What Next - How to Stop a Racist Politician
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Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1990, David Duke ran for Senate in Louisiana, appalling the Republican establishment and freaking out the Democratic consultant-class. Duke didn’t win -- but he did well enough to feel emboldened, and a year later he launched a campaign for Louisiana governor. The coalition that formed to defeat Duke has some advice for anyone trying to squelch racist policies and rhetoric today.
Guest: Tim J. Wise, author of the books White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son and Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Donald Trump might have officially launched his 2020 campaign at an Orlando MAGA rally last month. |
| 0:10.4 | But it didn't really feel real to me until last week. |
| 0:15.0 | That's when Trump went all in on racism as a campaign strategy. |
| 0:21.9 | Representative Ilhan Omar, if you're not happy here, then you can leave. |
| 0:30.9 | You lift David Duke's words and Donald Trump's words, and I guarantee you you can put |
| 0:36.3 | them together. |
| 0:39.1 | You can find David Duke tweets are quotes that sound just like what Donald Trump's words, and I guarantee you you can put them together. You can find David Duke tweets. |
| 0:43.7 | Our quotes, it sounds just like what Donald Trump's been saying the past couple of days. |
| 0:57.7 | It turns out it wasn't just the talking heads on MSNBC thinking that Donald Trump was sounding an awful lot like a former Grand Wizard of the KKK. |
| 1:00.5 | It was a guy named Tim Wise, too. |
| 1:06.7 | I mean, I'm an anti-racism educator and author, and that's about the only way that I can describe it. |
| 1:10.4 | Back in the early 90s, Tim thought he might get into political consulting. |
| 1:16.8 | His first job was working against David Duke's campaigns for Senate and governor in Louisiana. |
| 1:19.6 | I was really young. I mean, I had just come out of college. And I happened to be at Tulane in New Orleans, so I was on the right place at the right time, at the very right moment. |
| 1:26.5 | You know, my work in politics literally is limited to the anti-duke work, essentially in 90 and 91. And it was that |
| 1:34.4 | that actually, you know, made me realize I needed to be doing anti-racism work full-time rather than |
| 1:39.8 | sort of political consulting. Looking back on those days, do you feel like you were naive about things? |
| 1:46.2 | You know, maybe less than some, but more than some, too. |
| 1:49.9 | I mean, I think we learned really quickly some things that a lot of folks didn't understand |
| 1:55.9 | about racism and particularly its usage in politics during that time. |
| 2:02.7 | In some ways, David Duke is nothing like Donald Trump. |
| 2:06.3 | Looking back at video of him from the 90s, he looks mild-mannered and rehearsed, |
... |
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