Last week, The Los Angeles Times showed great interest in a “long-shot bid for Louisiana’s open U.S. Senate seat.” Under ordinary circumstances, that would bore the pants off of the Times. But things are different now, because the long shot in question is former KKK leader David Duke, who’s been damaging Donald Trump’s campaign by saying nice things about it.
If you have an endless appetite for this sort of thing (and let’s face it—who doesn’t long to read another 15 or 20 of these Duke-Trump pieces?), you were left jonesing for more until later that day when The Washington Post deftly picked up the Duke-Trump ball.
The Duke/Trump article draughts have been mercifully short, since The Post writes so many of these that surely even Isaac Asimov would’ve said “Do we really need these pieces?” In fact, you’ll get more than 900 results if you use Google to search The Washington Post’s website for “David Duke” and “Donald Trump.” For comparison to other, less significant events, you can try your own searches. “Osama bin Laden killed” site:washingtonpost.com is my favorite, yielding a relatively sparse 100 results.
In fact, the recent prolificacy leads me to believe they must be using Ford’s assembly-line model: I suspect one guy in a white jumpsuit copy-pastes “former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke” and another “Donald Trump, who ascended to the GOP nomination largely on his frequent criticisms of minority communities, has reinvigorated white supremacists…” and then a third guy comes along to put the perfect finishing touch on the article by mentioning that Duke’s supporting Trump, with the result of the whole endeavor potentially sweeping Hillary Clinton into office on a wave of zealous antiracism.
This ‘Argument’ Goes Both Ways
If you have until now preferred Trump to Hillary, don’t freak out, because you can still redeem yourself. First, go look into your mirror. After about a minute, slowly shake your head at yourself as a lone tear dribbles down your cheek. Make a really unattractive face and yell “NO!” a few times. “Come on [insert your name here], this isn’t who you wanted to be in life! David Duke’s brother in arms!” Now turn and run out of your house, buy a Prius at the first dealership you can Waze to, slap an “I’m With Her” sticker on that baby, and we’ll forget this whole Trump supporter phase even happened.
But before you do, you should know something. In a two-party system, horrible people will prefer both candidates. That’s right: the bad are with him and with Her.
For instance, Seddique Mateen, a Taliban supporter and the father of the Orlando nightclub shooter, made a splash in August when he attended a Hillary Clinton rally, though for me that yielded a pathetic 42 Post results.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room: Does Mateen’s unsettling attendance mean Hillary Clinton is a Taliban supporter, or a misogynist, or that she likes bushy facial hair? The good news for Mrs. Clinton’s supporters is: Obviously not. The bad news for her supporters is: It doesn’t imply much when a disreputable person supports Trump, either.
So, Washington Post, we don’t really need all the articles anymore. I bet the assembly line guys will be glad for the next month off anyway—they’ve been hitting it hard!
