat.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which supports Republican Senate candidates nationwide, said they would not support Duke’s candidacy.
This is Duke’s fourth bid for a seat in Congress in what has been a long, failed, and now stagnant political career that dates back to 1975, when he ran as a Democratic candidate for the Louisiana State Senate. He says America needs a “warrior” in the Senate, describing the world as “on fire” right now. David Vitter (R-La.), who is not seeking re-election after losing his bid for the governorship previous year. Duke won more than half of the white vote in that election in the deeply conservative state.
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Duke spent a year in federal prison following a 2002 conviction of mail fraud and filing a false a false tax return.
