Last night, Donald Trump spoke about the legacy of the Democratic Party. “I will not accept, and neither will you, a future in which children, think of this, children of color – any color – in this country are not fully included in the American dream,” Trump said. “Remember and most people don’t know this: the Republican Party, right? You know what I’m going to say, right? The Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln. Not bad. Not bad. It’s also the party of freedom, equality and opportunity. People have forgotten it so long now. It is the Democratic Party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow, and the party of oppression.”
The media went nuts, of course. But every element of this is true.
The Democratic Party was the party of slavery, which is why the pro-slavery south voted almost entirely Democratic in the 1860 election, and why the pro-Jim Crow south voted entirely Democratic for a century. The 1924 Democratic National Convention was dominated by the Ku Klux Klan agenda to the point that it became known as the Klanbake for is refusal to condemn lynchings. Trump should have paid Dinesh D’Souza royalties for his liberal paraphrase of D’Souza’s entire argument in his new documentary.
The Democratic Party remains the party of racism. Internal memos at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee show that even though they consider Black Lives Matter to be “radical,” they told their staffers not to say “all lives matter” or mention “black on black crime.” This, they said, was “the worst response.” Instead, the DCCC recommended stating that “Many communities in America feel unfairly targeted by police and it’s an issue that requires addressing…A history of systemic racism continues to confront the daily lives of African Americans.”
This is pandering to a racial solidarity movement the Democrats know represents radicalism. But Democrats get away with it, because their new tribalism grants rhetorical concessions to ethnic minorities while undermining their safety and prosperity.
Trump is a flawed messenger; his own associations with the alt-right and his past racial foibles have already been impressed on the public mind. But good for Trump for at least speaking truth about the history of the Democratic Party, which Democrats constantly rewrite to blame on Americans generally and Republicans more specifically.