David Duke's temper tantrum at Michael Steele's ascension to head of the RNC tells us something important about the Republican Party. Namely, that for all the conservative attempts to pretend as though the political changes of the '60s never occurred, the waning strains of white supremacy felt that they had a home in the Republican Party. Whatever race-neutral language the GOP cloaked their policies in, whether it was the party's anti-immigrant nativism, the Bush administration's vote-suppression agenda, or the eradication of the social safety net, extremists like Duke always felt the GOP was on their side. They don't feel that way anymore. That such flagrantly racist elements can no longer find a place in either of the two major parties is a good thing for the country as a whole and for the Republican Party in particular.
-- A. Serwer
