Winston Churchill once said, 鈥淚t is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.鈥�
Winston Churchill did not, in fact, once say, 鈥淭he fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists.鈥�
That former quote should not in any way imply Gov. Greg Abbott is an uneducated man. He is, in fact, . But he may need to brush up on his Churchill quotes 鈥� 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, 鈥淪ome insights are timeless.鈥�
The problem is, it wasn鈥檛 written by Churchill, a fact that鈥檚 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, 鈥渙f course, we鈥檒l have it. We'll have it under the guise of anti-fascism," according to . 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.
— Lauren McGaughy 馃専 (@lmcgaughy)
KWBU's Will Burney was at the press conference as well. You can listen to full audio of Abbott's response below.
