The Ku Klux Klan played an active and enduring role in steering southern white voters away from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, according to a new study.
The white supremacist group resurged to prominence in the 1960s as a reaction to the civil rights movement, and its violent extremism inflamed racial division and polarized communities for generations, according to the study published by the American Sociological Review.
“It encouraged white voters to prioritize the defense of white supremacy when making voting decisions, upending long-standing Democratic Party allegiances,” wrote the study’s authors.
The researchers — David Cunningham, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University, Rory McVeigh of the University of Notre Dame and Justin Farrell of Yale University — studied county voting records in 10 southern states where the KKK actively recruited members in the 1960s.
Analysis of voting outcomes of five presidential elections between 1960 and 2000 showed a statistically significant increase in GOP voting compared to counties with no established KKK chapter, even after filtering out a range of other factors that could influence voting preferences.
The study found that counties with a Klan chapter were much more likely to back those two candidates, and adjacent counties without an active KKK chapter of their own were also more likely to support Goldwater and Wallace.
“The Klan played an active role in encouraging white southerners to prioritize white supremacy over party loyalty,” wrote the study’s authors.
KKK leaders urged southerners to “form a voting bloc to defeat any n*gger-loving politician that runs for office,” and the group evaluated and supported candidates based on their “authentic whiteness” rather than party ties.
And we wonder why the Republican party seems so racist.
O/T Nancy Pelosi Halts The Republican Effort to Totally Screw Women Over In Government Funding Bill
ReplyDeleteA win for Democrats and sanity, thanks to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). ..
Yes, Republicans thought that they’d use a funding bill to control women’s access to contraception while giving corporations more rights. Republicans wanted to give corporations a “conscience clause” that would allow them to refuse to fund contraception as Obamacare instructs, if they have a moral or religious problem with it. (Again, corporations can’t have a religion. They are not people, no matter what Republicans and this SCOTUS say. If they have morals that are legally recognized, then they should be held accountable for acting immorally. That would be fun.)...
For conservative Republicans, corporations are people but women are not.
Luckily, Nancy Pelosi is in the House to head off the most egregious Republican misogyny… this time.
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Yes ladies, next the Republicans will take away our right to vote, while allowing corporations to vote, because after all corporations are people, we are not!!
They needed a study for that?
ReplyDeleteMuch of the current mainstream conversation, as shown on Fox,
ReplyDeleteis a slightly tidied-up version of the Klan philosophy. Over the past 50 years it's become acceptable to be racist and intolerant.
They've made it sound like the norm.
I remember when people started the backlash against being "politically correct" (and excuse to spout racial/ethnic/sexist terms).
DeleteAnd when Barack Obama became a contender, it was like the floodgates were opened. Suddenly, certain people felt comfortable trotting out allusions to watermelon and witch doctors and all other kinds of ignorance.
"And we wonder why the Republican party seems so racist."
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1) No we don't. It's pretty damned obvious.
2) It seems racist because it is racist.
You have to be carefully taught and brainwashed to hate someone based soley on race. Whenever I see the Klan in their sunday best, makes me wonder how many of the cowards are in government and pillars of their community?
ReplyDeleteIs that a photo of a Sarah Palin rally?
ReplyDelete