Thread by @KevinMKruse

Dear @BLEXIT and @RealCandaceO:

You don't know what you're talking about here on your site: blexit.com

Every one of these is pretty much a lie.

First off, this image -- which you're using to imply that all Klan violence targeted Republicans -- comes from a rally outside Chicago in 1921.

At the time, the Illinois Klan backed Republican candidates against Democratic officials who were largely Catholics, whom they hated.

Here's an article about the rally from the @chicagotribune. You can see the photo properly credited here.

The rally in the picture took place at the suburban farm of Charles Weeghman, who previously owned the Cubs and built Wrigley Field.
chicagotribune.com/news/ct-kkk-ch…

Again, when the particular Klansmen in that picture took political stands, they usually did so on behalf of Republicans -- not against them.

Here's another piece from @Chicago_Reader: chicagoreader.com/chicago/boys-i…

As I explained in this thread, the Klan did have strong ties in some places to the Democratic Party. But in several states -- like Illinois and, even more so, Indiana -- the 1920s Klan was closely aligned with the Republicans.

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/941048318779625472

Looking broadly, we can see that the Klan had ties to both parties at various points in history.

The First Klan was almost entirely Democratic.

The Second Klan, as noted above, had links to both parties.

And more recently, well ... here's David Duke:

https://twitter.com/mattpulver/status/1056613764945076224

OK, let's move on to the second image there.

This is an apocryphal quotation, one that only appeared thirty years after LBJ's presidency in a gossipy tell-all, attributed to a single source who had a reputation for stretching the truth.

It's now a popular internet meme but -- sit down for this part, it's *really* shocking -- just because someone put words on a picture and put it on the internet, that doesn't make it true. Who knew?!

Here's the Snopes fact-check of it: snopes.com/fact-check/lbj…

Yes, LBJ used the N-word in private. We know that.

But this particular quote was almost certainly made up and, more important, has now been mobilized to wave away the hard facts of LBJ's strong record supporting the civil rights movement.

When he became president in 1963, LBJ took the civil rights bill that JFK had introduced, making it a lot stronger in several key provisions and then using every effort to push it through Congress.

Here he is signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with MLK Jr.

Let me pause here to address the weirdly-popular internet argument that A Higher Percentage of Republicans Voted For The Civil Rights Act™

Again, take a look at this:

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1022886358459854848

The parties were internally divided in LBJ's time, but it was clear to most observers that the Democrats were shedding their segregationist past while Republicans were trending in the other direction.

Again, I've tried to explaining this to @kanyewest:

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1022886381352366080

You don't have to listen to me. Listen to Martin Luther King Jr.

He didn't belong to either party, but in 1964 he repeatedly denounced Barry Goldwater, the GOP presidential candidate who had voted against the Civil Rights Act that Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson had championed.

After LBJ won in a landslide, MLK and civil rights activists turned to the voting rights crusade, which climaxed in the Selma protests.

LBJ responded by calling for what became the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Here:

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1022886369742479365

The quote on the Blexit site is apocryphal, but LBJ did reflect on the impact of the civil rights laws he passed when he told aides “We have lost the South for a generation."

And again, Southern Republicans used the politics of white backlash:

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/993475107992559616

All right, the third image.

This one's really impressive, because you've taken a made-up quote that was originally supposed to be about Slavs and Jews and changed it to a *new* made-up quote about "colored people." It's a fake of a fake!

Here's the Snopes fact-check again: snopes.com/fact-check/mar…

Margaret Sanger has been the target of a lot of fabrications in recent years.

Here's a nice piece on some of the other lies spun about her: npr.org/sections/itsal…

So, let's review:

A Republican-leaning Klan rally you've misrepresented as a Democratic one.

A fabricated quote attributed to LBJ.

And a twice-falsified quote attributed to Sanger.

0-for-3.

Yes, you really *should* learn more about American history.

As this goes viral, let me add this thread of scholars who actually know the real history of African Americans and the Republican Party and who *don't* rely on made-up quotes from random memes: @william_sturkey and @LeahRigueur:

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1056571745937821696