Did anyone throw Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) out of the party because he was a member of and recruiter for the KKK many years ago?
Dude are you seriously comparing Robert Byrd and Donald Trump? A bit early for that, I'd say. We need to give Trump some time to become a seasoned politician. As of now he's just a President-elect who has never held any other public office. All due respect to Mr. Trump, he's no Robert Byrd yet.
Byrd served in the US Senate during the terms in office of eleven Presidents, from Ike to Barack. Now there's a lot to like and plenty to dislike in any politician's record, and Senator Byrd is no exception there, but he was an amazing human being for sheer diligence in his rise from poverty and lifetime of emphasis on getting the work done; as a dedicated historian of the US Senate; as a public servant without whose thinking the USA would have been a poorer place.
I disagreed with plenty of Byrd's policy and was very grateful for other stances he took, particularly including his fiery opposition to our invasion of Iraq in 2003 and his faithful devotion to universal health care as he voted in favor of ACA while dedicating his vote to the late Senator Kennedy, a one time adversary. I hope I can someday honestly hold President-elect Trump's achievements on balance in the same high esteem as I do those of the late Senator Byrd.
As far as the KKK goes, Byrd belonged and then renounced it, and Trump has managed to steer clear of it, although not without getting at least tongue-tied more than a few times over the value of political support from followers of past KKK member David Duke, who is still active as a white nationalist and Holocaust denier.
And by the way no one's throwing Mr. Trump out of the Republican Party. Somebody tells you different just chalk it up to hyperbole for the time being anyway. In fact Donald Trump was kinda throwing the Republican Party on its ear for most of the season and it's still to be settled out what, exactly, the Republican Party will be now going forward. I'd say Mr. Trump's in the catbird seat on that score for the moment. The GOP "brung him to the dance" but he won the dance contest with half the party trying to hide in the bushes outside the gym. It's up to them to figure out what to do with their hybrid "Republican President-elect" at this point. It's up to Trump to figure out the lay of the congressional landscape and see how malleable some of the members are to his views regardless of party. At this point I guess the RNC is reduced to hoping that the guy's really one of them.
Anyway here are Byrd and Trump on the subject of politics and the KKK. First Senator Byrd:
In 1997, Byrd told an interviewer he would encourage young people to become involved in politics but also warned, "Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena." In his last autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a KKK member because he "was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision — a jejune and immature outlook — seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions." Byrd also said, in 2005, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."
source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd
Trump was very clear about where he stood on the KKK when he declined to run with the Reform party back in the year 2000, then kinda faltered in 2016 although he eventually got back into more or less that 2000 groove when confronted on it. Here he was in 2000:
“The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. (Pat) Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. (Lenora) Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep.”
Trump, during the early 2016 GOP primary race was a little more... confused?.. about the matter of the KKK and its supporters. The Anti-Defamation League called on him to renounce the support of David Duke, former KKK klansman and still politically active white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Trump had this to say:
"I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.
And so you're asking me a question that I'm supposed to be talking about people
that I know nothing about."
Trump, three days later:
“David Duke is a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years,” Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK,” Trump added. “Do you want me to do it again for the 12th time? I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.”
Sources for the above quotes from Trump:
I find it fascinating and not especially reassuring that Trump took Pat Buchanan to task in 1992 for overt intolerance and then ran his whole 2016 platform on the same exact foundations:
Trump wrote in his 2000 campaign book The America We Deserve, “Pat Buchanan has been guilty of many egregious examples of intolerance. He has systematically bashed Blacks, Mexicans, and Gays.”
Trump, oddly enough, said Buchanan had said too many outrageous things to be president.
“Simply put, Pat Buchanan has written too many inflammatory, outrageous, and controversial things to ever be elected president,” wrote Trump in his book.
source:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/donald-trump-praises-man-he-once-called-a-neo-nazi
It's disconcerting to read that, in the remembered light of Trump's 2016 tweet storms and campaign riffs from the stump. However I am not one to peg anyone permanently into some particular pigeonhole in the spectrum of politics or character. We all make mistakes, we all can change if we will. This is a country that has long celebrated opportunity to change our circumstances, express our views, make up our own minds about someone anew based on what we see of that person as he develops over time. I would give that courtesy to anyone, so why would I not give it to our next President. I just hope he will extend it to all of us in turn.
