BY ED FELIEN
The Star Tribune missed an opportunity to fully explain the extent of Donald Trump’s connection to the white supremacy movement when it published “Trump denial strikes familiar tone; Professing ignorance on Hitler similar to remarks about Klan, QAnon, Proud Boys” by Jill Colvin on Dec. 28.
They quote: “Just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper in February 2016. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.”
But they neglect to quote the last half of Trump’s response: “So I don’t know. I don’t know – did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.”
Of course he knew David Duke. Trump’s father was a leading member of the Klan in Queens; he was arrested and fined for refusing to remove his hood in a Klan riot in 1927. When Donald says, “I know nothing,” he’s echoing the nativist and historically racist response of the Know Nothings of the nineteenth century. When asked if they knew anything about the lynching of Black men after the Civil War, members of the lynch mob would answer, “I know nothing,” which meant, “I am a Know Nothing” to people who understood. Trump used that code to signify solidarity with David Duke.
As for his connection to Hitler, Trump’s first wife, Ivana, said he had a copy of Hitler’s speeches for bedside reading.
