Charlie Rangel: It’s hard to distinguish between racist Dixiecrats and the Tea Party

It’s clear the left will say anything to make people believe that the Tea Party is racist, no matter how ludicrous.

Tonight on Hardball, Charlie Rangel claimed that the Dixiecrats who opposed the Civil Right’s Act are in fact today’s Tea Party, arguing that it’s hard to distinguish between the two. In fact, he goes on to say that the Dixiecrats that were from the South are the ‘grandparents’ of the Tea Party.

HOST: Congressman, I will start with you. …The Civil Rights Act that passed in 1964 wouldn’t pass in 2014. Do you agree with that?

RANGEL: First of all, the strongest opposition to President Johnson came from Dixiecrats. He had the support of Republicans. Johnson said that it would destroy the Democratic Party as we know it and it did. So as soon as blacks had the right to vote, the Dixiecrats changed parties.

HOST: Southern Conservative Democrats switched over to Republicans?

RANGEL: Yeah. If you take a look at where the Dixiecrats are and look at where the Tea Party people are, it is hard to distinguish. Find out where the confederate flag is that they wave with the Tea Party. Find out which states hated Lincoln and which states have representatives that hate Obama. Find out which states held slaves.

HOST: When you say that, when you look at the Tea Party today, and you can say, that this is a movement with a lot of support from its heavily white, heavily southern, heavily conservative – certainly back then heavily white southern and all that. Is race the motivating factor are you saying for the Tea Party, though?

RANGEL: I don’t have to say a darn thing except you can see where they come from. You can see what the opposition has been to voting rights and integration and all of those things. You know it came from the South, right? Now, if you see the same people changing their name, are you asking me, should I call the Tea Party whites racists?

HOST: The Tea Party would say, like, those were our grandparents or our parents from different generations. Our generation has nothing to do with that.

RANGEL: I am only saying what history would record. Now the confederate flag didn’t belong to them, it belonged to their grandparents. They still wave it. And the opposition to voting didn’t belong to Republican party. They brought that with them to the Tea Party.

So i don’t know why people even have to discuss the difference between the make-up of the House of Representatives.


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