Judge Rules ‘Honorary’ KKK Member Can Remain In Missouri Governor Race As GOP’s Klan Problems Continue

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Welp, a judge has ruled that the Missouri GOP can’t just get rid of its little Ku Klux Klan problem by voting one of the white supremacist organization’s “honorary” members out of the state’s gubernatorial race.

According to the Associated Press, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Cotton Walker rejected the state GOP’s request to remove Darrell McClanahan from the Republican primary for governor, which takes place in August.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with McClanahan, he was outed as a white nationalist with KKK ties after a photo of him giving a Nazi salute in front of a burning cross along with another man who was in full Klan regalia was unearthed. McClanahan denied that he was ever a Klan member and he pointed to a lawsuit he filed in federal court last September against the Anti-Defamation League, which published an article reporting that he was affiliated, not just with the Klan, but also with various white supremacists and “Christian identity” groups. But all pointing to that case did was prove that McClanahan is not the brightest robe in the Grand Wizzard’s closet, because, in his filing, he admitted that he is a “Pro-White man” who has had “honorary memberships” in the Knight’s Party Ku Klux Klan and the League of the South. He also admitted to attending a cross burning in 2019, only he called it a “Christian Identity Cross lighting ceremony falsely described as a cross burning.” (Obviously, the guy in the Klan robe and hood was really just a masked priest who put too much starch on the top of his hat, and that wasn’t a Nazu salute, they were just reaching out to God for a handshake.)

Hey @MissouriGOP I just learned the candidate listed first on our primary ballot for Governor is a cross-burning KKK member who ran for US Senate 2 years ago and freely admits his KKK membership & white supremacist beliefs. https://t.co/AZTGrAl7X0 pic.twitter.com/z7ilIo5k4d

— Shamed Dogan (@ShamedDoganMO) February 29, 2024

So, the GOP—which, at this point, must be getting really tired of Klan members and other assorted white supremacists identifying so closely with the Republican party—sued to get McClanahan off of the ballot, but to no avail.

From AP:

McClanahan is running against Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, state Sen. Bill Eigel and others for the GOP nomination to replace Gov. Mike Parson, who is barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

McClanahan’s lawyer, Dave Roland, said the ruling ensures that party leaders do not have “almost unlimited discretion to choose who’s going to be allowed on a primary ballot.”

“Their theory of the case arguably would have required courts to remove people from the ballot, maybe even the day before elections,” Roland said.

I meeeean, it’s pretty true that if Republicans started trying to give everyone affiliated with their party the boot over aligning with white supremacist ideology, the GOP would essentially become an acronym for, “Great, Out of Politicians.” In fact, Roland said he believes the entire lawsuit aimed at getting his client removed was really just political posturing to publicly disassociate the party from its loyal Klan fans.

“I’m not sure they ever actually intended to win this case,” he said. “I think the case got filed because the Republican Party wanted to make a very big public show that they don’t want to be associated with racism or anti-Semitism. And the best way that they could do that was filing a case that they knew was almost certain to lose.”

But as I’ve written before—a few times, actually— white supremacist groups identify politically with the GOP, and vice versa because right-wing ideology makes them feel welcome, and until Republicans can reconsile that, they will continue to have McKlanahans to worry about.

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