Thread by @vexedinthecity

Dear Black Men Supporting Trump,
I'd like to introduce you to this man, Lee Atwater. Now, you may not know who Lee Atwater is, but he's had a profound impact on your life over the past 50ish years. You see, he's the architect of a thing called the Southern Strategy...

For those unfamiliar with the Southern Strategy, following the Civil Rights Movement, white people in the South who had been Democratic voters for generations felt like they were no longer welcome in the party. BUT, they weren't exactly sold on Republicans either...

So, to get these disaffected white Democrats into the fold, Atwater came up with a plan. They would use the ethos of segregationism and white supremacy, but wrap it in "State's Rights" as a way to embrace blatantly anti-Black policies...

So, you don't say the n-word, because that's not cool. But you instead say "school busing" as a proxy. You don't say "Black people are lazy" because that's not nice, but you say "Welfare disincentivizes work" and it's the same thing. And you know what? IT WORKED...

And it helped elect this guy, Ronald Reagan. Now, Black man considering voting for Trump, you should know a few things about Reagan here. First, he kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS where civil rights workers had been murdered 15 years earlier...

Second, he branded poor Black people who needed public assistance as "Welfare Queens" and basically said we needed to cut the social safety net because Black folks were too lazy to work. Oh, and there's one more really important thing that we got from Reagan...

Crack. Yep. Under Ronald Reagan, crack cocaine swept through Black communities destroying families and lives in the process. And, all of this was done under Reagan's campaign slogan....

So, Black man considering voting for Trump, when you think about pulling that lever for him, remember that you're effectively endorsing the Southern Strategy that was speccifically designed to make you out to be a monster, destroy your community, and give money to rich people...

And if you think that I'm making some kind of wild stretch in logic, here's a picture of the Lee Atwater with your hero. Trump ain't never been down with Black folks and we can't play into a 50+ year old plan to literally relegate us to the back of the bus. FIN