As noted in the thread on Robert E.Lee, conservatives and republicans are very similar to Russians in that history must be revised constantly. Saints are rare in politics on both sides of the aisle but the republicans and their apologists are simply dishonest as well.
"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nig-ger, nig-ger, nig-ger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nig-ger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nig-ger, nig-ger.” Lee Atwater, Republican strategist, 1981, describing the Southern Strategy
