Is the newly unapologetic racist, nativist GOP power base basically the KKK for the new millennium?

Great Debates
1

Regarding the KKK from a non-expert historical perspective I’ve always considered them just a pack of lower class, Bible Belt white panic racists who tried to be as oppressive and terrifying as possible to black people and more recently included Jews and Catholics on their enemies list as well. So this statement by a Georgia politician linked below was a bit surprising. So much so I pulled up the Ku Klux Klan wiki.

In reading the KKK wiki the Klan was a MUCH bigger deal membership and influence wise than I had imagined and it was (surprisingly) tightly woven into prohibition, and anti-Catholic and anti immigrant movements. It was more popular, more complex, and a lot more middle class than I imagined and has (IMO) some interesting overtones as to what is going in in the current realignment of the GOP power base to people holding unapologetic anti-immigrant and not so crypto-racist views. Are these racist views going to drive the GOP going forward? The GOP power brokers are now, it seems, holding their noses and sidling up to Trump.

Ga. lawmaker: KKK made ‘people straighten up’

2

This is pretty incoherent shit dude. So the “not so crypto-racists” that the GOP is pandering to now is the new KKK which apparently was just promoting Protestant social values, not represssive hate. Connect more dots if you could.

3

Nope. This is a nationalist trend, intentionally missing any coherence in it’s statement. You can’t hold together the disgruntled masses with a single philosophy of hatred.

4

What are you saying “nope” to?

5

The OP.

6

We did during WWII.

7

I’m gonna be the first to go there by saying the Nazis made a lot of people “straighten up” too.

8

The political landscape, like many other complex things in life, is not made of little discrete units. It’s a smooth continuum from extreme right to extreme left. But, amusingly, it’s even more complex than just that. This is because the political landscape isn’t one homogeneous thing. It’s composed of many “issues”. This, in theory, would allow a person to be very conservative on one issue, for example, economics… while at the same time being very liberal in a different area, for example, Same Sex Marriage.

The KKK and the Nazis and Donald Trump are all on the conservative side of immigration. They have used similar speaking points, similar tactics. Mr. Trump has even “re-tweeted” things said by White Power groups.

However, it’s possible that the KKK and Nazis and Donald Trump would clash enormously on some other issue, like Women’s Rights or maybe income tax reform.

Therefore, it’s not really fair to say that Donald Trump is a new, fresh face for the KKK. This, of course, did not prevent Fox News (and others) from constantly referring to Obama as the new Hitler. But, I digress.

It’s really the next level that I find interesting. The question of why Trump and Cruz (and others in past elections) are so successful … This is a question asked from time to time, but never really answered.

I think that the answer is that fear sells. The better that you can package fear, the better you’ll do in the marketplace. Sell a product (like guns) that placate fear & you’ll do well. Just about everything these days in politics and in the consumer marketplace is sold with fear. We are taught to fear brown people, gay people, female people, economic collapse, invasive government, crime, Jews, and the list goes on and on and on. We (Americans) are a society of fear.

The KKK fears black people. The Nazis feared the Jews. Donald Trump fears immigrants. Cruz fears homosexuals.

They all fear things and they want to sell that fear to us.

9

So the OP just learned about the KKK on Wikipedia. Congrats.

Black Lives Matter pitches fear, too. As do Al Sharpton and President Obama.

A Ga. lawmaker does not represent all of Congress, which will vote on President Trump’s immigration policies and border security, and not pass any controversial measure he wants.

Trump will do nothing to hold The Black Man down, but I like how speaking about taking action against potential terrorists + illegal immigrants = blatant racism to people, considering The Law is on his side.

10

“re-tweeting” materials from White Power groups, calling Mexicans “rapists”, and calling for the prohibition of entire religious populations … There’s not too great a gap between that and being a racist.

I’m sorry. There’s not.

11

He called Mexican rapists ‘rapists’. He did do the rest of the stuff though.

12

If you compare the Republican Party to the KKK you are a political dilettante. Actually, you are being just as ignorant as those you’re describing. Come back in a decade or so, here’s a case of Rice-a-Roni, thanks for playing…

13

Possibly. I’m sure all the experienced pundits and political sages on both sides of the political spectrum predicted the preeminent rise of the racist and nativist forces propelling Trump’s campaign. Oh… that’s right… they didn’t. They were all quite sure of the lay of the land and they were wrong. Incompetently and abjectly so.
Now the powers that be are slowly snuggling up to Trump’s polity to stay close to power.

It’s comforting to be sage until you’re caught with your analytical thumb in your ass. Ignoring and dismissing the forces at work because you don’t quite get what’s happening is not going be useful in the long run.

Thanks for the San Francisco treat!

14

Well when Trump becomes the next Hitler, I will humbly accept your “I told you so”.

15

Hey, if the KKK says they’re just a bunch of educated, urban, mainstream Christians making the world safe for church potlucks, who are we to question that?

16

I see it. It’s a broad-strokes thing, not a narrow one. It’s not just that the KKK led by fear, but what specific fear they preyed on, and how they wanted to deal with it. The world is changing and it’s scary. Its those people who are “not like us” who are the problem. Let’s put them in their place and it will fix everything!

Of course they aren’t literally the same. Lynching black people would really fly today, I’m sure. But it’s the broad strokes that continue working, even if the details change.

That’s the comparison to the KKK, and that’s the comparison to Hitler. (Though Hitler also has “economy isn’t doing very good for us” to throw in.)

17

No. The new KKK call themselves white nationalists, and they hate both parties.

18

KKK Leader Finds Donald Trump a Great Recruiting Tool

Over the past sixty years, the GOP has gladly catered to racists. What we are seeing now is hardly a new thing.

19

The Leader of the Klan claims his membership is thriving, and you take his word for it.

Why would he lie? If his membership were fading to nothing, I’m sure he’d gladly admit it.

20

^
I know of a Christian church (decidedly anti-Catholic) that claims its ranks just keeps growing, at the expense of the RCC. No reason to lie?