Thursday, February 9, 2017

In the news: Ted Cruz and the Ku Klux Klan


Obviously, the guy is both tired of and annoyed at being out of the spotlight for so long.

Amid controversy over Sessions debate, Ted Cruz says Dems are 'party of the Ku Klux Klan'.  (USA Today, 2/9/2017)



Starting with the 1880 presidential election -- James Garfield (R) defeats Winfield Hancock (D) --  the South voted in a solid Democratic bloc

This pattern changed in the Truman beats Dewey 1948 election, when the South Carolina segregationist Strom Thurmond ran for President as a States' Rights Democrats, informally known as 'Dixiecrats'.  His decision was in response to President Truman's executive order to end racial discrimination in the military and support of eliminating poll taxes, among other Southern white effronteries.




The move toward a solid South of GOP state legislatures got a push in 1968 from Nixon's cynical but effective "Southern Strategy", helped along by this well-known nativist, and segregationist George Wallace's third-party run for President;


Today, if you look at the legislatures of the southern states, the Republicans own lop-sided majorities in every single one save for the Virginia State Senate, where they have a 2-vote majority.


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