Slow Burn: David Duke

Season 4: Bonus Episode 1
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David Duke and the Modern Movement

How the former KKK leader tried to learn from his mistakes to mentor the next generation of white nationalists in America.

Episode Notes

In this bonus episode, Slow Burn’s host Josh Levin and producer Christopher Johnson discuss what it’s like to tackle the subject of David Duke and white supremacy this season. Then we hear an interview with journalist and author Eli Saslow about Duke’s connections to and influences on the modern white nationalist movement in America.

Titles mentioned in this episode: Tyler Bridges’ The Rise and Fall of David Duke, and Saslow’s Rising Out of Hatred.

Production by Chau Tu.

About the Show

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a white supremacist became an American political phenomenon. David Duke’s rise to power and prominence—his election to the Louisiana Legislature, and then his campaigns for the U.S. Senate and the governorship—was an existential crisis for the state and the nation. The fourth season of Slate’s Slow Burn will explore how a Nazi sympathizer and former Klansman fashioned himself into a mainstream figure, and why some voters came to embrace his message. It will also examine how activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens confronted Duke’s candidacy, and what it took to stop him.

The season is hosted by Josh Levin, a longtime Slow Burn editor and native Louisianian.

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