In the end, the KKK did not choose to support Donald Trump because he was a Republican but because they agreed with the ideas that he (and other far-right Republicans) spout. It is finally time to face the rise in the twenty-first century of a new form of white nationalism and its alignment with many leaders of the Republican Party, including Trump.

    • chaogomu@kbin.social
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      Strom Thurmond famously switched parties because the Democrats decided to end segregation.

      The story there is actually fascinating. There was a time during the late 50s, early 60s when it could have been Republicans who were champions of civil rights.

      After all, it was Eisenhower who started desegregating the military, and who ordered the 101st Airborne in to protect the Little Rock Nine.

      Southern Democrats were the people pushing back against it all, because they were the conservatives.

      Republicans and Democrats worked together on the 1957 civil rights act. And when there was pushback against it, Democrats and Republicans worked together to weaken the bill with some bad amendments. Stom Thurmond set a record for a standing filibuster during this process.

      Then Eisenhower pushed through the Civil Rights act of 1960. This made it easier for black people to actually vote, but that was it.

      The moment that sort of cemented things with the racists choosing the Republican side was the election of JFK. Well, not exactly the election itself, but a moment during the election.

      Martin Luther King was arrested in October 1960, Kennedy publicly(ish) called King’s family, and pulled favors to get King released, which likely saved King’s life.

      Oddly, Nixon and King had known each other for a few years at that point, and King had given Nixon advice a few times. Nixon, was told by his campaign manager to maintain silence about King’s arrest. Kennedy and King had only recently met, although one of the people working on Kennedy’s campaign was a long time friend of the King family.

      Anyway, King was released, and national newspapers credited Kennedy, and lambasted Nixon for his silence. King as well was angry at Nixon, because the two were friends, or so King had thought.

      So Kennedy was elected, and the black vote helped. Nixon took that as a bit of an insult.

      Kennedy, didn’t really do much for civil rights as president until shortly before his assassination. He met with civil rights leaders in 1963 and made a speech a few months before his assassination.

      It was actually that assassination that let Johnson push through the Civil Rights act of 1964. “Fulfilling Kennedy’s dream” justified a lot of shit in the 60s, from civil rights to moon missions.

      So yeah, 1964, Berry Goldwater ran on a platform of segregation and racism as a Republican and drew in Thurmond’s support. That failed, but Nixon took up the tactic in 1968 with the Southern Strategy, and that cemented the party switch. The southern racists all jumped on to team Republican.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        It was actually that assassination that let Johnson push through the Civil Rights act of 1964. “Fulfilling Kennedy’s dream” justified a lot of shit in the 60s, from civil rights to moon missions.

        And Johnson did it begrudgingly because he was a racist piece of shit. Carter was the first Democratic president who actually cared.

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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        Great comment. The subject goes way beyond “this party racist” because it’s really the economic interests and arrangements that the parties cater(ed) to, for which racism, and this notion of race itself, developed out of. The way both sides dealt with the Populist movement is very important as well. Booker T Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech at the Cotton Expo basically sets the stage for things like “race relations” going forward, and the general approach to “lead the negro to his rightful place in life.” Jim Crow order was imposed as well, which most people only view as a racial order and not an economic one.

        This goes past the 50s-60s too, the time that most people associate as the Democrats becoming a party of civil rights with their base of northern liberals. At this same time you had the notion of the neighborhood, urban planning switching to these subdivisions, entire areas of housing built to accommodate people of the same economic status. This is more how northern segregation functioned, with the help of mortgage and real estate laws. Well educated northern liberals certainly didn’t want low income housing projects in* their* neighborhoods, and would not elect a representative to city council who wouldn’t defend their property values.

  • blazera@kbin.social
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    Theres an unbroken timeline of the conservative south being racist for all of American history. Even that time they used to be mainly democrats, but then democrats stopped being racist so they switched to republican.

    • spaceghoti@lemmy.oneOP
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      I think it’s better said that the majority of the racism in the Democratic Party (but not the entirety of it) went with them after they defected to the Republican party. The primary reason they held on as Democrats for so long is because the Republicans were responsible for beating them in the Civil War and ending slavery. They refused to ever vote for a Republican for generations after that out of spite, even after the Republicans and Democrats swapped ideological positions in the early Twentieth Century.

      • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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        I think it’s better said that the majority of the racism in the Democratic Party (but not the entirety of it) went with them after they defected to the Republican party.

        Gonna have to disagree with you chief. That racism is all still there. Democratic racism is just more subtle. Start talking about building affordable housing/apartments or busing low income kids into their schools in a well to do liberal neighborhoods and they all turn into David Duke.

        Case and point, Boston is as blue and liberal as they come but I guarantee you’ll hear the nbomb there about as often and enthusiastically as you would at a Trump rally in Mississippi

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      Considering how the Democratic party panders to and demands special treatment for anyone who isn’t cis and white, thus implying all others are inferior, I’m not sure the racism ever left.

      Let’s not forget “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, you ain’t black!”

      • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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        Equal rights ≠ special treatment

        Protection against violence and discrimination ≠ pandering

        Thinking that the fair and dignified treatment of minority groups is mistreatment of the ones who still have the vast majority of the wealth, power and opportunities to prosper = bigotry and false victimhood

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      Not all Trump supporters are fascists, but all of them agree that fascism isn’t a deal breaker.

    • JdW@lemmy.world
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      And if you support Trump, you at the very least are ok with fascists. You can judge a person by the company they keep…

    • Sentrovasi@kbin.social
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      And I venture to argue that because of the way politicians want to maintain their voterbases, it pushes his politics further and further into fascism.

      • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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        So is that the new thing with you guys? You inject “tankies” into every discussion that has nothing to do with them? It’s boring man.

        Get a new schtick.

        • reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world
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          There’s basically no right wing chuds here, so they’ve made a boogieman out of people further to the left then themselves that don’t agree with their narrative.

          • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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            Lol… who’s defending them? I just think it’s funny when people force a topic into a discussion where said topic wasn’t being discussed- as if no one will notice how annoying it is.

            I’d say- and have said the same to them when dumb shit is introduced to a conversation that isn’t about their dumb shit.

      • Enkrod@feddit.de
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        Hmmmm… I’d argue against them being communists, rather they are what I’d like to call “communist party buorgeoisie”.

        The North Korean System has much in common with fascism. But I don’t know if I’d call them fascists.

        For sure they are evil authoritarian goons, but fascism is more than that, because on top of being build on authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism and often racism, it is also expansionist, anti-liberal, anti-communist and anti-socialist, it is overwhelmingly corporatist, placed firmly in the spectrum of the right. And - in a surprising twist - anti-conservative in it’s revolutionary mindset.

        North Korea for one is clearly left-nationalist authoritarian. I’d even go so far as to call it a Stalinist system. It is anything but corporatist except where it is necessarily subservient to China.

        China on the other hand has left its communist days behind and has become a major capitalist player on the world stage, creating an export-focused capitalist society with strong corporatist economy. And holy shit, if China isn’t chauvinist expansionist I don’t know who qualifies… So yes, they can likely be classified as fascists.

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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    What year is this? White supremacists turned out to vote for him in droves, why does this article make it sound like a new thing?