David Duke Has Endorsed Tulsi Gabbard: Will Gabbard disavow OR normalize the KKK Grand Wizard?
On November 23, 2016,White Nationalist, Holocaust denier, and former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan Dr. David Duke tweeted:
“Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary of State! An example of the need for political realignment.”
And the next day, on Thanksgiving, DavidDuke.com featured an article by Dr. Patrick Slattery, Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary of State!:
That same day, audio from the most recent David Duke Show, co-hosted by Dr. Slattery, was posted at the neo-Nazi dailystormer.com. Duke’s show features a discussion of why Tulsi Gabbard would be a great choice by Trump for Secretary of State, during which Duke stated:
“You can’t help but like her on the foreign policy issues.”
I was not particularly surprised when Tulsi Gabbard met with Donald Trump on Monday since I’ve been raising questions with the media about whether Rep. Gabbard was Trump’s kind of Democrat since July. I have also questioned why Gabbard was in the same room with Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson when he first declared his support for Trump in early May.”
However, the fact that Gabbard has now been publicly endorsed by a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan — who strongly supports Trump’s selection of Stephen Bannon — is an indication of an increasingly disturbing trend in her affiliations and raises questions about the nature of Gabbard’s appeal to white nationalists. If she remains silent about this endorsement, or is as slow and equivocal as Trump was in denouncing Duke, she is effectively normalizing the actions and agenda of a racist, anti-Semitic homophobe.
Furthermore,Gabbard needs to join with 90% of her Democratic colleagues in the U.S. House in urging Donald Trump to rescind his appointment of alt- rightist Stephen Bannon as chief White House strategist. Like Duke, Bannon is a big fan of Gabbard and in fact arranged Gabbard’s meeting with Trump last Monday.
As a representative of one of the most diverse, accepting, and progressive states in the country, Rep. Gabbard has an obligation to her constituents to speak up for the values of Hawaii.
If Tulsi Gabbard does not immediately disavow the doctrines of Bannon and Duke, which are antithetical to our islands’ tradition of Aloha, she is not only betraying the people of Hawaii, she is also clearly advancing the agenda of those who would seek to discriminate against the very people she has promised to represent.
UPDATE: Yesterday night (November 26th) at 10:04 PM, Tulsi Gabbard posted the following reply at her campaign twitter account:
@DrDavidDuke U didn’t know I’m Polynesian/Cauc? Dad couldn’t use “whites only” water fountain. No thanks. Ur white nationalism is pure evil
Interestingly, because the post is a reply, it does not show up on her main twitter feed, and she did not post anything at her Congressional account. She does not appear to have made any other statements about the Duke endorsement, nor has she repudiated Stephen Bannon.
Meanwhile, she has increased her tweets about her position on Syria — the primary reason why Duke endorsed her — and which align with the views of Bannon and Trump.
Shay Chan Hodges is a Maui resident who ran for the US House of Representatives as a Democrat against Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard in the 2016 Primary.
