Conservative commentator Mark Levin is calling for the Democratic Party, which he said will never be able to overcome its racist past, to disband.
“Abolish the Democrat Party. If we are to purge all vestiges of slavery and racism, it seems to me the most obvious target must be the Democrat Party. It stood for slavery and segregation and birthed the KKK,” Levin said in a string of tweets Thursday morning. “Any sporadically redeeming policies of the more recent past are of no relevance. It’s in that party’s DNA, as they say.”
Since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police on May 25, a renewed push to address systemic racism in the United States has sparked. A growing number of activists, politicians, and media pundits have called for the tearing down of Confederate monuments, the banning of the Confederate flag from sporting events, and the renaming of military bases named after figures with complicated histories related to race.
3. Indeed, only a few decades ago, it chose a former klansman as its Senate leader, without objection from today’s so-called resistance — most of whose “members” are Democrats or will vote for Democrats. Their incoherence and hypocrisy aside, purge their party.
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) June 11, 2020
Levin continued, “Indeed, only a few decades ago, it chose a former klansman as its Senate leader, without objection from today’s so-called resistance — most of whose ‘members’ are Democrats or will vote for Democrats.”
Levin was ostensibly making reference to former West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, who once led a Ku Klux Klan chapter and worked as a recruiter in the 1940s. He served as a senator for 51 years until his death in 2010 and was the Senate majority leader in the 1970s and ’80s.
Levin was using a counter argument Republicans sometimes offer in response to charges from Democrats that the GOP has engaged in racist practices, such as voter suppression within minority communities or the rolling back of welfare programs.
Southern Democrats fought in the late 1800s to keep the slaves they owned and then oppressed the rights of black people in the early to mid-1900s.
An Associated Press fact-check in 2018 found the KKK “attracted members from both parties, as well as members affiliated with no parties,” and was not founded by the Democratic Party.
While on the campaign trail in 2016, President Trump tied present-day Democrats to the party’s segregationist past.
“The Republican Party is the party of Abraham Lincoln. Not bad,” Trump said at a rally near Seattle in August 2016. “Not bad. It’s also the party of freedom, equality, and opportunity.”
“It is the Democratic Party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow, and the party of opposition,” Trump continued, though U.S. political parties have since changed.
Levin suggested that there is nothing today’s Democrats can do to wash away their party’s past.
“Their incoherence and hypocrisy aside, purge their party,” Levin said.
