It’s one of the left’s most persistent red herrings: Certainly, the Democrats were once the party of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, and George Wallace, but somewhere along the line, the tables turned, and now it is the Republicans who are the true extremists.

Except, as New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez learned the hard way when she used this argument against Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, this is a blatant falsehood.

Cruz was able to school AOC and anti-Trump, anti-Cruz RINO Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, in a Twitter thread so thoroughly entertaining that it even attracted the attention of Elon Musk.

The controversy began when Ornstein assailed Cruz for criticizing the NAACP’s virtue-signaling “travel advisory” for the state of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis. The senator described the boycott as “bizarre” and “completely dishonest,” remarking that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. “would be ashamed of how far [the NAACP] has strayed”

“Guess who would have been first in line to filibuster against the voting rights act, and the civil rights act. Yes, Ted Cruz!” Ornstein said in the Monday tweet.

Guess who would’ve been first in line to filibuster against the voting rights act, and the civil rights act. Yes, Ted Cruz! https://t.co/ZljiJED3P8

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) May 22, 2023

“Nonsense. That shameful filibuster was led by Democrats—your party,” Cruz said.

“My party — the Republicans — proudly voted for the Civil Rights Act in much higher percentages than the racist Dems,” the senator said.

Nonsense. That shameful filibuster was led by Democrats—your party.

My party—the Republicans—proudly voted for the Civil Rights Act in much higher percentages than the racist Dems. https://t.co/MgPZZFTlak

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 23, 2023

Aside from the fact that Ornstein technically does not identify as a Democrat, Cruz is correct: During the time when the Democratic Party treated the Deep South as its own private fiefdom and counted arch-segregationists like Wallace, Orval Faubus, and James Eastland among its ranks, the Republican Party was instrumental in passing those key pieces of legislation and ensuring they cleared the filibuster.

Ocasio-Cortez entered the conversation with everyone’s beloved anti-Republican whopper.

“Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that, Ted,” the congresswoman said.

Why don’t you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that, Ted https://t.co/fiJgIgVZHO

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 23, 2023

I’m fairly certain AOC intended for that comment to be rhetorical. Cruz interpreted it as an invitation.

“Sure,” he tweeted. “First, the Dem party founded the KKK. Then the Dem party wrote Jim Crow laws. Then the Dem party filibustered the Civil Rights Act.”

But didn’t Strom Thurmond, the Democrat most associated with the Civil Rights Act filibuster, eventually become a Republican? Yes, but that hardly tells the whole story, especially when you consider the web of failing, paternalistic government-run systems in which modern Democrats have purposefully ensnared disadvantaged minorities through their legislative priorities.

“Today, the Dem part filibusters school choice — trapping millions of Black kids in failing schools,” Cruz noted.

“Today, the Dem party pushes abolishing the police, which results in many more Black lives murdered.

More on this story via The Western Journal:

“Today, every Dem senator voted against my bill to stop DC from throwing 40% of Black kids out of schools bc of vax mandate.” CONTINUE READING…