House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senator Lindsey Graham (White Folks Party-SC) have both tried to frame the still-raging hurricane of racist feces emanating from the brain of their president as “an ideological issue”, which is fine and believable if you ignore absolutely every single fact.
Of course, it is both laughable and sad that they bring out the ugly slogan “Love It Or Leave It” as the fallback position against the accusation of racism (“Hey, we are not being racist! We are just emulating the idiots who wanted to deport everyone who didn’t agree with our wonderfully conceived and flawlessly executed war in Vietnam!”). And of course “Love It Or Leave It” is a historically racist slogan even when you ignore how it was originally used in the very same state of North Carolina where Trump was whipping his now hoodless minions into a frenzy.
Source: The 1972 Howler yearbook at Wake Forest via Winston Salem Journal
But the mere suggestion that imploring (per Trump and his explainers) or forcing (per Trump’s rally crowd) people to leave the country for the crime of having a political position is not bigoted is absolutely insane.
Sen. Graham, of course, utterly gave up the game by saying that a Somali refugee in a MAGA hat would not be told to leave. He used it, bless his heart, as a confirmation that Trump’s message is not inherently racist. “Hey, just put on an article of closing clearly marking you as one of us and we will look past your skin color and your accent!” No, nothing remotely racist or troubling about that, Senator. Thanks for clarifying.
At this point, the only real question I have for the Republicans is just how self-aware are they? Do they genuinely not understand what they are saying? They are defending the idea that “certain people” (quoting Trump’s tweet here) don’t belong in this country by saying that “certain people” are determined by ideology rather than race. Only a certain type of ideology, mind you, because the only epithet that Trump is willing to affix, to use a completely random example, to neo-Nazis is “very fine”, while not a single Republican lawmaker has called for them to leave.
Do Republicans genuinely not understand that they are, in essence, proposing loyalty tests for any immigrant (as Ilhan Omar is) or immigrant adjacent (as Rashida Tlaib is) or even not an immigrant at all but with, shall we say, a certain look to them (as AOC and Ayanna Pressley are) in order to determine whether they are worthy of living here? Not a loyalty test to America, even, but personally to Trump. To a very specific ideology. A loyalty test which then must be displayed visibly and shown publicly as protection against deportation.
Are they not aware at all of how utterly fucked up this is? I feel physically sick at even having to point out that the supposed America-hater Ilhan Omar has co-sponsored a bill to help 9/11 first-responders. The bill that was subsequently killed in the Senate by supposed America-loving Republicans. Okay, fine, not killed. It was erotically asphyxiated into unconsciousness with all the America Love. As long as their faces, their names and their accent clearly showed that they loved America, which they did.
But who even cares what bills she introduced! The very idea that an immigrant, years after becoming a citizen, is still in need of proving loyalty (or else!) is sickening and frightening at the same time. The idea that criticizing America’s policies and leaders is a right reserved only for certain kinds of people. The idea that no matter how long you have been here, how much you have contributed, how law-abiding you are, you are still a guest who can be shown the door if you become annoying…
When I was in the Soviet school system, grades 3 and up had a 15-minute lesson every Wednesday called “Political Information”, which was basically Soviet propaganda pumped right into our brains by kindly teachers. The theme of “Certain People” was brought up on the very first day.
“There are certain people in our country who are susceptible to Zionist propaganda and can be swayed to betray us”, said the teacher. Then, she added the quiet part loudly: “They are called Jews.”
“It’s not racist, it’s ideological” is nothing but a fig leaf for the rubes who want to enjoy their racism while keeping plausible deniability. Not only is it, ALL OF IT, racist, it’s fascist to its very core. Nobody should fail to see it or call it as such. Only then do we stand a chance to send all of this un-Amerian bullshit back to the century it came from.
