The appeal by the Ku Klux Klan to a publisher of a local newspaper in the US state of Alabama on the lynching of liberal politicians in Washington has provoked outrage in the US.
After fierce criticism of his editorial, Goodloe Sutton showed little insight. Rather, the 79-year-old in an interview with another newspaper in the southern state of the United States.
In his February 14 editorial for Linden’s weekly newspaper, The Democrat Reporter, Sutton wrote that it was time for the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to resume its nocturnal actions. „Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats“ in Washington are the „true ruling class,“ secretly forging plans to raise taxes in Alabama, he wrote.
Crude conspiracy theories
Sutton called on the KKK to invade the „guarded housing estates“ of the US capital. At the same time, he ventured into wild conspiracy theories, according to which the „elites from the Northeast“ in fact used the various conflicts worldwide, in which the US was involved, to maintain the „military-industrial complex“ of the country.
„My God, under what rock has this guy crawled out,“ wrote Alabama’s Democratic Senator Doug Jones. „This editorial is totally disgusting – and he should relinquish – now!“ Demanded Jones. He witnessed what it meant when no one did anything, while others – „above all with influence“ – published racist and hateful comments.
In another interview with the Montgomery Advertiser, Sutton defended his views. „If we got the clan to go there and clean up Washington DC, we’d all be better off,“ the 79-year-old said, making it clear he was thinking about lynching the „socialist-communist“.
„They killed only a few people“
When asked if he considered the clan a violent organization, he added, „Well, they killed very few people.“ They only became violent „when they had to“. The racist and violent secret society had rebelled against the end of racial segregation with lynching and torture of black people.
Sutton’s editorial surprises all the more when the publisher made a name for himself as an investigative journalist in the 1990s. Several prizes he had received at that time were now withdrawn. Research by the Montgomery Advertiser also unearthed a series of articles with racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay undertones that Sutton had published over the years.
