I know it's been hard for Republicans to admit that the Charleston Shootings is a hate crime and a homegrown terrorist act, but Fox News' Andrea Tantaros needed to come up with a bizarre and confused argument to try and protect the GOP from criticisms about the confederate flag.
Fox News host Andrea Tantaros said Monday she didn’t understand why Republican presidential candidates were being “peppered” over the flying of the Confederate flag on the South Carolina state capitol grounds.
Tantaros, co-host of the Fox News show “Outnumbered,” said the flag was flown by southern Democrats and wasn’t “a Republican flag.”
Tantaros made her comments in light of responses GOP presidential candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Rick Santorum have given about their take on the potential removal of the flag.
“You know what baffles the mind?” Tantaros said. “This isn't a Republican flag. Historically this was the flag of southern Democrats, remember that, fact?”
“I find this flag offensive,” Tantaros continued. “This flag represents the fight in slavery and it was a flag that the southern Democrats — Democrats — used to fly against Northern Republicans so I’m not sure why Republicans are getting peppered over this.”
I wonder what history she's talking about? The history from 50 years ago is that Dixiecrats fully turned into Republicans after LBJ passed the Voting Right's Act in 1965, which in reality does make it in fact a Republican problem. Conservative operatives love to use these types of phony analogies to defend their vile positions. Another one they frequently use to combat their racist history is to say that Republicans ended slavery because they are the party of Lincoln. That was true before and after the civil war, but for the last fifty years, Republicans, which is dominated by the South would never have passed anyting to help slaves. Going back in history, the South in Lincoln's time was the enemy, after all.