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KevinMKruse's profile
Kevin M. Kruse
Kevin M. Kruse
Kevin M. Kruse
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@KevinMKruse

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Kevin M. KruseVerified account

@KevinMKruse

Historian: White Flight; The New Suburban History; Spaces of the Modern City; Fog of War; One Nation Under God; Fault Lines; Voter Suppression in US Elections.

Princeton, NJ
kevinmkruse.com
Joined February 2015

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    Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

    Kevin M. Kruse Retweeted

    A lot of people are comparing this new fear-mongering Trump ad to the infamous Willie Horton ad from 1988. In fact, it's a whole lot worse. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1057728445386539008 …

    Kevin M. Kruse added,

    This Tweet is unavailable.
    6:37 AM - 1 Nov 2018
    • 2,551 Retweets
    • 6,295 Likes
    • Mario 1962 Karen Taylor Debra Elder june bug Dulce et Decorum Est Chinmai Raman tati✨ Jeffrey WH Jakob Wasserhoevel
    212 replies 2,551 retweets 6,295 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        For those of you who don't remember, here are the 1988 ads and some supporting interviews, all taken from the outstanding documentary "Boogie Man" about GOP strategist Lee Atwater:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTdUQ9SYhUw …

        20 replies 246 retweets 1,028 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        During the early 1980s, Lee Atwater developed a reputation as a practitioner of a no-holds-barred style of politics. And almost literally. He was a big fan of pro wrestling. It was from that, a biographer noted, that he'd "learned the importance of bombast" and storytelling.

        6 replies 110 retweets 733 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        He was well-known for pushing dirty campaign tactics to new limits. Ed Rollins, his boss on the '84 Reagan-Bush campaign, called him a "ruthless" attacker who "just had to drive in one more stake" even after a political target was already dead.

        4 replies 98 retweets 670 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        A native South Carolinian, Atwater knew the power of racist appeals and was willing to go to places where others wouldn't. But he still understood it had to be done carefully. Here's his famous interview from 1981 on the use of racial "code words"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ …

        5 replies 211 retweets 812 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        When Atwater led the Bush campaign in 1988, he faced an uphill battle. (After the DNC that summer, Dukakis had a huge 17-point lead over Bush.) So Atwater convened a focus group to test out the negative issues that he might use that fall. And "Willie Horton" worked the best.

        10 replies 139 retweets 687 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        William Horton Jr. was an African American prisoner sentenced to life without parole for murder. But he had been released under a Massachusetts furlough program for prisoners and, while out, had raped and stabbed a Maryland woman.pic.twitter.com/XCCR9ktz8M

        4 replies 107 retweets 576 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        And I should note -- he never went by "Willie." As he noted in a later interview, that was a nickname cooked up by Atwater to make him sound even more sinister and threatening than he already was.

        5 replies 108 retweets 739 likes
        Show this thread
      9. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        Now, the furlough program had been started by Dukakis's GOP predecessor in Massachusetts and had been modeled on a similar program in California started by Reagan when he was governor there. It was still used against him. Al Gore brought it up first in the primaries.pic.twitter.com/tl8dUxK2yK

        8 replies 141 retweets 716 likes
        Show this thread
      10. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        While Gore raised it as a policy issue, Atwater seized on "Willie" Horton to capitalize on white fears of black criminals and drive a stake in the Dukakis campaign. "By the time we're finished," he bragged, "they're going to wonder if Willie Horton isn't Dukakis' running mate."

        4 replies 135 retweets 690 likes
        Show this thread
      11. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        But -- and this is the important part -- Atwater knew he had to deal with this issue at arm's length. A nominally independent group "Americans for Bush" created the mug shot ad. It was soon picked up by PBS's McLaughlin Group, and then network news shows started showing it too.pic.twitter.com/OG5fzAFGdF

        3 replies 118 retweets 633 likes
        Show this thread
      12. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        When confronted about the ad, Atwater forcefully denied having anything to do with it. Here's a great exchange from "Boogie Man" documentary, which, again, I highly recommend. (Stay for the Roger Stone kicker at the end.)pic.twitter.com/JrSpUENPrt

        6 replies 176 retweets 903 likes
        Show this thread
      13. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        Roger Stone was right. Lee Atwater did live to regret it. The ad haunted him his final years, especially when he took over as RNC chairman and found himself trying to dig out of the racist hole he'd dug.pic.twitter.com/T27lnTSR15

        7 replies 183 retweets 922 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        When he was on his deathbed in 1991, he repented for his past as a negative campaigner, bringing up the infamous Willie Horton ad that had rightfully haunted him ever since.pic.twitter.com/if0qkST9uf

        27 replies 224 retweets 902 likes
        Show this thread
      15. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        So that brings us back to today. Unlike the Willie Horton ad -- which was outsourced to third parties to the point where Atwater insisted he had nothing to do with it -- this new ad is coming directly from the personal Twitter account of the president himself.pic.twitter.com/I9s5CdziY7

        25 replies 476 retweets 1,663 likes
        Show this thread
      16. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        And it isn't just that the president of the United States is personally pushing white nationalist politics in its ugliest and crudest form, it's that he's doing it proudly and with purpose. That is so, so much worse than "Willie Horton" ever was.

        89 replies 1,004 retweets 4,120 likes
        Show this thread
      17. Kevin M. Kruse‏Verified account @KevinMKruse 1 Nov 2018

        Kevin M. Kruse Retweeted Nick Riccardi

        As a PS, here's another way the new ad is worse -- Dukakis was blamed for a furlough that did happen during his term, albeit through a policy his Republican predecessor created. The new ad blames Democrats for things that happened on Republicans' watch.https://twitter.com/NickRiccardi/status/1058088352748982273 …

        Kevin M. Kruse added,

        Nick RiccardiVerified account @NickRiccardi
        Important context on Trump's inflammatory Twitter ad: The convicted killer he mentions was released early by Joe Arpaio's office and illegally returned to the US during George W Bush's administration. Democrats had nothing to do with it https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/election/article220960015.html …
        Show this thread
        8 replies 231 retweets 743 likes
        Show this thread
      18. End of conversation

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