A few weeks ago, an intense argument erupted on CNN that stretched into a debate the next day after Trump surrogate con man, Jeffrey Lord, got called out for channeling Joseph Goebbels. If you didn’t catch it, he was defending Trump’s wink-wink, nod-nod on David Duke, and he claimed that the Klan was a “leftist” organization. This would be laughable were it not part of a much larger, disturbing trend on the part of many conservatives to “whitewash” American history and literally take the “race” out of a disturbing legacy of racism.
In a previous essay "Yes Son, The Civil War Really Was About Slavery" I pointed out how there’s a strong movement in many quarters to “reinterpret” the Civil War as having been about state rights, as opposed to the real cause, slavery. One can hear echos of this historical vandalism in statements by Duck Dynasty reality star Phil Robertson and Clive Bundy that African Americans were happy living under conditions of slavery and segregation.
What’s next, redoing the mini-series “Roots” as a drama about how kindhearted white landowners are mistreated by the ungrateful black “guest workers” they generously house and cloth?
Why CNN allows a shameless bullshit artist like Jeffrey Lord to come on each and every day is beyond me — it’s almost a violation of basic journalist ethics. But for the sake of sanity and truth, let’s take a moment to untangle some of this clown’s distortion.
“The KKK was founded as a leftist organization.” Lord made this incredible claim citing the fact that many Klan members during the organization’s inception and massive revival in the 1920s were predominantly Southern and members of the Democratic party. This argument leaves out the essential point that what the two parties stood for in terms of “left” and “right” bares almost no resemblance to our understanding of the terminology today.
The Democratic party in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War was not a “liberal” political party. Long before the Civil War, the Democratic party grew out of the divide between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists at the founding of our nation. To put it simply, the Federalists wanted a big central government and the Anti-Federalists wanted a smaller state-empowered system. The Democratic party championed state rights over big government at that time. Does that sound like the Republican or Democratic party to you? Like I said, it was a long time ago and a lot has changed since then.
The Democratic party had very strong Southern, racist roots. It’s founding fathers were slave owners Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.
Following the Civil War, the entire South held the Republican party in utter contempt because it was the “party of Lincoln.” Members of the KKK, which wasn’t beholden to any political control really, as it was operating as a roaming terrorist militia, might call themselves Democrats. But what this meant to a KKK member wasn’t anything remotely “leftist” — it was to oppose Republicans who were trying to give people of color equality.
As the Democratic party shifted left in the 60s and the Republicans became more conservative, the Dixie-Crat allegiance shifted.
The shift of the Democratic party began originally when populist William Jennings Bryan lead an unexpected uprising within the party, and championed the cause of the common man against the rich industrialists of the era known as “Robbery Barons.” It’s not unlike what Bernie Sanders is doing now.
Bryan lost the presidential election, by the way, but his movement changed the Democratic party. From the turn of the century onward, the Democratic party championed the causes of the “Progressive” movement.
Trump’s surrogate tried to make an absurd connection that because Democratic president Woodrow Wilson was a Southern racist who admired the KKK, it proved the Klan was a leftist outfit. No, idiot, actually it proves how pervasive and accepted racism is.
Woodrow Wilson was a typical man of his time. His views were formed in the South but accepted everywhere. His admiration of the Klan and the fact that he also considered himself a progressive shows how accepted racism was in that era - and now. Wilson won the Noble Peace prize and he was an open bigot — it’s amazing when you think about it.
But saying that Klan held the same views as Wilson and the progressive movement? Hello! They weren’t burning crosses and lynching people to help Wilson build the League of Nations!
During the 1920s, the ranks of the KKK swelled, but not because it was interested in “leftist” causes, but rather because it framed itself as an anti-communist organization. As Thomas R. Pegram points out in his book, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, the KKK emphasized its role as an anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant and anti-Communist organization.
Furthermore, during the 1930s and 1940s, the KKK became a violent anti-labor movement, as it saw unions as a means for Blacks to obtain greater income and equality. For example, Klan leaders urged its members to violently disrupt the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which advocated industrial unions and accepted African-American members.
After the 1950s, as the Democratic party moved further to the left and championed civil rights, the KKK, in fact, was highly active in pushing voters into the Republican party, which the Klan saw as better representing Southern racists interests.
As David Cunningham pointed out in a recent article for the Washington Post:
The Klan helped produce this effect by encouraging voters to move away from Democratic candidates, who increasingly supported civil rights reforms, and by pushing racial conflicts to the fore and more clearly aligning those issues with party platforms.
Not only is the KKK not associated with anything remotely identifiable with “leftist” political causes, it’s been fighting against them since it was born!
But truly, do I really need to point this stuff out to anyone? Is anyone under the illusion that the KKK is a progressive organization? I dunno, maybe people really are that dumb. CNN put this idiot who spouts this nonsense on and treats him like he’s an “expert” worth talking to. The only thing he’s an expert in is being a pathological liar, just like the man he works for.
Whatever your politics, maintaining the truth of history is important. The story of the KKK and the Nazis being told truthfully is vitally important. There’s no excuse to distort it and dishonor the victims of these organizations.
We all need to work to keep the truth alive before these fools re-write history and we all drown in a puddle of lies.