Tuesday, March 1, 2016

'This Party Does Not Prey on People's Prejudices': Paul Ryan's Convenient Amnesia about the Republican Party's Racist 'Southern Strategy'

Today, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in response to Donald Trump's KKK fumble that:

"If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people's prejudices."

I guess Paul Ryan has chosen to forget Lee Atwater, mentor to Karl Rove, and architect of the Republican Party's "Southern Strategy" dictate that:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N****r, n****r, n****r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n****r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N****r, n****r.”

Conservatism and racism are now fully the same thing in America. Republican elites are upset at Donald Trump not because of what he believes, but rather because he is so bold as to honestly communicate the racism and other types of bigotry that motivate the GOP's voters, media, and leadership.

Is Paul Ryan an unapologetic liar, ignorant, a racist, all three, or something else?

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