Leading American racist David Duke has announced that he is retiring from hate-based white supremacist politics, citing recent progress as evidence his enthusiastic advocacy is no longer needed.

Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan and founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, says in his heart he will always be part of the will to power, but it’s time to try out new things now that so many others have taken up the cause.

“Despite some setbacks in the second half of the twentieth century, we have made great strides in the 21st – so much so that I believe I can finally hang up my pointy hat.”

The Louisiana bigot points to major advances in the normalizing of shootings by police, and general rising hostilities around the world, especially when it comes to minorities or anyone that can be identified at the ‘other’.

In particular, he highlights the re-emergence of Imperial Russian ambition as personified by Vladimir Putin, the Brexit movement in the UK, and the rise of far right nationalist movements through Europe.

“And then of course there’s our current President. It’s like it’s Christmas every day – a very white Christmas!”