In Donald Trump’s America, why even bother to pretend? If you’re racist and you know it, clap your hands—or open your big mouth, as the case may be. Here are some recent examples of things said by office-holders and aspirants around the country.
Steve King, nine-term Republican Congressman from Iowa, in an interview in January with The New York Times. It led to King being stripped of his committee assignments, though some of his fellow conservatives in Congress have sought his reinstatement.
Bonus: In the past, King met with members of a far-right Austrian group with Nazi ties and tweeted his affinity for a Dutch nationalist, saying, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”
Steve West, winner of the August 2018 GOP primary for a seat in Missouri’s House of Representatives, commenting the year before on a radio show. He was defeated in the fall general election.
Bonus: West has also warned about “Jewish cabals” that are “harvesting baby parts” through Planned Parenthood.
U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida explaining why he invited Chuck C. Johnson, a Holocaust denier banned from Twitter for threatening to “take out” a civil rights activist, to Trump’s State of the Union in January 2018. Gaetz was reelected last fall.
Bonus: That same month, Gaetz was a guest on conspiracy-theorist Infowars-founder Alex Jones’s radio program.
Term used earlier this year by Mary Ann Lisanti, a white Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates, to describe an area where a white colleague campaigned. Lisanti, who apologized for using an “insensitive and hurtful word,” has refused calls to resign, saying “quitting is easy, but not the road to redemption.”
Bonus: Lisanti offered this defense to The Washington Post: “I’m sure I have [used the slur]. I’m sure everyone has used it. I’ve used the f-word. I used the Lord’s name in vain.”
Vicki Marble, Republican state senator in Colorado, explaining her vote in April against a resolution calling for equal pay for women and minorities.
Bonus: Marble opined at a 2013 legislative hearing that diabetes is “something that’s prevalent in the genetic makeup” of black people, adding “I’ve never had better BBQ and better chicken and ate better in my life than when you go down South.”
Theresa Kenerly, the mayor of Hoschton, Georgia, purportedly explaining to city council members in March why she would not hire a black applicant for city administrator. She said initially, “I can’t say I said it or not said it,” and later that she couldn’t recall.
Bonus: Kenerly’s comments were defended by city council member and mayor pro tempore Jim Cleveland, who told the press, “I’m a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don’t do interracial marriage,” adding, of course, “I have black friends.”