So former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke has announced a bid for the U.S. Senate. What’s old is new again.

It’s been nearly 25 years since Duke was defeated as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Louisiana in no small part due to the efforts of our old friend Quin Hillyer.

How Duke fares in his bid remains to be seen. But would he have even contemplated another bid for public office if not for Trump?

In his online announcement, Duke stated, “I was the first major candidate in modern times to promote the term and policy of ‘America First,’. We cannot have free trade without fair trade.

He went on to say, “I’m overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues I’ve championed for years. I’ve always opposed these wars that lead our nation to disaster.”

Would Duke’s candidacy even be possible without the rise of Donald Trump? Each time Jake Tapper asked Trump to take Duke to task and each time Trump refused he conferred Duke and the white supremacist movement with legitimacy.

In case anyone thinks that Duke has abandoned his racist and anti-Semitic ways, it was only earlier this week that he blamed Jews for Melania Trump’s plagiarized speech. For good measure, he rushed to Trump’s defense on the Star of David tweet controversy earlier this month.

Earlier I mentioned Quin Hillyer who has been as outspoken against Trump as I have been. Yesterday, he wrote one last anti-Trump column and said he was done talking about the Republican nominee for the duration of the election campaign. But in light of Duke’s announcement and Trump’s role in his rise, Quin may have to pick up his pen a lot sooner than he had planned.