But while doing this, the GOP has always claimed they weren't being racist. Today's GOP doesn't bother to do that anymore.
Most remain silent now, refusing to criticize the party members who openly spout racist statements and ideas. None of them even bother to try to hide their racism any more. Trump showed them that their base was racist and bigoted, so they now openly appeal to that racism.
One of those officials that made it clear to everyone recently that he is a racist is Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. His latest odious statements cannot be taken any other way.
The following is part of an op-ed in The Washington Post by Eugene Robinson:
It has become perfectly acceptable in the Republican Party to just go ahead and say the racism out loud — and to do so with apparent pride, and with no fear of consequences.
The most recent proof came from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said last week that he “never felt threatened” by the overwhelmingly White crowd of insurrectionists that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, chanting, among other things, “Hang Mike Pence.” But, depending on who the protesters were, Johnson said, well, it might have been a different matter.
Johnson made the comments on conservative talk-radio host Joe Pagliarulo’s nationally syndicated show. “Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this will get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”
But Johnson described the White mob this way: “I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned.”
As anyone whose brain is not addled by white supremacy recalls, the rioters showed how much they “respect law enforcement,” with their actions leading to the death of one police officer who was defending the Capitol and the injury of some 140 others. One policeman was beaten with a polebearing the American flag, which is a strange way for his attackers to demonstrate love of country.
Johnson should have been pilloried by his GOP colleagues in the Senate, but none spoke up in outrage — or even mild disagreement. Asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” about Johnson’s comments, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) mumbled something about how members “speak for themselves.” That’s not the way it works, though. When it comes to such unambiguous racism, Republicans have only two choices: denounce it or own it.
This was not the first foolish and irresponsible thing Johnson has said about the Capitol insurrection. For a while, he tried to claim the violence was somehow sparked by leftist provocateurs just pretending to be supporters of then-President Donald Trump — until FBI Director Christopher A. Wray testified under oath that there was no evidence of any “fake” Trump supporters in the crowd.
But the racism of Johnson’s latest words is breathtaking. As far as he is concerned, a White mob at the Capitol that overruns police lines, smashes windows and ransacks offices isn’t breaking the law. In Johnson’s view, the millions of Americans who participated in Black Lives Matter protests do not “love this country.” And according to him, Black people who demonstrate against police violence and structural racism do not “truly respect law enforcement.”. . .
Keep Johnson’s words in mind when you hear GOP officials claim that the scores of voter-suppression bills making their way through Republican-controlled state legislatures are merely attempts to guarantee the “integrity” of our elections. If they were — if they had any intent other than to keep Democratic-leaning Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters away from the polls — then surely we would hear Republicans across the land making clear there was no place in the party for views like those Johnson expressed. Instead, we hear only guilty silence.
And sometimes, silence is enough to get the message across.