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, the (AFA) spokesman whose ultraconservative worldview is so extreme that he makes Pat Buchanan look like Rachel Maddow, seems never to have met a fact that he couldn鈥檛 improve upon.

He has that gays were responsible for the Holocaust and that American Indians lost their land to European settlers because they (the natives) weren鈥檛 Christian. He has that states have the right to impose religious tests on elected officials and that HIV is not linked to AIDS 鈥� a dangerous and utterly false theory that has led to in South Africa and elsewhere.

Fischer did it again on Tuesday, when he declared on his Internet radio show that , the neo-Nazi skinhead who last weekend killed six Sikhs at a temple in Wisconsin before shooting himself, was a left-wing socialist and probably a Democrat.

Fischer presented his evidence in , captured by RightWingWatch.

鈥淵ou know what the Nazi Party stands for? It's the National Socialist Party. What about the word 鈥榮ocialist鈥� do you not understand?鈥� Fischer said in exasperated tones. 鈥淭hey were the National Socialist Party. That is a left-wing political philosophy.鈥�

He continued, 鈥淎nd you think even here in the United States, who was the party of racism? It was the left, it was liberals that were the party of racism. It was Democrats that supported and defended the institution of slavery. It was the Democrats that resisted the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. It was Democrats that instituted Jim Crow laws. It was Democrats that created the Ku Klux Klan. It was Democrats that filibustered the Civil Rights Acts of the mid-1960s.鈥�

Fischer is not the only one to spout this nonsense about Nazis being socialists and liberals being the 鈥減arty of racism.鈥� It鈥檚 time for a little history lesson.

History is complicated, Mr. Fischer, so please follow along closely.

After the Nazi Party 鈥� or National Socialist German Worker鈥檚 Party (NSDAP), as it was officially called 鈥� was founded, multiple factions competed for influence. Between 1925 and 1927, Hitler was forbidden to speak in public. During that time, a pair of brothers named Gregor and Otto Strasser rose to prominence in the party鈥檚 north German branch.

The Strasser brothers were somewhat sympathetic to socialism. According to celebrated Hitler biographer , they 鈥渟aw the world as divided into oppressing and oppressed peoples鈥� and called for an alliance with communist Russia against 鈥渢he capitalism of Wall Street.鈥�

The Strasser brothers鈥� influence waned after Hitler was allowed to speak again. Otto Strasser was expelled from the party in 1930 and spent the war years in exile. His brother Gregor was murdered during the 1934 鈥淣ight of Long Knives,鈥� when Hitler purged his party of perceived rivals. According to Fest, Hitler by then had long since declared that the Nazi Party 鈥渟tood for private property and justice.鈥�

Fest explains that Hitler kept the word 鈥渟ocialist鈥� 鈥� a 鈥渓eftist label鈥� 鈥� in the party鈥檚 name 鈥渃hiefly for tactical reasons,鈥� employing a kind of 鈥減restidigitation,鈥� or sleight of hand, that allowed 鈥渃apitalism [to find] its true and ultimate fulfillment in Hitler鈥檚 socialism, whereas socialism was only attainable under the capitalistic economic system.鈥�

Translated, this means that Hitler, a canny politician, kept the term 鈥渟ocialist鈥� in his party鈥檚 name because it made some people feel good.

Fischer鈥檚 claim that the Democratic Party is the party of racists is no less ridiculous than his claim about Nazis being socialists 鈥� though as with the latter, there is a kernel of truth.

Back in the bad old days, the Democratic Party was indeed rife with racists. Lincoln was a Republican, and for decades after the Civil War, the South was a Democratic bastion. From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the passage of the civil rights laws in the 1960s, virtually all officeholders in the South were Democrats. The Republican Party, in fact, barely existed in the region and put up only token candidates in the vast majority of elections.

But that doesn鈥檛 mean the Southern Democrats were liberal. In fact, for the most part, the region was dominated by conservatives, including many racists who remained bitter about the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, two of the most stridently conservative and openly racist politicians of the late 20^th century, began their careers as Democrats. Thurmond left the party briefly in 1948 to run for president as the segregationist States鈥� Rights Democratic Party, or Dixiecrat, candidate, and permanently in 1964 in protest of the Civil Rights Act. Helms, who in 1983 famously attempted to filibuster the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, became a Republican in 1970.

Following the civil rights era, the two parties began to switch places on matters of race and states鈥� rights. The Democrats took a sharp left, and the Republicans skidded decisively to the right. It was under and with the strong support of President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Texas Democrat, that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were enacted. It is true that a group composed mainly of conservative southern Democrats led an effort to filibuster the bill that became the Civil Rights Act, but majorities in both parties ultimately voted in favor of it. And again, regardless of their party affiliations, these were conservatives, not liberals, who opposed civil rights legislation.

What began as a trickle of Southern Democrats abandoning the party in the 1960s because of its embrace of civil rights became a flood when the Republican Party, and President Richard M. Nixon in particular, adopted the 鈥淪outhern strategy鈥� of exploiting racism among white voters. By the end of the Reagan era, the South had completed its makeover and become reliably Republican in national and most state and local elections.

Today, neither party is explicitly racist. It is nonsense 鈥� or 鈥減restidigitation,鈥� to use Fest鈥檚 term 鈥� to describe 鈥渓iberals鈥� (or 鈥渃onservatives鈥� writ large, for that matter) as such.

And as Fischer should well know, such wordplay is not limited to political parties.

For instance, based solely on its name, the American Family Association鈥檚 mission ought to have something to do, broadly, with American families. But instead, its most prominent voices devote themselves to , lying about history, castigating long-dead American Indians for not being Christian enough, and absurdly that the Department of Homeland Security is planning to wage war on American civilians.

And when it comes to families, the AFA rejects out of hand any suggestion of structures that deviate even a tiny bit from a married pair of heterosexuals together with their offspring. Yet it remains the 鈥淎merican Family Association,鈥� presumably because someone understands that the word 鈥渇amily鈥� makes supporters feel good.

Prestidigitation indeed. David Copperfield would be proud.