Yesterday afternoon, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a law removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, so naturally Bryan Fischer used the news to reiterate his absurd theory that the racist symbolism and history of the flag is really “a Democratic issue.”
Fischer, whose knowledge of American history apparently doesn’t include anything that has happened since 1965, spent a segment on his radio program yesterday insisting that Republicans in South Carolina should have refused to even vote on the removal of the flag because “this is a Democratic Party icon” and evidence that Democrats “have been horrible racists from day one” and that the party’s past is “so black, and so bad, and so dark, and so tinged with racism” that Democrats must now remove it in an effort to cover up the party’s sordid history.
Fischer’s attempt to hang the issue of the Confederate flag on the modern Democratic Party is so laughable that we decided to conduct a simple test and take a look at all of the members of the South Carolina legislature who voted against the bill to remove the flag from outside the capitol. There were three in the state Senate and 20 in the state House.
See if you notice any pattern:
- Senator Lee Bright – Republican
- Senator Harvey S. Peeler, Jr. – Republican
- Senator Daniel B. “Danny” Verdin, III – Republican
- Representative Eric M. Bedingfield – Republican
- Representative Christopher A. Corley – Republican
- Representative Jonathon D. Hill – Republican
- Representative Dwight A. Loftis – Republican
- Representative Wendy K. Nanney – Republican
- Representative L. Kit Spires – Republican
- Representative James Mikell “Mike” Burns – Republican
- Representative F. Gregory “Greg” Delleney, Jr. – Republican
- Representative Jeffrey E. “Jeff” Johnson – Republican
- Representative Dennis C. Moss – Republican
- Representative Joshua A. Putnam – Republican
- Representative Tommy M. Stringer – Republican
- Representative William M. “Bill” Chumley – Republican
- Representative Kevin Hardee – Republican
- Representative Ralph Shealy Kennedy, Jr. – Republican
- Representative V. Stephen “Steve” Moss – Republican
- Representative J. Gary Simrill – Republican
- Representative Bill Taylor – Republican
- Representative Anne J. Thayer – Republican
- Representative W. Brian White – Republican
