Really, Rich?
If he had no actual political convictions, then he wasn't a reactionary, was he?
Individual reactionaries
can be quite good at playing political games when they need to, Rich. Look at Ted Bilbo in Mississippi for example. He played the game beautifully. But that didn't change the fact that he was still reactionary to the core. Just like Tillman.
Nonsense. Teddy Roosevelt approved (privately) of black disenfranchisement in the South.
Not true. Roosevelt may have been indifferent to the Jim Crow problem, that may be true, but he certainly wasn't one of its cheerleaders, privately or otherwise(he was, in fact, opposed to lynching. That alone should tell you something). Now, granted, he *did* make some concessions to Southern politicos whilst in the White House. Which is unfortunate, yes, but such was the times(even FDR had to give in on some things, from time to time. Doesn't mean he wholeheartedly approve of every little thing the Dixiecrats did.). But he was nowhere near the likes of Ben Tillman & and other racial reactionaries of the era.
There is a great difference between racism and opposition to any change in the existing social order. Hitler was a violent racist, but also a proponent of radical social and cultural change.
They are not the exact same, no, but they have
often gone hand in hand(particularly with more
extreme forms of racism & other prejudices, mainly); Hitler was a reactionary as well(in fact, how could his extreme anti-socialist rhetoric NOT be reactionary?). And, speaking of him, quite a few of the more hardcore German conservatives supported him, by the way(yes, it may be true that some of the more moderate conservatives may have been genuinely off-put by his extremism. That's not in doubt).
Rhetoric. All white supremacists threatened violence in defense of white power. White power was to be maintained at any price, and they said so, but that's not the same as advocating murder for its own sake.
And I never ONCE said or implied that they were the
exact same, Rich, and you know that as well as I do. Please, do actually try to read what I wrote next time.
And frankly, I hate to break this to you, but I'm afraid your highly selective, and rather outdated, views of how one defines "reaction", alone, tells me that you're not exactly on the up and up here, in this regard.