Oh the trials and tribulations of fanatical conservatism. First it was the Ku Klux Klan terrorizing blacks, Catholics, immigrants, and Jews because apparently Jesus favored white Protestant Americans–even though Jesus was a Jewish middle-easterner whose home fry Peter set up the Catholic church–but those are just details. Fast forward about 150 years and allow me to call your attention to a group calling themselves the National Black Republican Association and their mantra: Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Recently, I saw a picture of a Youtube ad that contained this and other “facts” all aimed at a black audience by the national black republican association. I was always sure that Dr. King was (for the most part) left leaning but apolitical, looking beyond party politics to an agenda of acceptance and well being of all people. Being a politically minded black liberal democrat, I visited the NBRA website to look for more information on the topic. A quick look around the website will reveal to anyone two things. Number one: these guys are as sketchy as a comic book. Number two: Half-truths and misleading information is blatant propaganda to try and divorce black voters from the Democratic Party and liberal principles.
So like Paul Harvey, I’ll tell you the rest of the story:
- Ronald Regan was a former Democrat.
- A Democrat (Scoop Jackson) is considered the father of Neo-conservatism
- The Democrat (Strom Thurmond) who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 turned to the Republican party in 1964 and even after he changed to a more lax position on race relations, he defended his earliest segregationist views until his death in 2003.
And on a side note of the above point, I would also like to mention that it was former Republican senator Trent Lott who said in 2002 that if Strom Thurmond won the presidential race in the south in 1948, “we wouldn’t have all these problems over the years”. Now, to be fair, the States’ Rights Democratic Party (the Dixiecrats) ran on more than just a segregationist platform–but the National Socialist German Workers’ Party ran more then just a platform of antisemitism, but we all know how that turned out.
On another side note I would like to point out that after making these remarks, Trent Lott attained the rank of “Minority Whip” in the Senate. That’s just one of those happy little coincidences in life that proves the existence of a God with a sense of humor.
- Robert Byrd, the Democratic member of the House of Representatives that is the NBRA’s poster boy for racism in the DNC was a member of the KKK in the 1940s, but later fully recanted and apologized for his views, and today speaks against the Klan.
- Barry Goldwater (nicknamed Mr. Conservative) when running for (and eventually receiving) the Republican nomination in 1964 had the full support of the KKK to the extent that members marched outside of the Republican Convention in San Francisco holding Goldwater signs.
And of course, to refute the initial claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Here are direct quotes from the man himself:
-“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry… Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong…with capitalism… There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism.”– speech to his staff in 1966.
Now, I am by no means saying that my party has historically been and will always be the correct one (the National Black Republican Association is riding that horse already). I have many bones to pick with the democratic party–in fact I consider myself a liberal first and a democrat second. Also, I have nothing against conservatism or republicans. What I take issue with is presenting a small scope of facts that will not hold up under a degree of scrutiny. But hey, it worked for Dylan Avery.