Kevin Kruse Dismantles Blexit’s Faulty History

Trump supporter Candace Owens has started something she calls Blexit which stands for Black exit from the Democrat party. It is a movement and a website.

African-Americans haven’t voted in great numbers for a Republican presidential candidate since 1960 but Owens hopes to change that with her movement of Black conservatives. However, she will need to clean up her historical act if she is going to succeed. As Princeton historian Kevin Kruse pointed out today on Twitter, the first three historical claims on her website aren’t accurate.

If you click the tweet, you will get to a thread which debunks the claims made by Owens. A little later in the thread actress Stacey Dash challenges Kruse with a altered photo of Margaret Sanger at a KKK rally.

Kruse then demonstrated that the photo was fake.

Although Dash seemed to offer some respect to Kruse’s efforts, the fake information is still up at Blexit.

On the Blexit website, I did not see any citations or sources for information. Some of claims appear to have originated with David Barton and/or Dinesh D’Souza. Some appear to be deliberate misinformation. It is an insult to the intelligence of the audience OWens and others are trying to reach to put up so much faulty material.

I am thankful that Kevin Kruse is so “informative” to quote Ms. Dash. If only she and others would go a little further and question the rest of the material.

52 thoughts on “Kevin Kruse Dismantles Blexit’s Faulty History”

  1. Candace Owen is a self-loathing nobody. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee0e5d77e11bdf14bff1c1445960cc0bb51f336a9f5a829bf71bf01a6d46c4aa.jpg

    Stacey Dash is a washed-up grade D former actress, typical of moral values in the United States of Trump (divorced three times, took her clothes off for Playboy). Whoops, too slow. She apparently just got remarried, to a fellow Trump supporter Jeffrey Marty (“best known for creating a parody Twitter account Opens a New Window.
    of a fake politician named Steven Smith. The made-up Republican
    Representative from Georgia’s non-existent 15th Congressional District
    (the state only has 14) made headlines [in 2016] for becoming the first
    “congressman” to endorse President Donald Trump.” … from the ever-reliable USMagazine.)

    What do they have in common? They’re both attention w_____s (I won’t use the term, in deference to Dr. Warren). If you crave attention in these times, what’s better than to be the opposite of Trump’s white male fan base?

    Be black and female, and Trump and his minions will glom all over you!

    Like these two:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3a560968d5992b2d9d89f136e4b76ad2b33d3c11cc81fe6ba1fa70005fcae84.jpg

  2. I heard Owens on Joe Rogan’s show, and she was not exactly careful there, either. I’d be very interested to hear some names of individuals (political authors/essayists, etc) on both the right and left who people here consider to be impeccable on their facts. Because I have to say, if I listen to or read almost anyone who is discussing contentious matters, I hear some whoppers thrown out there. I even have heard Warren write things (rarely, mind you) on his blog that I think are hooey and easily countered. Who are the shining examples of integrity in political debate?

    1. You are going to need to point me to the hooey. If I do write something that turns out to be incorrect, I correct it. If you disagree with it that doesn’t mean it is wrong factually. So what are you talking about?

      1. It’s not like I have been documenting or memorizing these things for the purpose of debate, but I can assure you that I have never thought you were correct or completely unassailable on the particulars 100% of the time. Does anyone really meet that standard, even when writing textbooks? I believe I’ve been reading your blog since 2003 or so.

        I can give you a fairly recent one which stands out to me (particularly if we are oberserving the Kevin Kruse standard, which in some cases just amounts to pointing out some ambiguity or nuance from the comprehensive body of facts which is not acknowledged in an otherwise reasonable assertion). Before I say this, I have to give the standard disclaimer that I do not support President Trump in everything he does, nor do I oppose him in everything he does. The guy is a very mixed bag, and there is a lot of bad stuff in that bag.

        You asserted in a recent blog post that in President Trump’s statement about the Unite the Right rally in Charlotteville, that “there were some very fine people on both sides”, he was specifically referencing Neo-Nazis. This is a common assertion by some in the media which is unsupported and countered by facts. You persisted in this assertion despite the fact that the President himself countered your interpretation in no uncertain terms, despite the fact that many other people seemed to understand perfectly that he was referencing people on both sides of the debate about removing Confederate memorials, and despite the fact that we have documented evidence that there were plenty of people at the rally who were violently attacked by Antifa-types but who absolutely are not Neo-Nazis.***

        When I pointed this out and provided video evidence from non-Neo-Nazi people (a free-speech group with gay and black members) filming immediately in the wake of the rally, you dismissed it by saying that anyone who was present at the rally was placing themselves under the Neo-Nazi banner ( ! ). I could hardly believe you said it, because for me personally, it reminded me of when locals in Kent would dismiss any sympathies for the students shot at Kent State (bystanders, mind you) with similar blanket statements about anyone present at the KSU riots deserving whatever they got.

        I respect you a great deal, Dr. Throckmorton, and I have learned a lot from your blog. I just find it interesting that, for a person who is so well acquainted with the smoke and mirrors on the far right, you are still so susceptible and cooperative with identical tactics from the left. At one time you were the person who stubbornly clung to nuance when you could find it, but there seems to be a bit of willful resistance to nuance lately, even when it can be demonstrated.

        In some cases accuracy is not just about what is said, but what is not said, and it can betray a preference for nuance of only a particular kind. The more we happen to know about some particular thing, the easier it is to identify a curated presentation, which is why the current “fact-checking” obsession is often only half of the story. Someone can say only things which are factual and verifiable, yet skew the daylights out of truth.

        ***Edit… I neglected perhaps the most obvious evidence that any notion of sympathy towards Neo-Nazis on the part of Trump is patently absurd on its face… the fact that his daughter and son-in-law are Jews.

        1. If I could find nuance after watching the Frontline documentary, I would say so. If you can, I am sorry.

          It is maddening that you can equate factual inaccuracy with my assessment of Trump’s both sides statement. I continue to believe the Unite the Right protesters were there to promote white supremacy and racism. I don’t see any nuance in that.

        2. If I could find nuance after watching the Frontline documentary, I would say so. If you can, I am sorry.

          It is maddening that you can equate factual inaccuracy with my assessment of Trump’s both sides statement. I continue to believe the Unite the Right protesters were there to promote white supremacy and racism. I don’t see any nuance in that.

          1. Why would you restrict your sources to the Frontline documentary? Is PBS authoritative on some basis? In 55 minutes do you suppose they employed some focus on particular issues to the exclusion of others to present a facet of a complex issue?

            I gave you factual evidence that the assertion you have yet again made (“the Unite the Right protesters were there to promote white supremacy and racism”) is flatly false. People who were there for benign purposes – purposes which I even agree with; that is, a commitment to the First Amendment which even the ACLU shared at one time – were attacked and beaten. No matter how inconvenient it is for those wanting an unequivocal and “pure” denunciation of Neo-Nazis for politically strategic purposes, it would have been factually false, fundamentally unfair, and an affront to the right of law-abiding people to not be beaten with sticks (oh, I’m sorry… “sign posts”) by violent thugs characterized by Antifa. Trump spoke to a fact: there were perpetrators of violence on both sides of the debate, and there were good people on both sides who did not deserve to be violently attacked.

            Your assessment of Trump’s statement is demonstrably incorrect, a fact made even more plain by the Frontline documentary. For you to willfully cling to it in the face of evidence represents a commitment to promoting a narrative, which is beneath you. Donald Trump is not a Neo-Nazi or white supremacy sympathizer, nor is he employing “dog whistles” to send signals to his Hitler-loving alies. I think Jared Kushner would *probably* pick up on that.

          2. You went a good bit further than I did.

            My claim is that the people behind the Unite the Right rally were white supremacists and Trump was wrong to call those people good people. I don’t see any evidence that any group organizing or supporting the rally had other intentions.

            Without all of the bluster, what evidence is there that non-white supremacists planned the rally?

          3. Haha @ “bluster”. That’s pretty good. Imagine me saying these things in a measured, relaxed tone while sipping coffee, please.

            Again, I don’t think you have any (as in zero) evidence that the people Trump was referring to as “good people on both sides” included Neo-Nazis, and a wealth of evidence to suggest that they did not, including his own clarifications of those specific remarks and many additional remarks about such matters both before and after the event, his own immediate family including Jewish persons, his appointment of the same to positions of great influence, and the fact that we know with certainty that not everyone at the rally was there for the same purpose. To the degree that I can’t prove you flat wrong, it is only because you presume to read the man’s mind instead of looking at the unadorned facts. I also could not prove you wrong if you said that you believe he was talking about Smurfs.

            I do not know off the top of my head who planned the rally or how it was promoted, but that does not change in any way the reality of who showed up and what went down (Ex: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/12/us/unite-the-right-charlottesville-anniversary/index.html). But let’s assume that white supremecists did plan the rally. How does that change anything I asserted, and how does that place you at liberty to not care in the least that people present for other reasons were phyically assaulted and injured? Or, additionally, to suggest that the President sympathizes with racists because he recognized and said that more than one faction committed multiple violent felonies by attacking people, including bystanders?

            So, that’s one. I am not likely to browse old posts looking for another chance to do this again, but I think I have shown at the very least that, on infrequent occasions, you assert as fact/truth things which are highly, highly debatable.

          4. To the degree that I can’t prove you flat wrong, it is only because you presume to read the man’s mind instead of looking at the unadorned facts. I also could not prove you wrong if you said that you believe he was talking about Smurfs.

            I don’t think he is reading Trump’s mind as much as reading the context. We don’t have a history of Trump involving Smurfs (that I know of).

            This just came out today, and it is quite informative on this issue overall. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesville-white-nationalism-far-right.html

          5. That looks interesting; looking forward to reading it. Honestly, I think the way you deal with hate and stupidity is to give it space to burn out and counter it with kindness and facts. If you try to drive it out of the public sphere by force, it just plays into their hands. If there is anything these people cannot stand it’s being laughed at and treated as an impotent fringe. They want to be shouted at. They want to be hit.

    2. No one is infallible, and everyone should be amenable to fact checking. However, I think there is a monumental difference between someone who might get their facts wrong on the fly, and one who creates an entire program structured around deception. This is particularly true when when talking about someone who would say that the recent bombs sent in the mail were a “false flag” operation. That is deception on a conspiratorial level that denies reality, and it is most often impervious to rational fact checking.

      That said, what did you have in mind when making the statement about Warren having written things that you “think are hooey and easily countered”? Absolutely he has been mistaken, but it seems disingenuous to conflate that with what we are discussing here. I would have to say that one of Warren’s core qualities is his appreciation for facts and data, and willingness to change his views accordingly.

      1. I replied to Warren above. RE: “This is particularly true when when talking about someone who would say that the recent bombs sent in the mail were a “false flag” operation. That is deception on a conspiratorial level that denies reality, and it is most often impervious to rational fact checking.” SO TRUE!

    3. This to me a huge false dichotomy. Something people who argue “both sides” are the same do all the time. It’s lazy and obscures the asymmetry in the political debate. Sometimes people get things wrong. We cite facts that are erroneous because we didn’t verify them. We fall for fake quotes or miscaptioned photos. This is not the debate. These things are not the real issue. The issue is, what do you do with the knowledge that you are wrong?

      One side of the political debate will be exposed as having shown a fraudulent quote or fact or photo-shopped image and continue to use those arguments anyway. David Barton is famous for this, but there are so so many more. It’s the entire “Lost Cause” revisionist history of the South. The history of the Confederate monuments. It’s the people who push the “Democrats are the real racists ” narrative. It’s the “America was created as a Christian nation” narrative. More recently, it’s the “Obama is not a citizen” narrative. Things that are so thoroughly disproved and yet continue to be used on the Right anyway because they serve a political narrative. Indeed, the only possible reason they could be as wrong as they are is because they were deliberately and dishonestly crafted to serve a political narrative.

      And you see this way more on one side of the political debate. Even look at the thread from the tweet. Kruse shows evidence of why the quotes are wrong and people chime in with basically “LOL, do you research. The quotes are real!”. In response, some people even post even worse fake quotes or photoshops. Even Stacy Dash said “Prove they are lies.” She doesn’t even address the arguments at all. She didn’t say “Wow, thanks for educating me. I will be more careful in the future.” She just refused to concede. Why?

      That is my litmus test for someone who is trustworthy. Not that they are wrong, but what they do with the knowledge that they are wrong.

  3. Candace Owens is a brave young woman and I applaud her efforts. She is bright, winsome, and articulate, but has made some recent missteps. Hopefully, she will make corrections and not resort to hyperbole in order to make her case. The truth is adequate. Ive seen her get shouted down, insulted, and threatened by raging maniacs and she has calmly held her ground. I think while being corrected, she should also be applauded.

    1. I know very little about Candace Owens and have no desire to “shout her down or threaten her, etc.” However, this degree of misinformation goes beyond “missteps” no matter who you are.

      1. Agree with you. Poor word choice on my part. Right, left, center it would be good to see arguments made that are rooted in truth. Too often crap gets shoveled around without regard to veracity. Hope Candace will double check sources.

  4. Cult of the president* will believe anything- might even drink the Orange Kool-Aid if they are told to do it.

    1. From your activity here, it seems you are the one that gets offended easily, and then throws tantrums for attention to boot.

        1. Stop acting like a baby. It’s tiresome, and I don’t know why you’re still tolerated on this blog.

  5. that photoshop is doubly bad because the group appears to be naming itself “Women Knights of the KKK” which, a quick google also reveals to be likely inaccurate, as they didn’t label themselves as “Knights” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_of_the_Ku_Klux_Klan

    So – that little sign is an addition as well, in a weird location in the context of the picture, and, historical information aside, is obviously visibly fake as well

  6. The Culture Wars and the Culture Warriors continue to lie. Remember, this is the same group that used to argue that soundwaves emitted from guitar strings, when run through a distortion effect, became God’s kryptonite.

  7. I’ve seen this nonsense being pushed a lot in various comment threads lately as well. That site is classic misinformation, without even an attempt to link claims to sources.

  8. Some people hate the truth so much it must hurt, and this “actress” is one of them. But that’s a little extreme, even for David (I Lie For Jesus) Barton. I’d hate to think it originated with him.

  9. that photoshop is doubly bad because the group appears to be naming itself “Women Knights of the KKK” which, a quick google also reveals to be likely inaccurate, as they didn’t label themselves as “Knights” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_of_the_Ku_Klux_Klan

    So – that little sign is an addition as well, in a weird location in the context of the picture, and, historical information aside, is obviously visibly fake as well

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