Thread by @msbellows

Thread:

There's a photo going around of an old KKK billboard saying "love it or leave it." A MAGAt, echoing @DineshDSouza, responded that KKK=Democrats.

My first response was, "ok, true back then, but it's changed."

Then I looked closer. That was a REPUBLICAN billboard.
1/

@DineshDSouza That KKK billboard is dated 1972. It was in Johnston County, NC. That year, Johnston County voted for Nixon. In fact, "[w]ith the exception of Jimmy Carter in 1976, Republicans have carried the county in every presidential election since 1972." johnstonnc.com/heritage2/hcco…
2/

@DineshDSouza Republicans in general did great in North Carolina the year that billboard was up: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_…
3/

@DineshDSouza And who led North Carolina whites to shift from D to R?

The Klan. The Klan pushed white N Carolinians to decouple from the Dem Party and start moving to Republicans like Nixon.

The Klan is why the GOP took NC the year that billboard stood. psmag.com/social-justice…
4/

@DineshDSouza More on how the Klan led the exodus of Southern white racists from the Democrats to the GOP. It wasn't just Nixon's brilliantly corrupt campaigning; it was the Klan: books.google.com/books?id=fBQhe…
5/

@DineshDSouza And then the Klan began expressly endorsing Republicans. They endorsed Reagan in 1980 and 1984: washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/w…

And the Klan endorsed Trump: independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…
6/

@DineshDSouza So in addition to the conventional "party realignment" explanation of why @DineshDSouza is Deeply Full Of Shite, let's add that the KKK has ACTIVELY promoted the GOP to white racist voters for decades...
7/

@DineshDSouza ... And that "love it or leave it" is inseparable from racism, Republicanism, and the Ku Klux Klan.
8/8