Duke, the former Ku Klux Klansman and former Louisiana congressman, was the main attraction last weekend at an anti-immigration rally in Siler City that was organized by a businessman there who reportedly has ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance.

During the rally, attended by about 100 supporters, Duke whipped up anti-Hispanic sentiment by warning that whites will soon be “outnumbered and outvoted,” while blaming immigrants for a host of societal ills ranging from rising crime to low-paying jobs.

Never mind that crime rates are actually falling, according to recent federal reports, or that much of the state’s economic dislocations have come about because of upheavals in traditional industries such as textiles, tobacco and farming, not because of Hispanic immigration here.

Facts were not what this rally was about. It was about mindless fanaticism and the same, sad bigotry that Duke has pandered to and exploited throughout his “white might” career. First his targets were blacks and Jews. Now he’s added Hispanics to his list of threats to America’s “heritage.” At least he’s becoming more multicultural in his particular brand of narrow-mindedness.

Duke, of course, maintained that the rally wasn’t about ethnic animosity or prejudice. His National Organization for European Rights, he said, is simply trying to defend traditional American ways of life and “our rights,” meaning, of course, the rights of people who look and think like him. Supposedly, it was organized to draw attention primarily to the problem of illegal immigrants.

But the rally’s overall tenor, the “No Way, Jose” signs and thinly veiled animosity toward outsiders, strongly suggested otherwise.

Like many other states, North Carolina has experienced a rapid rise in its Hispanic population in the past decade — from 77,000 in 1990 to 349,000 last year, by one count. Inevitably, rapid demographic change creates tensions within a community and can strain schools, social agencies, courts and other institutions.