How deep does racism and prejudice run in today’s Republican Party? Karl Rove – yes, THAT Karl Rove, the guy who sold both George W. Bush and the Iraqi War to the American public – announced that racist comments will cause him to vote for a Democrat in a key Texas race. Just to make sure no one missed his reasoning, Rove called the Republican candidate a “bigot.”
The GOP’s “whites only” problem is so pervasive that even Laura Loomer – the same person whose accusations of insufficient loyalty to MAGA and President Trump crushed the career hopes of multiple potential presidential appointees – said it’s “kind of undeniable” that the Republican Party has a “Nazi problem.”
The ugly prejudice that defines today’s Republican Party isn’t just an embarrassment for the GOP. It is a growing crisis of national urgency. The angry, red-faced screeds of politicians like Minnesota U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer are a threat to the country’s future. When Emmer frames the stakes of this November’s election as a choice “between common sense and communism, between America-loving patriots and hate-America extremists, between freedom and tyranny,” he gives credence to the mainstreaming of anger and hatred.
A few years ago, the Journal of Democracy reviewed a growing body of academic evidence showing that the most deadly acts of political violence increasingly were coming from the right. Among its conclusions was this shocking finding: “Yet people committing far-right violence—particularly planned violence rather than spontaneous hate crimes—are older and more established than typical terrorists and violent criminals. They often hold jobs, are married, and have children. Those who attend church or belong to community groups are more likely to hold violent, conspiratorial beliefs. These are not isolated ‘lone wolves’; they are part of a broad community that echoes their ideas.”
That description seems to fit Vance Boelter, the murderer of Melissa and Mark Hortman. But the crisis goes beyond the headline cases. Normalizing lesser displays of anger, reinforces the prejudices that divide us and harm all. The hate-filled rhetoric of political leaders becomes “part of a broad community that echoes their ideas.”
The anger from the right is punishing the country even as Trump proclaims a “Golden Age.” Fewer than half of American adults have sufficient emergency funds to cover three months of basic necessities. The savings rate has dropped to an abysmal 2%. Wage growth once again is trailing inflation.
The wealth gap in this country is wide and deep and growing bigger. According to the Federal Reserve, the top 1% of U.S. households own about as much as the bottom 90%.
And now comes evidence that the massive wealth (an estimated $68 to $84 trillion) once anticipated to pass from baby boomers to their heirs rapidly is eroding. Longer lives, higher health care costs and support for adult children of boomers are among the realties draining inheritance accounts before they are passed to the next generation.
The GOP response to these economic crises mostly have been premised on two pillars: make the wealthy wealthier and make sure that the “broad community” is distracted. And nothing distracts people from their own struggles like blame. Make others the enemy, the cause of one’s pain and distress, and the curtain on what really is happening never gets pulled back.
So, President Trump denounces immigrants as “garbage,” “animals” and “stone cold killers” in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Emmer and others follow suit and absurd policies to detain and deport immigrants somehow become meaningful policies to improve the lives of struggling families. Minnesota is home to about 1% of the country’s undocumented immigrants, yet, the North Star State was home to the country’s largest ICE surge.
The action cost billions of dollars in federal taxpayer money and hundreds of millions more in economic losses for Minnesotans. The massive amount of spending didn’t produce more affordable health care, housing or groceries for Minnesotans. No, it bought the detention of about 3,800 people; less than one-quarter had any criminal conviction. Only a few hundred were “worst of the worst” offenders and most of those already were incarcerated in Minnesota and simply were transferred to ICE custody.
What the surge really bought is distraction from the absence of any meaningful solutions to make Minnesota and the country stronger and the lives of families more affordable.
Immigrants are just one distraction employed by today’s Republicans. Take DEI. Certainly, there are examples of how efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion went too far and achieved too little. At its heart, though, DEI is about meritocracy. Its core purpose is to make sure that employers, schools, the military or any other organization is filling spots from the broadest possible pool of qualified applicants. DEI is intended to make sure that all people in organizations are respected for who they are and what they contribute. These are core American values.
And so it goes. The one-time Republican philosophy was that government should be efficient, limited AND there to help people at times of their lives when they were most vulnerable. That no longer is the case. The vulnerable – people displaced by economic upheaval, those facing significant medical challenges, people left behind by inadequate schools and dangerous neighborhoods – now are viewed as the parasites of an “America for Americans” as long as the Americans are native born, white, non-Muslim and gainfully employed. Bonus points for being wealthy.
At a Faith and Freedom Coalition town hall in June, Emmer said founders of the U.S. “created a Christian-based nation.” He also said ground beef was $2 a pound at a time the national average retail price was about $7. His history is no better than his economics.
The future of the U.S. cannot be built on myths, hatred and distractions masking as public policy. It is a great loss that during this 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, our president is celebrating with wrestling matches and auto races while diminishing the country’s history by wiping the challenges and contributions of enslaved Africans, immigrants and others from our national parks, museums and school curricula.
America is being dumbed down while many of our neighbors are being impoverished. There is a world of smart policy in between the Democratic Socialists of America and the GOP glorification of wealth. President Trump and Republican sycophants want an election defined by the worst of us. The “America for Americans” narrative is just a cruel distraction from the true solutions to what ails the country.
Minnesota and the U.S. deserve an election defined by candidates and policies that challenge us to face the future as one people with shared interests. That is the best of us.
