Thread by @ProDemocracyRTs

How did the Republican Party get to this horrible place where it’s using white supremacist hate speech to radicalize its supporters so they’re willing to overthrow our democracy? This thread traces some of the steps. 1/15

Southern racists once felt at home in the Democratic Party. But in 1948, Dem President Harry Truman desegregated the military and racists formed a “Dixiecrat” party, running Strom Thurmond (pictured). Many Southern pols stuck w/ Truman, he won, and the Dixiecrats dissolved. 2/15

Racists migrated to the Republicans’ side, with Thurmond joining the GOP in 1964. But Democrats and Republicans came together to take long-overdue steps against systemic racism, passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 3/15

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed the Senate by a 77-19 vote, with Republicans overwhelmingly in favor. The Democrats’ vote was 47-17, Republicans 30-2. The 19 senators who voted against voting rights were all from Southern states. 4/15 govtrack.us/congress/votes…

If bipartisan action against racism had continued, we wouldn’t be in the crisis we’re in today. But Republicans decided they cared more about winning than about decency. They embarked on a strategy to woo racist white Southerners. It was called the Southern Strategy. 5/15

GOP strategist Lee Atwater later explained the Southern Strategy:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘[N-word]*, [n-word], [n-word].’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘[n-word]’—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff …” 6/15

* Lee Atwater used the actual n-word in that quote about the Southern Strategy. I didn’t because bad actors would try to get me knocked off Twitter. Here’s Atwater’s Southern Strategy interview from 1981 explaining the GOP's embrace of racist code. 7/15 thenation.com/article/archiv…

One aspect of Republican messaging was Ronald Reagan's rhetoric about people buying T-bone steaks with food stamps and a "welfare queen” running scams. The “queen” was a criminal and totally atypical of welfare recipients. But she fed a stereotype. 8/15
washingtonpost.com/history/2019/0…

In 1976, the same year as Reagan’s “welfare queen” rhetoric, a Republican in Ford's Cabinet, Earl Butz, was ousted after saying privately, “I’ll tell you what the coloreds want. It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.” 9/15

Yes, some Republicans were appalled by racists like Butz, but others welcomed them. The racism was so obvious that GOP Chair Ken Mehlman apologized in 2005 for his party “trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.”
But they didn’t stop. 10/15
archive.boston.com/news/nation/ar…

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts (nominated by Bush II) supports suppression of the Black vote. He wrote a 2013 ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act by letting states with a history of racial discrimination change election practices without getting a federal OK. 11/15

Justice Roberts said the main reason he gutted the Voting Rights Act was because “our country has changed” for the better and strong federal oversight is no longer necessary. So what did racist GOP politicians at the state level do? Pass voter suppression laws, of course. 12/15

When Donald Trump ran for president with overtly racist rhetoric, the Republican Party again opted for power over decency and bowed to Trump. After neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, VA, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.” 13/15

It’s getting worse. Top Republicans like Elise Stefanik echo the “great replacement theory," the crackpot idea of a plot for “white extinction,” replacing white people with people of color. It inspired a massacre of Black people in Buffalo. The GOP is pushing racist hate. 14/15

In Louisiana's 1991 governor race, ex-KKK leader David Duke ran as a Republican vs. corrupt Edwin Edwards. A bumper sticker said: “Vote for the crook: It’s important.”
Republicans have simplified the choice. They’re racists AND crooks.
Vote against them. It’s important. 15/15