CARTOON: “Trump Looks Under the Hood”

From cartoonist Clay Jones on “Trump Looks Under the Hood,” feigned ignorance, and the KKK

Donald Trump claims that he doesn’t hire pollsters. That’s well and good, because you shouldn’t need a consultant to tell you that you should disavow any association with the Ku Klux Klan. But for Donald Trump, that question is a real thinker.

White supremacists love Donald Trump. They’ve been loving the GOP for a long time, which is something the party pretends it’s ignorant of. “The Klan who? We don’t know nothing about them. Oh yeah … those guys who were Democrats back in the 1800s … yeah, blame Democrats.”

David Duke is from my home state of Louisiana. He’s been a national embarrassment for the state since the 1980s. He’s run for president several times. He ran for governor and almost won. My favorite political slogan, which came from that race, is “Vote for the crook. It’s important.” His Grand Wizardness was running as a Republican and made the runoff against Democrat Edwin Edwards, a man chased out of the governorship more than once and later convicted of racketeering. Years earlier, a journalist stated that the only way Edwards would ever be elected governor again would be if his opponent were Adolph Hitler. Duke actually won an election as a state representative, but he only served one term.

Duke started his political life as a Grand Wizard in the KKK and left the group but not its values. He’s even taken part in visiting Iran’s Holocaust denial party. Yes, they have one of those annually, or something like that. It’s gotta be a lot of fun for a white supremacist to share hatred with Muslims.

Trump didn’t realize that being endorsed by Sarah Palin was an embarrassment and came off as a joke. We satirists had a very difficult time making it funnier and more ridiculous than it actually was. Now Trump has been endorsed by Duke — which only sounds like a joke — who said, “Voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage.” There have also been white power robocalls on Trump’s behalf with one proclaiming that “The white race is dying out. … Few schools anymore have beautiful white children as the majority.” I guess those schools have a bunch of ugly white kids. Who knows? If only all of their mothers where white Slovenian supermodels.

Trump says that he doesn’t know how Duke is (he’s lying as he made a statement against the guy in 2000) and that he’s not familiar with white supremacists. What? Not familiar with white supremacist? Maybe someone should make him familiar with Wikipedia.

Not being familiar with racist groups was his excuse on CNN Sunday morning when asked if he’d disavow the endorsement. He wouldn’t. But about two hours later (after someone probably told him that being associated with the KKK might seem kinda negative), Trump disavowed the Duke endorsement. He did it in a begrudging manner too, like, “OK you babies, I disavow, now watch me roll my eyes. Are you happy now? Leave me alone.” Why can’t a guy go out and troll the nation with racist comments without attracting Klansmen? Sheesh!

Marco Rubio says the conservative movement has no place for David Duke, white supremacists, bigots, or racists. The Republican party and the conservative movement have spent decades attracting racists, and now they want to pretend there’s no room for them? Do they honestly believe racists are voting Democratic?

claytoonz.com/2016/02/29/trump-looks-under-the-hood