Slow Burn: David Duke

Season 4: Bonus Episode 5
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Confronting Duke With His Own Words

TV news anchor Norman Robinson on watching David Duke’s rise in New Orleans.

Episode Notes

In this bonus episode, Slow Burn’s host Josh Levin and producer Christopher Johnson discuss what happened in the 1991 Louisiana governor’s race and reflect on Slow Burn Season 4. Then we’ll hear an extended interview with TV news anchor Norman Robinson about his confrontation with Duke during a televised debate that year.

Titles mentioned in this episode: Lawrence Powell’s Troubled Memory

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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