Business Insider Pushes "Party Switch" Myth to Downplay Byron Donalds and Historic Black Republicans

While covering the nomination of Florida Congressman Byron Donalds to Speaker of the United States House of Representatives—the latest in the Freedom Caucus’s plot to thwart Rep. Kevin McCarthy—Business Insider took the opportunity to insert their narrative.

Bryan Metzger noted, “For the first time in American history, two Black people were nominated at the same time to serve as speaker of the House, and a majority of the chamber supported a Black candidate.” Hakeem Jeffries of New York is the Democrats’ chosen leader and is positioned to become the minority leader. But as McCarthy struggles with Republican holdouts, Jeffries continually wins a plurality of the votes.

At first, the Republican defectors from the Freedom Caucus supported Rep. Jim Jordan, who supports McCarthy. They are now supporting Donalds. Rep. Chip Roy from Texas noted in his nominating speech how historic it was, and Rep. Scott Perry from Pennsylvania later acknowledged the first Black congressmen who held office were Republicans in the 1800s.

“…though,” Metzger wrote, “that took place before party re-alignment driven by the GOP’s so-called ‘Southern Strategy.’” The persistent conspiracy is Republican strategists courted racist white southerners, so Nixon could win the presidential election, sparking the party switch (though there are several debated origins).

There are quite a few things wrong with this interjection from Metzger. In his article, it links to another from Political Dictionary, and toward the bottom of the page, it acknowledges that historians dispute the Southern Strategy. Not only did Richard Nixon not win the deep South; the South continued voting Democrat after Nixon, and those who switched to the Republican Party did so largely for economic reasons. Nixon also had a good record on Civil Rights. Conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza argues that Nixon targeted the Sunbelt, not the racist Deep South, which went to Democrat segregationist George Wallace.

If you’re relatively young, it may be hard to imagine the South not being Republican, but just look up their victories, such as state governorships, and you won’t find consistent Republican wins until the late 90s or even 2000s.

The Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, the KKK, and opposition to Civil Rights until they realized supporting it would be to their benefit. The current president, Joe Biden, spoke at the funeral of a former Klansman, Democrat Senator Robert C. Byrd. He was also once asked by Chris Wallace how he would appeal to Southern Democrats in a presidential primary, and his answer was: “You don’t know my state. My state was a slave state.”

While it is true that Republicans and Democrats have changed over time, it’s preposterous to believe the racists flipped. There are good and bad people in both parties. But it is important to note Democrats encourage racial disparity in their 2020 platform under the guise of fighting racial disparity. They “recognize that race-neutral policies are not sufficient to rectify race-based disparities.” In other words, Democrats believe the only way to achieve “fairness” is to treat each other unequally in the eyes of the law. And though they do their best to feel like they are now looking out for minorities, Democrats also passionately argue for destructive agendas that harm minorities. There’s data that BLM and the Defund Police movement have led to more crime and deaths. Democrats say women of color especially need abortion access. Therefore, they argue minorities—particularly black women—need to be able to kill their sons and daughters. In some states like Michigan, more than 55.6% of abortions kill black children, despite being 12.4% of the population. Even minimum wage has a history in eugenics, much like abortion.

Business Insider could have kept their reporting straight without inserting a narrative to absolve the Democrat Party from their unflattering history. If Democrats want to disassociate from being the party of slavery, they can always tear down their party and start a new one. But they don’t have to as long as enough of the media pushes their narrative and agenda.