As Donald Trump stated in a November 1 interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, “The word ‘racist’ is used about every Republican that’s winning. Any time a Republican is leading they take out the ‘R’ word, the ‘racist’ word.”
The President is right … Here are just a few examples of Republican Governor and Senate candidates who have been accused of racism by either a Democrat opponent or a left-wing media outlet during the 2018 campaign:
Marsha Blackburn (TN): USA Today lumped Blackburn in with white nationalists (i.e., racists).
Ted Cruz (TX): The Huffington Post accused Ted Cruz of racism.
Ron DeSantis (FL): The Washington Post accused DeSantis of using “racist dog-whistling” words when he said voters should not “monkey this up” when deciding between GOP and DEM candidates and for referring to his black opponent, Andrew Gillum, as “articulate.”
Josh Hawley (MO): ThinkProgress accused Hawley of being a “strong defender of a president whose own corruption, racism, and religious intolerance have been hallmarks of his administration.”
Dean Heller (NV): Democrat billionaire and anti-Trump activist Tom Steyer accused Dean Heller of being a racist by association in an article published in the Las Vegas Sun.
Martha McSally (AZ): The Human Rights Campaign indirectly accused McSally of being a racist because she donated $1,000 to (HRC labeled) anti-equality Rep. Jason Lewis (R-MN).
Kim Reynolds (IA): Gov. Reynolds was labeled as a racist when she said the “US immigration system is broken” after Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old University of Iowa student, was murdered by an illegal immigrant.
Mitt Romney (UT): Zerlina Maxwell, a frequent MSNBC guest and director of progressive programming for Sirius XM Radio, defended former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2012 charge that then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wanted to put black people “back in chains.”
Rick Scott (FL): John Oliver used his popular HBO program “Last Week Tonight” to imply that Gov. Scott is racist for his handling of the state’s clemency process. Oliver called Florida the “disenfranchisement capital of America,” noting how “more than 1 million Floridians – and more than one in five black Floridians – can’t vote because they’re felons.”
Bob Stefanowski (CT): The Hartford Courant reported that Stefanowski, Republican nominee for governor, attended a large birthday bash for top Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow that included, amongst numerous guests, Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigration website Vdare.com, known for espousing white-identity politics. Stefanowski didn’t meet with or talk to Brimelow and didn’t even know him.
Democrats and the left-wing media regularly double-down on their invective by calling any and all Republican voters and supporters racists as well. Here’s an example of the LA Times calling Evangelicals racists for supporting President Trump.
Racism is a scourge upon the earth. It should be called out and defeated whenever we see it. But when Republicans are illegitimately labeled racists every election year, the finger pointers are just marginalizing legitimate racism.
Let’s aim higher. Let’s reserve our attention and energy to identifying and defeating true racism, which is a cause that will mutually unite us as Americans, rather than divide us into polarized groups of hyphenated-Americans.