Rand Paul Bullshits Howard University Audience that Understands the History of US Civil Rights Much Better than He Does

Rand Paul Bullshitting at Howard U.
Image via Opposing Views.

Yesterday, the Great Steve Benen had the obligatory take down of Rand Paul, who gets my vote as Best New GOP Bullshitter.

The Republican senator told his Howard audience, "I've never wavered in my support for civil rights or the Civil Rights Act." He added, "I've never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever."

Steve says it's a lie, and he has the video to prove it. But to be more accurate, Paul doesn't care what's true or not. He's merely trying to convey a certain impression to whomever he's speaking at the time. In this case, at a traditionally black University, Paul doesn't want his audience to think that he ever thought that the Civil Rights Act should not have been passed. So, he just bullshits about it--says whatever he thinks makes him look best in that situation. Steve has the actual facts:

As a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010, Paul told the Louisville Courier-Journal he opposed the Civil Rights Act's ban on discrimination on the basis of race in "places of public accommodation" such as privately owned businesses that are open to the public. He said the same thing on NPR. 

When Paul appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show," Rachel asked, as part of a discussion of the Civil Rights Act, "Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don't serve black people?" Paul replied, "Yes." 

It was consistent with his approach to federal civil rights law dating back to at least 2002. 

Now, in fairness, I should note that Paul, as a candidate in 2010, eventually reversed course and said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was necessary and he would have voted for it. 

But notice again what he said at Howard: he's "never wavered" in his support for the Civil Rights Act and he's "never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever."

Rand Paul on the Rachel Maddow Show

Since what he said up until 2010 was anti-Civil Rights Act, I think he's bullshitting when he says he would have voted for it. But who knows? Maybe he really did change his mind. That's one of the biggest problems with being a bullshitter. No one can ever be sure what you really think.

Today Steve gets into the meat of Paul diving into one of my favorite wingnut latrine holes: that the Democrats are the racists. Like most Republicans who bring this up, Paul wants to stop history in 1964, when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act that Paul opposed until it was inconvenient to do so. As anyone who wants to read about it knows, LBJ famously said that the Democrats would lose the south for a long time because of that. He was right. The racists in the Democratic party, known as the Dixiecrats, switched parties to vote for the slingers of a new style of Bullshit--The Southern Strategy.

Here's Steve summing it up nicely, because I've done it here before, and I'm sick of doing it:

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies -- southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda. 

As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. 

It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition -- leaving the progressive, diverse, tolerant Democratic Party for the GOP. 

In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, became the party of the "Southern Strategy," opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond. (A Republican congressman from Texas named Ron Paul also criticized Abraham Lincoln for waging the Civil War, while also opposing the Civil Rights Act.)

Ronald Reagan campaigning in Philadelphia MS.
Image credit.

Who knows if Rand Paul knows all this or not? Maybe he was stoned during his 20th Century American History Class. Maybe he didn't have to study history to become a self-accredited opthamologist. Maybe someone from Kentucky can get elected to the US Senate without knowing the history of the Civil Rights movement. But one sure as hell can't bullshit a Howard University audience on the subject, and the fact that he would even try tells me that he really doesn't give a damn about the truth, or black people, or anything else, really, except saying whatever he needs to say in order to become President.

And with that fact in mind, I'm really happy that this bullshitting wingnut apparently doesn't know how to shut up.

All Men Are Created Equal, Endowed by Their Creator--Stop Right There! I Gotta Know Right Now.

Ken Cuccinelli, Roanoke Free Press

TPMDC has the story of a Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli speech in 2009 where he was all up in that Natural Law.

“We are a natural law country and we have the greatest foundation in the history of the world. And the one sentence you all know, ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator’ — and I’m gonna stop right there. That sentence, Dr. Martin Luther King called that our national creed. I think that is a great title for that sentence. It is the foundation in my view, it’s the vision statement for America. And the foundation of that foundation is endowed by their Creator. And if we disconnect from that, we don’t have a rational basis to defend the foundation that we’ve got.”

Cuccinelli is a smart guy. He got a  J.D. George Mason Law, and an M.A. in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason. I'm pretty sure he's had a few American History courses, and he probably did well. So when he talks about "all men created equal" and puts MLK in there, he knows damn well he's overlooking the fact that when those old, white, Deist slave owners* wrote that constitution, Martin Luther King would not  have been considered "equal."

So, right off the bat, he knows that our definition of natural law changes. Being a Virginia Republican, Cuccinelli is trapped hunting for votes from some pretty serious neo-confederates. But Virginia's a pretty purple state. So if he wants to be Governor, he's got to throw some double BS out there, where he makes himself not seem like a racist because he mentions MLK, but he hits that dog whistle for the good old boys, that whole "those other people aren't equal" thing. Just replace black people with gay people.

Gotta be hatin' on somebody.

Remember, Lee Atwater, one of the best southern strategists, noted that you had to speak in code. You had to get all abstract, because just coming right out and saying "nigger" like you could back in the day would backfire on you.

So, to get all abstract with this "natural law" thing, he conflates the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. The Constitution has no mention of God. The constitutional concept of natural law comes mainly from the ninth amendment which suggests we naturally have more rights than any constitution could ever list. No doubt he was awake at George Mason. He would have learned this basic fact.

The anti-federalists, ironically, were the ones who wanted the Bill of Rights, as a way to limit federal power. And the very first amendment that those old, white, Deist slave owners wrote says that Ken Cuccinelli needs to rethink this whole idea of forcing what you think is "natural law" on the rest of us.

* To be fair, Michele Bachmann (still waiting for a really good quote, Congresswoman) was right, John Jay, a founding father, did fight tirelessly against slavery, so they weren't all slave owners.

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.