Race Card

Rightwingers, white and otherwise, think racism's a game they can win

I’ve written a few times about Maya Flores, the Republican elected in a recent special election to a South Texas House seat previously held by a Democrat. She’s up for election in November, and her whole shtick is about how Latino-Americans are going Republican — an at least inflated claim — and how Democrats are the Real Racists™ against Latinos, especially her. As I wrote in September:

…Flores still has to run the general in November, and has mainly been campaigning on the platform that Democrats — or rather, “the radical Left” — are racist against Latinos in general and her in particular (“Now, I’m having horrible, SEXIST, XENOPHOBIC insults thrown at me by the Radical Left”). She also claimed Nancy Pelosi was rude to her little girl.

Flores has kept that racket up. When Jill Biden maladroitly called Latinos “as unique as the breakfast tacos” in San Antonio, for example, Flores sent emails with subject lines like “I’m not a taco?” and “OPEN if you’re NOT A TACO” with copy protesting Biden’s “WILDLY OFFENSIVE and RACIST insult to millions of Hispanic Americans because we’re PROUD Americans who shouldn’t be compared to food.” In these instances she has offered NOT A TACO stickers in exchange for contributions.

In her politics, Flores is a straight MAGA/QAnon nut who rages against “illegal immigrants” as fulsomely as any white Trump Republican — as she does in this Newsmax video, over footage of parades of Spanish people clearly meant to be taken by Newsmax viewers as the dreaded Migrant Caravans come to Great-Replace them.

This routine may have some Latino-American takers, but clearly the primary audience is white people — voters who would like to be told that they’re not racist for wanting to keep migrants and refugees out of their country, as well as the conservative media personnel executives who will hire her when she loses her office.

I get a lot of other political emails, and I’ve noticed a pattern with those for Tim Scott, the African-American GOP Senator from South Carolina. There isn’t much to say about Scott politically — he votes MAGA pretty much every time. And he doesn’t say much about his policies in his mailings, either. Some of these emails carry a “from cotton to Congress” uplift theme about how far his family has come thanks to the American Dream. Some are about how his opponent once said “You gotta treat [white people] like shit.”

But a surprising number of them, especially in recent weeks, are about how the Democrat Real Racists™ are calling him an Uncle Tom. Here’s how some of them start:

I really hate repeating this type of stuff but I thought you should hear it from me. 

“Uncle Tom”
“Race Traitor”
“You ain’t black”

I face constant verbal attacks and name calling, all because I’m a black Republican... and Friend, these aren’t even the worst ones.  

The Left refuses to believe that racial minorities like me can think for themselves. 

Here’s how others start:

Uncle Tom…
Race Traitor…
You ain’t black...

Friend, these are just a few of the things I’ve been called because I’m a black conservative, but in all honesty, these aren’t even the worst ones…

Democrats and the liberal media refuse to believe that racial minorities like me can think for ourselves. To be frank: they think they own us.

When they see a person of color who doesn’t accept the liberal narrative, they go after them harder than anyone else. 

You will not be surprised to learn that Scott does not identify the people who allegedly call him an Uncle Tom or tell him he “ain’t black” in a single one of these emails.  Oh, and here’s the beginning of one Scott sent out on behalf of his fellow Republican Senator Marco Rubio:

Friend,

We are not “tacos.”
We are not “tokens.”

Look, we’re no strangers to attacks from the Left, but we refuse to sit back and allow the Democrats to do whatever they want and say whatever they want.

We both believe in the American Dream and we both believe that despite your descent, the color of your skin, your upbringing, or what language you speak, you too can succeed and achieve the American Dream.

Over the decades I’ve been watching how conservatives operate, one thing that’s consistently obvious is their absolute cynicism about race and racism. When they’re not using plainly racist appeals to white people, they treat the charge of racism as a sort of game with no meaning in and of itself except as a useful gotcha or troll, as with the “Blacks for Trump” Tubby traditionally sets up behind him at rallies.

The fact that they’ve slightly increased the cast of prominent minority candidates and celebrities (e.g. Candace Owens and Kanye West) whom they involve in this routine does not make it any less of a scam. I submit that there is not one voter in the United States who looks at this shit and thinks, “Huh, I’ve been wrong about Republicans,” though there are plenty who think, “the next time some liberal says something to me about it I’ll just tell them about this black/Spanish chick who says nuh uh.”

It would just be sadly humorous if not for the fact that racism — the real Real Racism — continues to poison our politics and rack up a body count, and these guys are not only OK with it but actively working to make it worse.

(Oh, and by the way? West issuing his increasingly overtly anti-Semitic ravings as Trump literally threatens American Jews are not unrelated events.)