Roy Moore's Neo-Confederate Sugar Daddy Has Deep Ties To Secessionists

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo




By CAMERON JOSEPH Published OCTOBER 6, 2017 6:00 AM

Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore’s top supporter is a hardline Confederate sympathizer with longtime ties to a secessionist group.

Michael Anthony Peroutka (pictured on the right above, with Moore in 2011) has given Moore, his foundation and his campaigns well over a half-million dollars over the past decade-plus. He’s also expressed beliefs that make even Moore’s arguably theocratic anti-gay and anti-Muslim views look mainstream by comparison. Chief among them: He’s argued that the more Christian South needs to secede and form a new Biblical nation. The close connections raise further questions about the racial and religious views of Moore, the former Alabama supreme court chief justice and the front-runner to become Alabama’s next U.S. senator.

There’s a long history of southern conservative politicians playing footsie with fringe groups that hold controversial views on race. But that’s become more fraught in recent years as the advent of YouTube, camera phones and campaign trackers has made it harder to keep those meetings quiet. It’s also become more controversial to speak to Confederate groups in recent years as parts of the South have changed and in the wake of murderous racist violence in Charleston and Charlottesville. But even by the old standards, Moore’s deep ties to Peroutka — and Peroutka’s views — stand out, as most of those groups weren’t actively calling for the South to secede again.

Peroutka, a 2004 Constitution Party presidential nominee who in 2014 won a seat as a Republican on the county commission in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, spent years on the board of the Alabama-based League of the South, a southern secessionist group which for years has called for a southern nation run by an “Anglo-Celtic” elite. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the League of the South as a hate group (a designation Peroutka regularly jokes about). That organization, after Peroutka left, was one of the organizers of the Charlottesville protests last summer that ended in bloodshed.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/roy-moores-sugar-daddy-has-deep-ties-to-secessionists

[cyclonefence]

1. Now that slavery is no longer an issue,

I'm all in favor of allowing the southern states to secede. Good riddance to them.

[Lonestarblue]

3. Wed be better off without the red states.

I never thought that I would even entertain the notion that the country should be split, but this presidency has caused me to think about unthinkable things. I’m tired of my tax dollars going to states that refuse to expand Medicaid or raise their own taxes because they know they get more from the federal government than they pay. I’m tired of listening to so-called Christians whine about their religious freedom while they spout unbelievable hatred toward LGBT, people of color, people of other religions, and even women with their preaching that a teacup of cells is more important than a woman’s life.

I now fantasize (and I know it’s nothing but a fantasy) about how great it would be to re-establish fairness in media, to never have to look at a Confederate flag again, and to elect a sane president. A game I play in my mind is how to split the country. Obviously, the Northeast and the Northwest/California would be part of our new Country. How far south would we go? Pennsylvania? Virginia? How about the Western states? People would have to vote on which country to join. I think we would end up with all the states except the deep South plus Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Texas. Have fun with your own imaginations!

[Lochloosa]

4. "Now that slavery is no longer an issue"

Shows how much you know about the South.

And just how do you propose us from infesting the North? Build a wall?

[Skittles]

7. Texas is on hold while they're awaiting 150 billion bucks from the feds

[Johnyawl]

9. Not as simple as it would have been in the 1860s had the south won.

We no longer have a geographical split. There are conservatives and liberals in every state, and every state would be torn apart. Read some history on the partition of India and Pakistan, ugly ugly ugly.

[PatrickforO]

10. Indeed.

For decades the radical libertarians, funded by Charlie Koch, have propagandized the American people to hate and mistrust each other, and to hate and mistrust government.

But in every place there are people who do not wish to hate and mistrust each other, and recognize a sane role for government.

It would be horrible if a state seceded.

[mountain grammy]

2. He could fuck a goat next to the stone monument of the 10 commandments

and he'll still be elected. alabamastrong.

[ClarendonDem]

5. Roy Moore

Will replace Trump as the single worst elected politician in the United States.

[HAB911]

6. I think we should let Alabama go

[kwassa]

8. His county council district is just across the river from Annapolis.

And not a power post, except perhaps locally.

Maryland is 2-1 Democratic. The state legislature is blue, the governor is a moderate Republican who can't do much.