The recent Democratic primary win in New York's 13th Congressional District by Darializa Avila Chevalier has drawn controversy due to a 2019 social media post where she attacked "Black men" and "Arab men" for "fetishizing ugly colonizer women."
Chevalier's sentiment has attracted praise from an unlikely source: former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. In a recent interview, Duke expressed his support for Chevalier's right to preserve her heritage, stating that people have the right to "preserve their particular heritage."
Chevalier identifies as Afro-Latina, and her past comments have drawn comparisons to the rhetoric of Duke, who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives and was the national leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan from 1974 to 1980.
Some political observers have labeled Chevalier as a "David Duke" figure, suggesting that her views are poisoning the possibility of a Democratic majority. However, others argue that the modern Democratic Party would not treat her in the same way as the GOP did to Duke, who ran as a Republican in the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries congratulated Chevalier on her primary victory, while former Republican congressman Peter Meijer noted that the difference between the two cases is that the Democratic Party would not ostracize Chevalier in the same way as the GOP did to Duke.
The episode highlights a potential vulnerability for progressive Democrats facing allegations of antisemitism within their ranks. Duke's praise for Chevalier and his support for other Democrats who have drawn such accusations give critics in both parties a new opening to attack the Democratic Party's young and ascendant socialist wing.
