By MICHAEL DAVIDOW, Radio Free New Hampshire

This is easy research: you can do it on the web. David Duke was born in Oklahoma, but he grew up in New Orleans. His mother was an alcoholic, as sometimes happens. His father left when his son was eleven and didn’t come back.

He joined the Klan while still in high school and after a brief flirtation with the Nazi party he made the Klan his political home. He rose to the top of that organization and gained publicity by advertising a modern version of its timeworn philosophy, claiming he was less anti-black than pro-white. Then he left the Klan, though it’s hard to say why. He maintains he disliked their violent tendencies. Others say it was a financial scandal.

He ran and lost races for the Louisiana State Senate two times, as a Democrat. He even tried to run for the presidency as Democrat. Then in 1988, he ran for the state senate again, but this time as a Republican. Both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush spoke against him, but he won anyway. “It’s as if Attila the Hun joined our party,” the state chairman lamented. He served a few years and accomplished next to nothing.

He ran for the United States Senate in 1990, the only Republican in an open primary. Former Louisiana governor John Treen, also a Republican, called his program “garbage” and further opined “he is bad for our party because of his espousal of Nazism and racial superiority.” The Republican party ended up endorsing a Democrat in that election.

He then ran for Lousiana’s governorship. President Bush castigated him again. He ran for the presidency again; he ran for the U.S. Senate again; he ran for the U.S. House. The chairman of the Republican Party stated for the record, “there is no room in the party of Lincoln for a Klansman like David Duke.”

Duke is still around.  He has expressed his support for the likes of Ilhan Omar and Jill Stein. He doesn’t really care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. He just follows the hate.

He is also just one example. The Republican party has long been plagued by its lunatic fringe. Because the Democrats and their machines tended to run our country’s big cities, the GOP inherited the representation of our countryside, thereby becoming the natural political base of our nativists and those fearful of change.

It was the Klan and the Birchers in years gone by; it’s the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys today. But no matter what you call them, the lineage runs clear back to the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing party of the mid 1800’s. And Republican leaders from Eisenhower to Bush, who listened to Wall Street as much as to Main Street, who always took their history as the party of Lincoln seriously, who even at their worst shied away from the abject racism of the solid Democratic south, were always careful to disavow these groups (Trump, sadly, much less so).

Eisenhower particularly disliked them, because the Birchers included Ike in their paranoid imaginings. Nixon repeatedly disavowed them, in one election after another. William Buckley took it as a personal challenge to rid the modern Republican party of their influence. And as the David Duke story shows, the Republicans would even cede a seat to their opponents if necessary.

I mention this because recent primaries have saddled the Democratic Party with a lunatic fringe of its own. The Democrats of Michigan have given themselves a Senate candidate named Abdul al Sayed. Al Sayed won a close race. Like his soul mate Zohran Mamdani, he pals around with Hasan Piker, an influencer who praises Hezbollah and Hamas, and he ran and won on his signal hatred of Israel. The purity-ridden students of Ann Arbor put him over the top.

Asked if other opinions of Israel besides his own (he is against its existence) could be reasonable, he said, “Not if you’re a Democrat and you believe in human rights.” As to whether a Zionist can also be a progressive, he declared, “Every definition of a Jewish state ends up in some articulation of illiberal values, every single one.” He also made fun of his opponent’s appearance and speech.

Faced with that obnoxiousness, and with notions of false morality that barely mask blatant anti-Semitism imported from abroad and translated to suit the needs of self-satisfied students, one might hope that the Democratic party would denounce this man and either support a third party challenge or cede that seat to his Republican rival. Instead we are getting mush. Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, Gretchen Whitmer have all fallen in line.

They need to learn from their Republican friends. In case of emergency, break glass.  

Davidow writes Radio Free New Hampshire for InDepthNH.org. He is also the author of Gate City, Split Thirty, and The Rocketdyne Commission, three novels about politics and advertising which, taken together, form The Henry Bell Project,  The Book of Order, and The Hunter of Talyashevka, Chanukah Land can be found here. And his latest novel Interdiction can be found here.

The Pearsons have taken the phrase, “Start ‘em young” to another level in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

With her daughters Lydia, 6, Demi, 3, and Moriah, 1, in tow, Webster, N.H., resident Whitney Pearson recently completed a thru-hike of the state’s 48 peaks above 4,000 feet. She carried her youngest along with 60-plus pounds of food and gear throughout a five-week adventure while her older daughters navigated 230 miles and nearly 80,000 feet of elevation gain on their own two feet.

Two years prior, when she was 4, Lydia became the youngest to climb all 48 mountains, doing so in the more traditional fashion, with day hikes and a couple overnight trips broken up by long stretches at home. This time, she and her sisters hiked through, one peak after the other. Demi now holds the title as the youngest to finish the 48.

“I wanted them to experience a true thru-hike as closely as I could,” said Pearson, who grew up in the North Conway area and played softball at Plymouth State. “We knew we weren’t going to go home, and that was a struggle at first, but once we got into a groove, they were loving it.”

Known as the Direttissima (Italian for “the most direct route”), a thru-hike of New Hampshire’s 4,000-footers requires hikers to connect the 48 summits in self-powered fashion. There is no driving between trailheads, but hikers can leave the route at road crossings to replenish and resupply before picking up where they left off.

Following years of planning and warm-up treks with the kids, Pearson stuffed her Ford Bronco full of gear and groceries and drove to the Beaver Brook Trailhead under Mount Moosilauke in Woodstock to start on June 18. They followed the most heavily traveled route on trails through the Pemigewasset and Sandwich Wilderness areas, north over Mount Carrigain and through Crawford Notch, then over the Presidential Range and neighboring mountains toward the finish at Mount Cabot.

Friends or family members moved her car between trailheads or assisted in shuttling the vehicle, and a few put the Pearsons up for a night in a real bed. Her husband, Eric, met them at several crossings. Seeing their dad or the Bronco rustled up emotions, but Pearson said the girls never asked to call off the trip.

In total, the Pearsons spent five nights with family, four in hotels, five in Appalachian Mountain Club huts, five at AMC campsites, and 15 camping in the backcountry. Lydia and Demi enjoyed those nights by a fire more than anything.

“I had no idea how this was going to go. I had no expectations,” said Pearson, an accomplished ultrarunner with several speed records on long-distance routes in New England. “Whenever [the girls] said, ‘We’re done,’ then we were done. But they just love being outside. They talked about this hike for so long, they never asked to stop.”

Trails in the White Mountains are notoriously rugged. Yet Demi and Lydia often told their mom, “I got it,” before problem-solving their way up a rocky section or splashing through a stream. Of course, Pearson kept a close watch and offered a helping hand despite dealing with a massive backpack that ballooned with food and water after each road crossing.

The hardest part for mom? Parenting.

Without the threat of losing screen privileges, or bedrooms to send the girls for a timeout, she had no real recourse for their behavior. Whether Demi and Lydia were fighting and complaining, or marching on cheerfully, the daily itinerary couldn’t change much.

“I’m impressed by it all, but I think I’m most impressed with Whitney’s mental capacity to even desire to do something like that with her kids,” said Sarita Ojala, who often brings her children on hikes with the Pearsons, and joined them at the start and conclusion of their thru-hike. “It takes a lot of patience to hike with kids and keep them motivated. And when you’re home you can let your kids roam without worrying, but you can’t do that as easily on the trail.”

Just two days after completing their journey on July 23, the Pearson girls were asking about the next adventure, and a week later, they were hiking Mount Monadnock with the Ojalas.

While she hopes to take them on a thru-hike of Vermont’s five 4,000-footers next summer, and is quite proud of their passion for the mountains, Pearson and her husband encourage their daughter’s varied interests.

“I do like them to experience hard things, but I don’t want people to think I’m trying to turn them into ultrarunners,” said Pearson. “I’m just trying to teach them about not quitting when they’re pursuing their goals.”

“They have confidence in anything they do and I would have to attribute some of that to hiking.”

Nate Weitzer can be reached at nweitzer7@gmail.com. Follow him on X @nweitzer7.

Just after 5 p.m., Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Association began receiving reports of a home explosion on Sunset Drive in Belmont. Initially, firefighters from Laconia, Tilton-Northfield, and Sanbornton were requested.

Witnesses reported an explosion and flames from the back of the home on a canal near Lake Winnisquam. The first arriving fire commander confirmed there was a well-involved house fire with heavy smoke in the area and immediately requested a second alarm. A few minutes later, an ambulance was requested.