The practitioners of Trumpist politics have framed themselves as populists who are breaking the mold. In a statement provided to me, Stewart embraced the populism of Trump and centered his campaign in opposition to elites across the political spectrum."Trump's win in 2016 and my performance these last two years in Virginia proves that instead of the Democrat Party representing the working class, the Republican Party is rejecting the Corporate Cronyism of the Rockefellers and the Clintons in favor of a more just, more fair, more equitable approach to government," Stewart's statement read. "One that doesn't play favorites to corporate paymasters, but that instead elevates America's core promise—equality of opportunity."But what stood out for most observers weren’t Stewart’s views on class but his hard-right views on race—and how happy Republican voters were to support him despite his record of fringe, racist beliefs and his being a lightning rod for controversy."Stewart's neo-Confederate sympathies and his support for white supremacists, including those behind the 'Unite the Right' rally, apparently aren’t disqualifying," Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse said in an email. "Stewart is—perhaps with the exception of Trump himself—the highest level nominee with such views."The racist rot of the Republican Party is not a new phenomenon. Steve King has been a GOP congressman for 15 years, and on Tuesday he promoted an actual neo-Nazi on Twitter. King's office told me that they had no comment on the tweet, which is still up on King's Twitter page as of this writing.
You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."