I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how RNC Chair and Mar-A-Lago Welcome mat Ronna Romney McDaniel had announced a Blue Ribbon panel panel to do an autopsy report on the GOP’s piss poor performance in the 2022 midterms.

Great. This should be entertaining. Especially since, if you’re going to fill a Blue Ribbon panel with feckless Trump tools like KellyAnne Conjob and election denier Blake Masters, please excuse the rest of us if we start to think that this isn’t a serious effort, just another Trump whitewash job. But before the panel even met, she accidentally dropped her bloomers, and said that one of the major topics was going to be Minority outreach!

Ummm, question Ronna, you dim bulb. Who’s writing your material these days, Forrest Gump? Because in one sorry, misbegotten US Senate candidacy, your boss, Traitor Tot dumped a steam shovel full of shit over any chance of a decent outreach with minority communities for the next 20 years, and then your GOP Senate incumbents did a fly over in a political C-130 and made an air drop of more shit.

I don’t mind saying it, in fact I relish it. Donald John Trump is a virulent racist. To his toes. His own father was a neo Nazi who was arrested at a brownshirt rally in New York. But His Lowness is also a user. And he knows how to use his power and fame and influence to attract weaker, but famous minorities into his orbit, so he can use them to his advantage.

Herschel Walker was already pretty much over the hill when Donald Trump gave him a 2nd chance as his marquee star player on his soon to fail USFL New Jersey Generals. And that started a purely one way relationship which led to the humiliation of Walker having to tape a statement to be shown at the GOP’s 2020 national convention, avowing that Trump was no racist.

In 2022 Trump had a problem in Georgia. In 2020, Raphael Warnock, an African American minister pastoring MLK’s Ebenezer church beat appointed Kelly Loeffler for the last 2 years of retired GOP Senator Johnny Isakson’s term, despite Trump personally campaigning for Loeffler and Perdue. So it was clear that the man could win in a statewide race for a full term.

Not only is Trump a virulent racist, he’s also a political imbecile. And in his childlike simplistic political racism, Trump determined that African Americans would vote for any black candidate. And so he personally recruited his long-time faithful toady, Herschel Walker, who hadn’t lived in Georgia for a decade, to reestablish residency and run for Senate, promising not only his personal support, but the support of the GOP as well. Imbecile that he is, Trump was still savvy enough to know that he didn’t need to get all of the black vote, just enough to put Walker over the top if he got all of the white vote. As always, Trump went with a compliant, easily controlled personality.

And it was an instant nightmare. Let’s be honest, Herschel Walker is not an erudite or well-spoken man. It was tortuous just to listen to the man, he could barely string 2 coherent sentences together. The more I saw of him, the more I started to think of him as an African American Donald Trump politically. He just rambled incoherently from subject to subject, never making a coherent point, and going off into the weeds about bulls and cows, and vampires and werewolves.

African American outrage was swift and harsh. They were furious that the GOP would field such a totally incompetent and unqualified candidate thinking that they would vote for him just because he was black. Especially when they already had a fully qualified African American on the ticket, Raphael Warnock. But Trump didn’t care, and neither did the GOP. They didn’t need the majority of the black vote, just enough to get over the finish line with a unified white GOP vote. But one senior GOP incumbent cared. Herschel Walker was who Mitch McConnell was speaking about months about the election when he bitched about candidate quality.

So, it was Trump who preemptively blew out of the water any GOP attempts to reach out to the African American community by nominating a candidate that was a direct insult to that community. But the GOP writ large is nothing if not stupid, and the GOP Senate couldn’t wait to pile it on and make it even worse.

As Walker continued to stumble on the campaign trail and gave increasingly strident denials to the multitude of personal attacks leveled against him by former lovers, the GOP took over. They started assigning handlers to go with him every time he went in front of a camera. And wouldn’t you know it? Every darn one of those handlers was white!

By far the worst was notorious South Carolina racist Senator Lindsey Graham. Graham didn’t even bother to hide his disdain. In an early interview on DUX News Graham fatuously opined that the Democrats were terrified of Herschel Walker, because if a strong, successful former football player were to be elected to the US Senate by the Republicans, every young black kid would want to become a Republican. You racist prick! Do you honestly believe that African Americans, especially young African Americans are so shallow?

And something else I noticed. When Walker had a white handler sitting next to him for a televised interview, Walker barely managed to open his mouth. His handler answered almost all the questions, not trusting Walker not to muck it up. I remember one infamous interview on FUX News, when Walker was flanked by Graham on one side, and Cancun Teddy Cruz on the other. Fuck me! Talk about condescension.

So yes. It was Trump who totally blew up any GOP minority outreach by personally nominating a total joke of a candidate, believing that a sizeable portion of the African American community would fall into line. But it was the McDaniel RNC that totally emasculated Walker, by surrounding him with white handlers to do his talking for him. Can the condescending racism possibly be any more obvious?

But it doesn’t just stop with the African American community, all of the other American minority communities are now on guard. What next? Does the GOP nominate Danny Trejo for Senate, and look to pile up the Hispanic vote? Do they nominate Star Trek legend George Takei and harvest that rich AAPI vote? The GOP has shown their craven devotion to use anyone in order to further their own selfish political ends. And the minorities are not going to forget it anytime soon. Good luck with that frigging autopsy report Ronna.

 

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Conservatives accuse Democrats of playing what they call identity politics. Yet they do it themselves and have long done so. At least some of their people have had some brains and bona fide success. They might have been genuine conservatives instead of sellouts but at least they were articulate, and could point to actual accomplishments. I have to wonder though about someone like Senator Tim Scott of SC. I’m guessing he was both embarrassed and appalled by his Party running Walker, and in a state that neighbors his own. Funny, but I don’t recall Scott hopping over to GA to campaign for Walker! Hmmmm.

    With Walker, the GOP “outreach” was worse than clumsy. Their “outreach” was basically giving black people an outhouse as if they assumed they’d be excited to “no longer have to ‘do their business’ out in the open.”

  2. “Herschel Walker was already pretty much over the hill when Donald Trump gave him a 2nd chance as his marquee star player on his soon to fail USFL New Jersey Generals.”

    Um, Murf? Care to explain what you mean here? Walker went straight to the USFL without actually finishing his college career and spent three years in the USFL before moving to the NFL. I don’t see how he was “over the hill” when he dropped out of college to turn pro.

    In fact, Walker was with the Generals when Trump bought the team.

  3. This still feels too generous, Murf. Using minorities as props has long been the GOP MO. Think no further than Condoleezza Rice and Allan West for typical examples. Their mistake was using an obviously unwell football player to do the job here.

    • In Rice’s case I think it’s more nuanced. She had credentials for the job, at least it seemed to me she did. My problem with her was the context of the times because her credentials were pretty narrowly focused. In particular she was an expert on the Cold War and the old USSR which had of course disolved and was, we thought and hoped lurching its way towards a democracy. Signs were there at the time Bush 43 came in Russia was backsliding so it’s not like Rice couldn’t have (and should have) pushed him to be far more wary of Putin. But the thing is, by that time the middle east and terrorism was clearly a problem that would dominate much of our foreign policy and require an international approach to combat. On this front Rice knew little and worse, like her boss blew off outgoing President Clinton’s warning that this would be the big problem in the years to come. So I don’t think it’s that she was unqualified in general, but given her limited area of expertise there surely were better candidates with broader knowledge and experience.

      • Qualifications are a bonus but far from required when it comes to GOP minority members. Given how W and Cheney got what they wanted, her expertise or lack thereof meant damn little either way. Do recall how they made a fool out of Colin Powell over Iraq.

  4. I agree with most of this article except for one thing. Under the right circumstances, I would not have a problem voting for Danny Trejo. If you have ever seen him in interviews, he is nothing like his movie personas. He is intelligent, well-spoken, and insightful. He is always open about his past problems and tries to help his community by talking openly about his life. I understand the point the article was trying to make, I’m just not sure Danny Trejo was the best example to use.

  5. Joe these are great examples of what many white people do concerning racism. They believe they aren’t racist but have zero friendships/relationships with black folks. They swallow all kinds of tropes without thinking twice. They squirm when they see a black family move next door, play with their children, or attend their schools. Racism is more palatable when wrapped in hypocrisy. And it works. How else can a racist win the governors seat in Virginia screaming about critical race theory being taught in the public schools? It isn’t and it happens to be a valid theory.

  6. Great article, as usual. All good points that should resonate with anyone. But I also read for the entertainment aspect of your writing. Best line of the article, regarding Lindsey Graham:
    “You racist prick!” I LOL’ed my azzoff. There might be an emoji for that, but I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to look it up. Too old to bother.

  7. What should scare us is how very close Walker came to winning. You cannot ignore the combo of poor schools, no respect for education, breeding for stupidity, and toxic religion plus name recognition and the NFL brand. It almost put him.in the Senate. We cannot keep.relying on PoC to rescue this country try. We must do better teaching history and civics. It should never have been this close.Until we fix the South, we will see this happen over and over again.

    • Gillian, it’s not just a case of “fix the South.” There are racists in all parts of the country.

      And, let’s not forget that there have been a number of celebrities who won elective office as Republicans: Arnold Schwarzenegger; Sonny Bono; Clint Eastwood; Ronald Reagan.

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