CAMPUS CORRESPONDENCE : Preaching the Politics of Bigotry, Duke Finds an Eager Audience at LSU

David Duke has established himself as the new Pied Piper of racial politics, but few pundits across the country understand the mice who follow him.

Most assume Duke’s support is found only among racist rednecks, rude, country bumpkins who have long found easy answers in the color of skin. Contrary to this stereotype, a large core of the former klansman’s following can be found at the state’s flagship university--Louisiana State.

Eighteen- to 26-year-olds usually vote in disproportionately low numbers nationwide, but this young and increasingly restless group in Louisiana have heard Duke’s song and would scurry to Hades to vote for him. And they may hold the sway that could swing Duke into the governor’s mansion.

Gary Avery, a junior, used to be one of Duke’s leaders on campus. He headed LSU’s Students for David Duke during the candidate’s run for U.S. Senate last year. Avery says his support for Duke recently waned when he realized this piper only knew one song--a catchy number about welfare reform and the rising underclass.

“(Duke’s) looking on this as a life-or-death struggle,” Avery says now. “I don’t think there is as much riding on this as he does.” The former Duke organizer speaks with a self-assured Southern drawl he might have developed debating campus liberals last fall. And he doesn’t mince words about why white students support Duke.

“For every person like me, I think there are at least 10 people who have had a run-in with a black person or felt some other racial conflict. Each is another vote for David Duke,” Avery says. “A lot of it is racial, a whole lot.”

Avery says LSU is mostly pro-Duke, but that outside observers can’t tell it from the candidate’s campus rallies. His support is often found among those who quietly accept Duke’s hidden agenda of pro-white principles. While the ex-Nazi sympathizer draws criticism from an incredibly vocal minority, Avery suggests, the silent masses accept him.

Duke allows students who have been bused to historically black schools, those who feel they have lost scholarships to African-American students and those who have been ordered to think in terms of racial equality for more than a decade to show their resentment toward the system. He also allows years of bottled-up racial hatred to explode not in the classroom, but in the voting booth.

Racism is at work here, but it’s not the only cause for Duke’s success. Louisiana political analysts agree there are other elements. Among students, Duke exploits the current climate of economic uncertainty and a general frustration about the future. He attracts politically inept young voters, as well as the underexperienced. Naive students who don’t know much about the economy, welfare spending and the civil-rights struggle are easy converts for Duke’s message--that the white mainstream is being slighted in favor of minorities and special interests.

These students have no heroes, know no ideology and have no real political identity. They were born after the Vietnam War, aren’t familiar with John F. Kennedy and don’t know much about the traditional platforms of the Democrats or the Republicans. But they perceive that the traditional political system is decreasingly effective.

Duke simply writes “WELFARE REFORM” across their foreheads in gleaming white chalk. And suddenly they have a hero, an ideology and an identity--albeit racial.

As for students who came to school with developed political thoughts, their only memories are of Ronald Reagan’s conservatism, a garden of fertile ideological soil for a demagogue like Duke, the extreme conservative. Racism is not a concern to these kids, many of whom would rather be called a racist than a liberal.

Furthermore, LSU never has been a liberal institute of arts and letters. The dorms are still gender-segregated, the football team is the most racially integrated institution on campus and the Confederate flag is still flown proudly in front of a handful of fraternity houses.

While the university has seen some political correctness--a few English teachers pushing for non-gender-specific terminology, classes about Native American history, a bit of Afro-centrism and the like--most students think the “PC” movement is literally a communist plot--and that liberalism is the real thought crime.

These students react strongly to the idea that anyone can tell them how to think or act. A vote for Duke is a powerful protest against any carpetbagging Establishment or, for that matter, anything they don’t like. He’s a perfect vent.

They may vote against liberals, blacks, or the traditional “good ol’ boy” political system in Louisiana. They may vote against former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards. Many of them voted against incumbent Gov. Charles (Buddy) Roemer and the national political Establishment. They voted because they were angry about the fact they see only a stagnant national polity. Duke is the populist alternative.

America is facing hard times, but the times may be harder for young people simply because many are realizing that theirs may be the first generation in some time that does not have the same opportunities their parents had. Many students, black and white, know that for them, the American Dream will remain just that--a dream.

Duke eases the fear, telling young whites, in particular, that he can bring opportunities, not saying those chances at security and success will probably come at the expense of others.

Regardless of what happens in the gubernatorial runoff Nov. 16, Duke is far from finished. If he wins or if he loses, all Americans will feel consequences, but particularly young Louisianians.

“If Duke is elected, I’ll just get my master’s and leave,” says Marc Guidry, a graduate student who helped form Diversity, a campus group aimed at discrediting Duke, currently a Louisiana state representative. “There is going to be a mass exodus of the brightest students and faculty. The people who can afford to get out probably will.”

And, of course, the state will lose jobs to other Southern states and the respect of the entire country.

But if Duke is not our next governor, he will run until he is elected to some higher office, and eventually he will run for national office again. He seems destined to become the nation’s piper of racism and his song--White Power--will remain the same, the most dangerous political message in the country.