It’s one of the left’s most frequently trotted-out canards: Sure, the Democrats may once have been the party of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan and George Wallace — but somewhere along the line, things switched and now Republicans are the real bigots.
Except, as Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York found out the hard way when she tried that line on GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, that’s little more than a big fat lie.
In a Twitter thread so thoroughly entertaining it even caught the attention of Elon Musk, Cruz managed to school both AOC and anti-Trump, anti-Cruz RINO Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
The whole kerfuffle began when Ornstein attacked Cruz for criticizing the NAACP’s virtue-signaling “travel advisory” for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state of Florida. The senator said the boycott was “bizarre” and “utterly dishonest,” noting that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “would be ashamed of how profoundly [the NAACP has] lost their way.”
“Guess who would have been first in line to filibuster against the voting rights act, and the civil rights act. Yes, Ted Cruz!” Ornstein said in the Monday tweet.
Guess who would’ve been first in line to filibuster against the voting rights act, and the civil rights act. Yes, Ted Cruz! https://t.co/ZljiJED3P8
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) May 22, 2023
“Nonsense. That shameful filibuster was led by Democrats—your party,” Cruz said.
“My party — the Republicans — proudly voted for the Civil Rights Act in much higher percentages than the racist Dems,” the senator said.
Nonsense. That shameful filibuster was led by Democrats—your party.
My party—the Republicans—proudly voted for the Civil Rights Act in much higher percentages than the racist Dems. https://t.co/MgPZZFTlak
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2023
Aside from the fact that Ornstein technically doesn’t identify as a Democrat, Cruz was accurate: Back when the Democratic Party treated the Deep South as its own private fiefdom and counted arch-segregationists such as Wallace, Orval Faubus and James Eastland among its members, the GOP was instrumental in passing those key pieces of legislation and ensuring they cleared the hurdle of the filibuster.
But, like the Kool-Aid Man of reflexive liberal cluelessness smashing right through the brick wall of reason, Ocasio-Cortez barged into the conversation with everyone’s favorite anti-Republican whopper.
“Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that, Ted,” the congresswoman said.
Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that, Ted https://t.co/fiJgIgVZHO
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 23, 2023
I’m pretty sure AOC thought that comment would be a rhetorical mic drop. Instead, Cruz took it as an invitation.
“Sure,” he tweeted. “First, the Dem party founded the KKK. Then the Dem party wrote Jim Crow laws. Then the Dem party filibustered the Civil Rights Act.”
But didn’t the Democrat most memorably associated with the Civil Rights Act filibuster, Strom Thurmond, eventually turn Republican? Yes, but that’s hardly the whole story — particularly when you realize the web of failing, paternalistic government-run systems in which modern Democrats have deliberately trapped underprivileged minorities with their legislative priorities.
“Today, the Dem part filibusters school choice — trapping millions of Black kids in failing schools,” Cruz noted.
“Today, the Dem party pushes abolishing the police, which results in many more Black lives murdered.
“Today, every Dem senator voted against my bill to stop DC from throwing 40% of Black kids out of schools bc of vax mandate.”
2/x – Today, the Dem part filibusters school choice—trapping millions of Black kids in failing schools.
– Today, the Dem party pushes abolishing the police, which results in many more Black lives murdered.
– Today, every Dem senator voted against my bill to stop DC from…
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2023
“The Republican Party was founded to oppose slavery,” he continued.
“Our first Republican President was Abraham Lincoln, who won the Civil War and ended slavery. It was Republicans who voted for the civil Rights Act in a much higher percentage than racist Dems.”
Not only that, Cruz said, but the GOP has been the party leading the way for black economic emancipation in the 21st century — all while the Democrats continue to push a culture of government dependency and grievance.
“Today, we produced the lowest African-American unemployment EVER, under the Trump economic boom,” the senator noted. “Today, we produced the lowest African-American poverty levels EVER, under the Trump economic boom.
4/x
– Today, we produced the lowest African-American unemployment EVER, under the Trump economic boom.
– Today, we produced the lowest African-American poverty levels EVER, under the Trump economic boom.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2023
And just in case AOC needed a few more receipts, well, here you go:
6/x
– Also, just two years ago, the Dem governor of Virginia had put the photo of A MAN DRESSED AS A KKK KLANSMAN on his personal yearbook page.
– And today, the sitting Dem President—Joe Biden—gave in 2011 a flowery eulogy for an “Exalted Cyclops” of the KKK.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2023
7/x
– And to add to all that, the Dem party aggressively supports open borders—which has led to the deaths and brutal assaults of thousands of Hispanics, and @aoc somehow can’t seem to find her White pantsuit to cry over their suffering.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2023
Even Twitter impresario Elon Musk was impressed with the back-and-forth:
The kind of interaction that makes this platform so unique & entertaining!
??
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2023
One understands Ocasio-Cortez is no political scientist or historian, but you’d think she’d have known better than to use this hoary, trite smear — and not only that, to actually believe it.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party didn’t just swap positions on racist policies sometime in the 1960s. Rather, the Democrats have gone from subordinating black Americans through slavery, disenfranchisement and segregation to subordinating them through a culture of government dependency — all while offering them no path out of the web of bureaucratic and educational dysfunction.
The face of Jim Crow in 2023 looks nothing like George Wallace standing outside the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama, refusing to let a black student in so he could enroll.
Rather, it looks like AOC, Randi Weingarten and countless other Democrats standing inside the door of the schoolhouse — and the welfare office, and the unemployment bureau — refusing to let minorities out.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
