10 Historical ‘Facts’ Only a Right-Winger Could Believe
5. Conservatives swept MLK and the Civil Rights movement to victory.
Back during the Civil Rights era, the preeminent conservative journal National Review stood foursquare against the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many modern conservatives would be shocked to hear this, as they are convinced that Republican conservatives defeated the Klansmen of the Democratic Party to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and realize King’s dream.
They usually start with the Civil War, at which time Republicans really were African Americans’ better friend among the Parties, and then slide on up to the Civil Rights Act — skipping Strom Thurmond leaving the Democratic Party over segregation, Truman’s integration of the Armed Services, etc.
They point out, rightly, that a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Act in both chamber. They generally don’t recall that nearly all the Democratic opponents were Southern, nor that President Lyndon Johnson, who had pushed for the Act, reflected afterward that the Democrats had “lost the South for a generation” — which turned out to be accurate, plus a decade or two, as Southerners abandoned the Democrats in consequence of their race-mixing ways.
To this day, though they are unsupported by later political developments (such as Tea Party pet Rand Paul’s criticism of the Civil Rights Act), conservatives will claim King and civil rights for themselves, and react to the continuing, massive disposition of black Americans to vote Democratic as an act of stunning ingratitude.
More: 10 Historical ‘Facts’ Only a Right-Winger Could Believe