According to this progressive historian, Eric Foner, the Ku Klux Klan was for decades "the domestic terrorist arm of the Democratic Party " pic.twitter.com/TWwOtCOwoz— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 11, 2017
Oh, Eric Foner, huh?
Yes, Foner's quite right. True until Al Smith candidacy broke the Klan's hold over the party in 1928. Hasn't been close to true since 1960s.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 11, 2017
Of course I mean the 1960s in the Deep South. Elsewhere the Klan was an impotent force among Democrats well before that. I know in my hometown area in upstate New York near the Pennsylvania border there were Klan rallies as late as the 1950s, but they had nothing to do with the party—in fact those dairy farmers were Republicans already (not for race reasons but for milk price supports).
The general point is very well known; in 1924, the Ku Klux Klan was powerful enough in the Democratic party to prevent the presidential nomination of the Catholic governor of New York, Al Smith (people sometimes forget the Klan used to hate Catholics as much as they hate blacks and Jews—still do, maybe), and by 1928 they didn't any more, and Smith got the nomination, as well as that great "Happy Warrior" speech at the convention from Franklin Roosevelt (it was in the runup to that campaign, on Memorial Day 1927, that Protestant son of a German brothel keeper Fred Trump got arrested in a brawl following a Klan march in Jamaica, Queens, Fred's neighborhood, which happened to be turning strongly African American during the period, though nobody is telling me if that has something to do with the march and fight.
As black vote became overwhelmingly Democratic from FDR through Obama, Klan went in the opposite direction.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 11, 2017
Saw them working their asses off for Trump last fall, of course https://t.co/tzMeMjDbrl and for GOP— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 11, 2017
But as they say I just happen to have Eric Foner right here with me. "You know nothing of my work."— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 12, 2017
You know what Eric Foner says now: Trump is the candidate of white nationalists, because racism is in his DNA https://t.co/w1q3Lw8iJE pic.twitter.com/fXqw5HmuUD— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 11, 2017
And that is an "exaggerated form" of what's happened to Republican Party since 1960s. Foner is indeed a great historian. pic.twitter.com/fOfFr5Qssh— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 11, 2017
And a great radical who has dedicated his life to the opposite of what is in your shriveled, colonialist, racist. authoritarian heart.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 12, 2017
And chutzpah trying to quote the most beautiful old Marxist in town. That's what got me triggered enough to respond this time.— Yastreblyansky (@Yastreblyansky) September 11, 2017
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