The Republican party was once known as the party of Abraham Lincoln. Now it is known as the party of Donald Trump, a reality star, creator of the birther movement and race baiter in Chief. Time and time again, the Republican party has shown its hypocrisy in the Trump era by failing to speak out against racism and bigotry.
The other day, Congress failed to censure Iowa Representative Steve King for saying “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that become offensive?” To answer King’s statement, white supremacy was offensive to many persons as far back as Abraham Lincoln’s time. The House passed a resolution condemning white supremacy but failed to rebuke King. Every Republican House member should have requested a vote on censuring King, if not seeking his resignation. It is not enough just to fail to appoint him to committees. Steve King should have been asked to resign for his hideously racist comments.
Time and time again, the Republican party fails to address racism and bigotry under the Trump era. Donald Trump following the August, 2017 Charlottesville, Nazi rally where Heather Heyer was killed by a hate filled Nazi supremacist, stated there were good people on both sides—meaning the Nazi’s and their protestors. No Republican lawmaker serving in the House or the U.S. Senate strongly condemned Donald Trump for referring to Nazi’s, Neo-Nazi’s and white supremacists as “good people.” It’s as if Trump can do no wrong when it comes to siding with racists.
Donald Trump sets the tone for white supremacy and bigoted speech. Even before he was elected, he fueled the birther movement alleging that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in this country, without any valid basis for the assertion. It was likely one of Trump’s proudest moments when the first African American president produced his birth certificate—just like slaves once did to show they were free persons.
Once Trump ran for office and won, he became race-baiter-in chief. He gives a platform for all the Steve Kings to stand on. Trump called Colin Kaepernick a “son of a bitch” as well as other NFL African American players who kneel during the playing of the national anthem in protest of police brutality against Blacks. He refers to Mexicans as rapists; He disparages judges of Hispanic descent. He views African countries as “shithole” nations. To point out all of Trump’s racist remarks would take up more space than needed to make the point. Republicans fail to see the big fat elephant in the room named Donald Trump.
Recently, when N.Y. representative Rashida Tlaib stated we should “impeach the mother f’er”, Texas Republican Representative Brian Babin called her words “ill-conceived and inconsistent with our national values.” I don’t ever recall Babin or any GOP legislator calling any of Trump’s comments inconsistent with our national values. The only thing that would have delighted me more would have been if Rep. Tlaib had used Trump’s own language that he called Colin Kaepernick—a SOB.
The latest Republican hypocrisy seems focused on holding the federal government workers hostage while Trump demands a Mexican border wall. As most folks will remember, Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall. Time and time again, Trump chanted that point to his base. Yet, now it appears the wall will be financed on the backs of American taxpayers and on the hostage taking of the federal government workers—the vast majority that live in Red states and towns. No Republican member is calling for Trump to back down from his wall double talk and re-open the government. Mitch McConnell won’t even bring a vote to the floor to open the government and then continue talks about the so-called wall that Mexico would have paid for.
All the talk about the wall is double talk and code talk for race baiting. As the president demands a $5 billion ransom money to open the federal government in exchange for a so-called wall, he continues to ramp up incidents of persons killed by undocumented persons. Some of those victims were killed by guns, yet I fail to see any gun control measures being introduced and passed.
Immigrants contribute significantly in the U.S. from serving in the military, owning businesses, paying taxes, doing menial jobs, inventing and investing in our economy and society. As recently seen in the news, some undocumented immigrants work in Trump’s many businesses with forged papers. When it is to Trump businesses’ advantage, undocumented immigrants are valuable. To his base, he calls them rapists and murderers.
As an African American, I know this country has long been known for its hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing another when it comes to race and race relations. The explicit race baiting language used by Trump and supported implicitly and explicitly by Republican lawmakers without rebuke brings the hypocrisy to an extreme level. If this were a fake reality show, it could be dubbed “Extreme GOP Hypocrisy”. Sadly, this is our new norm under the Trump era.
Washington, D.C. based Debbie Hines is an attorney and former prosecutor.
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