NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — Earlier this week, Tennessee governor Bill Lee (R) has signed a proclamation today celebrating racism.

“I sign this proclamation today in celebration and recognition of racism, proudly and with the full legacy of the Party of Lincoln behind me,” Lee told reporters as he swiped his pen across the proclamation. “Because conservative values honor tradition, and nothing is more traditionally American than good ol’ fashioned racism.”

Gov. Lee had recently found himself in hot water when he decided to push forward with his state’s celebration of notorious Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was one of the founders of the Knights of the KuKluxKlan. Celebrating Forrest was controversial, even among some conservatives. Right-wing firebrand Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) even weighed in against the proclamation in favor of Forrest.

This is WRONG. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general & a delegate to the 1868 Democratic Convention. He was also a slave trader & the 1st Grand Wizard of the KKK. Tennessee should not have an official day (tomorrow) honoring him. Change the law. https://t.co/XBgoRCBoI0

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 12, 2019

At the signing ceremony, Lee told reporters and those attending that they “probably can’t imagine American history without racism.”

“Without racism, really, where would this country be? You needed racism to have racists to support slavery to eventually settle that issue with a Civil War,” Lee proclaimed. “So in a way, racism gave us Honest Abe, and I know even socialist communist Democrats like Honest Abe!”

Lee reminded everyone that American racism is a “truly bipartisan affair.”

“Before the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights era, Democrats were the ones fighting to maintain white supremacy,” Lee said, “and it was a Democrat who ran the last good American concentration camps like the one our orange messiah is running to keep the brown babies in. His name was Franklin Roosevelt. Truly, it can be said without any hesitation that racism in America is truly a bipartisan affair. Because now, it’s Republicans defending monuments to traitors that were put up decades after the war to intimidate black folks and we’re trying to round up al the brown people we can find so we can deport ’em. The times may change, but the racism stays the same, fam.”

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Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because they have a definition of hate speech that includes “calling Ann Coulter the C-word.”