Frederick Douglass Republicans: Further Proof That Republicans Have Trouble with US History

LBJ hands MLK one of the 75 pens used to sign the Civil Rights Act

After LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he was initially ecstatic. Later that evening he was troubled, and told Bill Moyers: "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come."

Almost a half a century later, and the Republican party's Southern Strategy is still their only shot at national office. Ronald Reagan kicked off his campaign for President in Philadelphia, Mississippi. If can't hear that particular dog whistle, follow the link.

Bob Herbert interviewed Lee Atwater, who sums up the southern strategy as only a master of the strategy could, in 1981, right after Reagan rode to office on the back of mythical parasitic welfare queens:

[Bob Herbert]: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps? 

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Since I understand this half-century-old political extension of the centuries long war on black people (as Ta-Nehisi Coates calls it), I don't fall pray to the easy mental traps that Republicans and Tea Partiers seem to tumble into on a regular basis. Today's example of bad lip reading history comes from a whole room full of screaming wingnuts at CPAC.

The session — titled “Trump The Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” — was led by K. Carl Smith, a black conservative who mostly urged attendees to deflect racism charges by calling themselves “Frederick Douglass Republicans.”

Disruptions began when he began accusing Democrats of still being the party of the Confederacy — a common talking point on the right. 

“I don’t care how much the KKK improved,” he said. “I’m not going to join the KKK. The Democratic Party founded the KKK.” 

Lines like that drew shouts of praise from some attendees and murmurs of disapproval from one non-conservative black attendee, Kim Brown, a radio host and producer with Voice of Russia, a broadcasting service of the Russian government. 

But then questions and answers began. And things went off the rails.

Go read the whole thing for the glorious cacophony of ignorant shouting and various tangents tangling at once. It's awesome. Includes slavery, pledges to "take it outside," and various other fun wingy-nuggets. TPM's reporter Benjy Sarlin even tries to pin one wingnut down on the whole GOP is racist thing, and finds that bullshitters are really tough to pin down. It's stupefyingly fun.

But it's hard to top this wingnut talking point that because the Democrats were the racists before 1964, they must still be, because, you know, they're Democrats.

Lee Atwater would be proud.