It takes approximately 30 seconds to send a tweet. A half hour to draft and release a statement. And the shelf life of both is only marginally longer. We should not commend Republican party elected officials who claim outrage on social media at Trump’s remarks, often without daring to mention his name. The phony claimed outrage becomes dangerous if it convinces anyone that there is a distinction between Trump’s abhorrent comments and the Republican Party agenda.
The lesson from Charlottesville is not how dangerous the neo-Nazis are. It is the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of the recent horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump’s affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants. There is a direct link between Trump’s comments and those policies, so where is the outrage about the latter? Where are the Republican leaders denouncing voter suppression as racist, un-American, and dangerous? Where are the Republican leaders who are willing to call out the wink (and the direct endorsement) from President Trump to the white supremacists and acknowledge their own party’s record and stance on issues important to people of colour as the real problem for our country?
Republicans on the voter suppression commission are enabling Trump’s agenda and that of the white Nazi militia. Words mean nothing if the Republican agenda doesn’t change. If governors and state legislatures don’t stand up for the people they were so quick to embrace in order to avoid the impression, they too share Trump’s supreme affinity for the white race. They are not indirectly, but directly enabling the agenda of those same racists that Republican members were so quick to condemn via Twitter. Gerrymandering, strict voter ID laws, felon disenfranchisement are all aimed at one outcome: a voting class that is predominantly white, and in turn majority Republican.
The supremacist’s chant of, “you will not replace us,” could easily and accurately be the slogan for these Republican politicians. Their policies will achieve the same racial outcome as Jim Crow — the disenfranchisement — and marginalisation of people of colour. It is a sad day when more CEOs take action by leaving and shutting down Trump’s Strategy and Policy Forum, and Manufacturing Council, than elected officials take action leaving Trump’s “election integrity” commission.
Party’s agenda
Businessman are acting more responsive to their customers than politicians are to their voters. At the end of the day, which presidential council is more dangerous? Which most embodies the exact ideology that Trump spewed on Monday? A group of businessmen coming together to talk jobs or a group of elected officials coming together to disenfranchise voters of colour? Anyone still sitting on the voter suppression commission is enabling Trump’s agenda and that of the white Nazi militia that stormed Charlottesville to celebrate a time when the law enforced white supremacy. If Republican lawmakers want to distinguish themselves from Trump’s comments, they need to do more than type out 144 characters on their phone. They need to take a hard look at their party’s agenda.
A good start would be with voting rights. Let’s see lawmakers like John Kasich in Ohio immediately stop the state’s intended purging of voting records. Let’s see Wisconsin lawmakers throw out their gerrymandered district map and form a non-partisan redistricting commission. Let’s see strict voter ID laws criticised with the same vitriol that Republicans used in responding to the events in Charlottesville.
Let’s see Republicans call out their own agenda, and openly recognise the connection between the agenda of the racist alt-right and that of the Republican party. Anything short of radical change to the Republican party’s war on voters of colour is merely feigned outrage.
Even if the white supremacists are condemned, even if the entire Republican party rises up in self-professed outrage at white supremacists, if voter suppression and other such racist policies survive, the white supremacists are winning. And America is losing.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Russ Feingold is a former senator for Wisconsin.
