I'm not sure what your point is, but he said the KKK was ok around 30-40 years ago, and later disavowed it saying he was joking. In a era of much greater discrimination, that behavior and more like it cost him an appointment as a federal judge. And that incident, from 30-40 years ago, is seen as so bad that people are bringing it up again. I think that demonstrates how fringe those attitudes are - they certainly are not acceptable to the great majority of Americans. If he said it again now, his career would end in milliseconds.

Outside the racism, I agree that he is very conservative, in a way that used to be fringe, which has little support now, but is widely accepted as normalized. That, I strongly feel, is a serious error by us, the public.