David Duke and the Meaning of Racism

Any American who tells you that he has no feelings about race is lying. But I was reminded yesterday that there is such a thing as Racism at a whole different level. Consider David Duke, who did a lot of talking and tweeting during the fight in Charlottesville. First he took the tone that white nationalists were just following up on the election:

This represents a turning point for the people of this country. We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in. That's why we voted for Donald Trump.

But then when Trump refused to back the white nationalists and even sort of denounced them, Duke went after the president on twitter:

So, after decades of White Americans being targeted for discriminated & anti-White hatred, we come together as a people, and you attack us?

I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists

White Americans are so afraid to speak out that we've allowed our country to be invaded and our children to be propagandized by marxists.

I divide the people of the world in lots of ways, and race is one of them. But for me it is only one of many: gender, nationality, religion, region, politics, stands on various intellectual issues, tastes in food and movies, driving habits, skill with words, general obnoxiousness, and so on. To people like David Duke, race is the fundamental division. The basic division in society is between "White Americans" and everyone else. Marxism, a political philosophy devised by white people and attacked by other white people, shows up here as a sort of adjunct to the racial question, a way of being against the wishes and interests of White Americans.

One of the problems with denouncing every sort of behavior and belief as racist and every conservative as a Nazi is that we would then lack words for the real thing.