A few words about David Duke before he completely disappears from this year`s political season: Pat Buchanan may have stolen his thunder, but that doesn`t mean David Duke ought to be ignored, any more than a slow, simmering fire should be. Some would dismiss him as a purely regional nuisance, like kudzu. As a Southerner, I resent any such explanation.
Maybe it takes a little distance to appreciate the national character of the danger he still represents. An old friend, enclosing a clipping from the London Times, writes me: ”Of course the trouble with Duke is that he is not really a regional phenomenon; there is a dangerous universality about him, owing to his incredible telegenic quality, which is the whole basis of his achievement. He`s the American brownshirt, made for the age of superficial mass-com. They`d better be glad in Southern California that he isn`t running there.”
The British correspondent, Peter Stothard, divined a similarity between the rise of David Duke and that of Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Well, a stranger in a strange land-and Louisiana can be a strange land-can`t get every nuance right. Joe McCarthy thrived on the fear of treason and subversion, not hard times and racial stereotypes. A better parallel to David Duke`s appeal would be that of the far-right demagogues of the 1930s-specifically, Gerald L.K. Smith.
Bob Mulholland, a political operative from California who watched David Duke at work in Louisiana`s last gubernatorial race, is quoted in the article from the Times as saying: ”Mr. Duke drew his support from whites who are suffering economically and blame their plight on the . . . civil-rights programmes that protect black jobs and benefits.” Just as Germans in the 1930s blamed their troubles on the excesses of the Weimar Republic and a Jewish/liberal/Commu nist conspiracy.
The Times` man in these lush latitudes noted that David Duke had been under pressure to run for a congressional seat rather than grandstand as a presidential candidate-”to avoid the charge of being merely a permanent campaigner, a Jesse Jackson of the Right.”
True to character, or the lack thereof, David Duke chose the more theatrical, less serious, course. He decided to run for president. Something tells me Gerald L.K. Smith would have made the same choice. Theater always comes before politics with these types. If the republic on whose decadence they thrive recovers its health, they remain theater-a sideshow for political junkies. If not, they may become the main act, or maybe just the last one before the curtain falls on the whole production, the audience, and the theater itself. See Germany, 1933-45.
False messiahs may be snubbed by the political cognoscenti, but they`re adored by the ranks of the pathetically sincere, who are always searching for a voice, a face, an image that can give vent to their own fantasies and frustrations. Given the right (or rather wrong) circumstances, today`s fringe candidate can become tomorrow`s fuehrer. If David Duke is less prominent in today`s news, it`s only because Pat Buchanan made much the same low appeal without the Nazi past to certify it. By whatever name, the David Dukes will continue to spring up and, in uncertain times, flourish. They are scarcely confined to Louisiana, or the South, or to any region or country. Though they decry internationalism, they are remarkably international. David Duke is no more strictly Southern than A. Hitler was strictly Austrian.
Of course theatrical styles change with fashion and technology. The Rev. G.L.K. Smith relied on bombastic oratory, powerful symbolism and the written word. The Cross and the Flag, he called his magazine. To make such an appeal now to those who picture and pity themselves as The Dispossessed Majority requires electronic transmission, which smoothes and cosmeticizes both the message and the messenger.
Maybe that`s why David Duke seems eerily rootless compared to the old-fashioned Southern demagogue. He has become a plastic figure who can change his face as readily as his party identity, go from Klansman to Republican, race-baiter to genteel provocateur, cult figure to permanent campaigner, and yet always play on the same fears and angers. In these Nintendo times, he developed a computerized charisma. Maybe because what is required for success now, to quote my friend, is ”a telegenic quality made for the age of superficial mass-com.”
