US newspaper publisher calls for return of the KKK

The publisher of a small Alabama newspaper managed to earn his publication a lot more attention than it usually gets – but of the less-than-positive variety – after he wrote an editorial calling for the racist, violent organisation, the Ku Klux Klan, to “ride again”.

Goodloe Sutton, who has been publisher of the Democrat-Reporter since back in 1964, confirmed that he had written the editorial when approached by better-known Alabama newspaper the Montgomery Advertiser.

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In it, Sutton claimed that “Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama” and that “socialist-communist” ideologies have been embraced by “simple-minded people”.

He then advocates for the Klan to be “welcomed” to return to “raid” the “gated communities” where the “Democrats” who caused America’s wars live.

While his rambling argument is not easy to understand, the bit about bringing back a white supremacist hate group was clear enough to cause outrage.

Picture: Screenshot.

Sutton showed what some might consider a brave refusal to back down when confronted by the Montgomery Advertiser.

“If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out DC, we’d all been better off,” Sutton said, doubling down.

He then went a step further, overtly calling for lynchings when asked what he meant by “cleaning out” the US political capital.

“We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,” Sutton said.

He justified his call for lynching by saying that it would not be Americans, but “socialist-communists” who would be the victims.

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“… It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?” Sutton said.

The Democrat-Reporter wasn’t always an obscure publication – it was acclaimed for a series of stories exposing a corrupt local sheriff in the 1990s.

But people in Linden, Alabama, where the newspaper is published, told the Montgomery Advertiser it has a reputation for publishing racist and otherwise offensive stories.

Past headlines have included “Homosexuals take black spotlight”, “Slavery was a good lesson for Jews”, and “Selma black thugs murder Demopolite Saturday night.”

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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