Did The Democrats Start The KKK?

Luci Turner
4 min readMar 4, 2018

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Well, technically… but it’s a bit more nuanced than that.

Back in 1866, the Democratic party started the KKK, kind of. It really started as more of a grassroots movement, that was picked up by the democrats of the time. They opposed the Republicans, who wanted to give social justice and equality to blacks.

Basically it was a group created by a bunch of butthurt racist white guys who did not like the idea of black people having basic human rights and having to treat them with *gasp* decency.

In some apparently unrelated fashion, sometime between 1860 and 1936, the two parties switched. This is due to many reasons, as Factmyth.com points out:

“ The parties changed over time as platform planks, party leaders, factions, and voter bases essentially switched between parties. Third parties aside, the Democratic Party used to be favored in the rural south and had a “small government” platform (which southern social conservatives embraced), and the Republican party used to be favored in the citied north and had a “big government” platform (which northern progressive liberals embraced). Today it is the opposite in many respects. Although what happened is complex and some voter bases and factions never switched, you can see evidence of the “big switches” by looking at the electoral map over time (where voter bases essentially flipped between 1896 and 2000). Or, you can see it by comparing which congressional seats were controlled by which parties over time (try comparing the 115th United States Congress under Trump to the 71st United States Congress under Hoover for example). Or, you can see the “solid conservative south switch” specifically by looking at the electoral map of the solid south over time. Or, you can dig through the historic party platforms.”

So now we know two things are true:

  • The KKK was created by Democrats in 1866
  • The Democrats and the Republicans changed sides later on.

You know where I am going with this, don’t you? If not, let me break it down.

  1. The Democrats in 1866 created and pushed the KKK
  2. Sometime after 1866, the two parties switched platforms.
  3. Meaning that the current Republicans (Previously named Democrats) created and pushed the KKK.

So no, the modern Liberal Kombucha tea drinking vegan left wing POC-loving feminist SJW Democrats did not make or perpetuate the KKK, the modern Republicans did.

Addendum: I have received 7 comments on this article as of 2/11/19, and not a single one of them showed any evidence at all that the party switch never happened. Which, may I remind anyone, happened around the time of The New Deal. This is a historic fact, and if you do not like historical facts, then take your feelings and shove them.

I also do not take Prager U, or any other right-wing think tank as a legitimate source of information. If you want conspiracy theories, then the idea that the “party switch is a myth” is a pretty good delusional conspiracy theory.

There are reasons why black voters flocked away from the Republicans at the same time that this party switch supposedly never happened. And there are reasons why the hard south suddenly switched parties without really changing demographics or geography. The south used to vote Democrat, and now they vote Republican. And I will laugh in your face if you think that is because the south was kinder towards civil rights at that time.

The south, which was Democrat at the time, created the KKK. Since there was no exodus of people from the south to the north during this time, I will assume that the culture, ideas, and economics did not suddenly change during this time either. There is also no evidence that the south went from being a group of kind people fighting for civil rights, to suddenly being racist bigots. Because they have a history of racism and bigotry that still exists to this very day.

The New Deal, which happened about the time of Roosevelt, cemented a new change in political structure, that changed from North Vs South to Liberal Vs Conservative. FDR, who was a Southern Democrat at the time, was influential in changing the political structure during The New Deal, and some years surrounding this change in core beliefs of both parties.

This is not a conspiracy. It’s history.

Learn it.

Edit: I found 2 videos that help make my point a bit deeper if you are interested in watching either of them:

and this video:

I know that neither of these nor the mountain of evidence I have mentioned before mean anything to the right-wing trolls who have been making brand new accounts and coming into my comments section to say I am lying or calling be dumb or something without prividing any evidence, but it still helps a little, I believe.

“Facts over feelings” is a very ironic mantra for these people to type if they want to ignore history because they watched a PragerU video or something.

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Luci Turner

Luci Turner is a crafter and freelance writer. They try to bring attention to issues others might not think much about.