Tudor Dixon in 2020: Democrats never got over Civil War, seek to ‘topple’ U.S.

• Dixon in 2020 video:  ‘Do you think that the Democrats are over losing to the North?”
• She added that Democrats worked to prevent people from knowing ‘white Republicans freed the slaves’
• Dixon spokesperson called the release of the video a ‘calculated hatchet job’ to help Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

LANSING — Michigan GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon suggested without proof that Democrats have planned for decades to “topple” the United States, and the COVID-19 pandemic and the killing of George Floyd gave Democrats “opportunities” to do that.

Dixon, who is facing Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Nov. 8 general election, made the comments during a six-minute monologue while anchoring for the conservative network Real America’s Voice in June 2020.

In the clip first reported by CNN, Dixon suggested Democrats want to topple the country in retaliation for losing the Civil War, foment “white guilt” and keep people from learning that “white Republicans freed the slaves.”

“The country today is divided, and this was the plan,” Dixon said. “It’s been in the works for years. The idea that you can topple the greatest country in the world. But to topple a country like the United States of America, you must be planning this for decades.

“Why wouldn’t that come from the party that lost the Civil War?” she continued. “The party that wanted to own people because they viewed them as less than human. Do you think that the Democrats are over losing to the North?”

It is true that more Democrats owned slaves than their Republican counterparts in Congress right before the Civil War began, the Washington Post reported. But the Democratic Party was split between factions that supported and opposed the war.

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Following the pro-civil rights movement in the 1930s and the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, parties realigned, and more conservative southern Democrats became Republicans while the Republican Party lost Black voters. 

Dixon also called the pandemic virus a “gift” handed to the Democrats and referred to public schools as “government-run indoctrination centers.”

“The perfect storm had finally arrived: how much of your life could they take from you if you were scared enough,” she said. “And the answer is, nearly all of it."

During COVID-19, “fear tied the hands of people across the world and our leaders cheered at the opportunity of it all,” she claimed. 

“Opportunity, which included stealing your businesses and the employees you once had. They would take them and give them just a penny more than you to stay home and vote Democrat,” she said, likely referring to the unemployment benefits expanded during the pandemic. 

Republicans have criticized the federal aid as a “bonus” to pay people not to work and thus hurt the economy, but some studies showed increases in spending after people received benefit checks.

Similarly, Dixon called Floyd’s death a “tragedy” but an “opportunity” for “white guilt” that is “spoon-fed” by Democrats. Floyd, who died in 2020 after then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, sparked national protest.

“That final spoonful of white guilt was warmed and ready for the serving,” Dixon said of Floyd’s death. “And young white women were especially begging for their last dose, changing their profile pictures, admonishing anyone who asks: ‘Does my life matter?’ (and) rushing to tell you that your life was meaningless unless you admitted that you’d kept the Black man down.”

Through it all, Dixon said, Democratic leaders “sat back in their designer suits eating their filet with their nice béarnaise sauce while they watched the country rip itself apart. Because they were getting it all back. The slaves again. This time they’d be people of all colors, poor and broken, looking to them and begging for help. And they will gladly own you all.

“They started with fear, moved on to guilt, told you men and women who protect you really hate you. And the next things they will take are your guns, your speech and your God,” Dixon said.

In a Thursday statement, Dixon spokesperson Sara Broadwater called the CNN story a “calculated hatchet job by Whitmer's apologists in the media.”

She did not answer Bridge Michigan’s questions whether Dixon believes what she said on air; nor did Broadwater offer more context to the monologue. Instead, Broadwater called Whitmer an “extremist” for supporting Proposal 3, an abortion rights proposal critics have called “confusing” and “extreme.”

“Once again, the liberal media is rushing to the aid of their favored candidate, Gretchen Whitmer, because she’s been exposed as a failed governor and was completely unable to defend her record in her final debate with Tudor Dixon this week,” Broadwater said in her statement.

Dixon’s 2020 comments drew backlash from Democrats, including Whitmer campaign spokesperson Maeve Coyle, who called the speech an “unhinged, racist rant.”

In a Thursday press release, the Michigan Democratic Party called Dixon a “rabid conspiracy theorist” who “has relied heavily on these same conspiracy theories to inform her dangerous and backwards agenda for working families.”