Winston Churchill once said, “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
Winston Churchill did not, in fact, once say, “The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists.”
That former quote should not in any way imply Gov. Greg Abbott is an uneducated man. He is, in fact, very well educated. But he may need to brush up on his Churchill quotes – because the latter quote is not from the former British prime minister, and it is the reason Abbott is getting dragged on Twitter today.
For reasons unknown, Abbott shared a meme-ified quote penned by Winston Churchill at 1:10 a.m. from his phone with the caption, “Some insights are timeless.”
The problem is, it wasn’t written by Churchill, a fact that’s become clear in the harsh light of day. The meme comes from the crowdsourced meme site 9gag, a veritable treasure trove of misappropriated quotes, snark-addled GIFs and other miscellaneous refuse found in and along the gutters of the Information Superhighway.
The real quote reportedly comes from Louisiana politician Huey Long, a New Deal-era progressive Democrat who reportedly said in reference to fascism, “of course, we’ll have it. We'll have it under the guise of anti-fascism," according to Quote Investigator. It should be noted, though, the quote was attributed to Long about a year after his death.
Abbott has since deleted the tweet, but was asked about the misquote at a press conference this morning, per The Dallas Morning News' Lauren McGaughy. Abbott said the tweet was intended to respond to the antifa movement, a group he characterized as "antagonists to law enforcement."
Abbott was just asked about the fake Churchill quote. This is what he said. https://t.co/qNDnyPOu1G#txlege pic.twitter.com/yr5VawG5fJ
— Lauren McGaughy 🌟 (@lmcgaughy) August 7, 2018
KWBU's Will Burney was at the press conference as well. You can listen to full audio of Abbott's response below.
