As Donald Trump ramps up his racist rhetoric ahead of the 2020 election, his allies and media surrogates are scrambling to gaslight the country into thinking that the president’s overt, intentional, weaponized bigotry is actually a myth being fabricated by liberals.
Republicans want it both ways. They want to be able to use racism to whip up the hateful wing of their base into a frenzy and drive them to the ballot box, but they also want to be able to deny that they’re being racist in the first place. They want the effect with none of the deserved backlash.
With that in mind, it’s perhaps unsurprising that conservatives are trying to stamp out any discussion of racism at all. It’s become so extreme that they’re even pouncing en masse on the new 1619 project from The New York Times Magazine, a bold attempt to truthfully tell the full, unvarnished history of slavery in America exactly four hundred years after the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia.
Rather than grapple with our complicated and often dark and brutal history as a nation, Republicans are slamming the Times for having the temerity to bluntly write about historical facts. The GOP would much rather pretend that slavery never even happened.
Greg Gutfeld, one of the most ignorant and boorish of all the Fox News personalities, attacked the 1619 project as a conspiracy to build a “greater narrative” to undermine and “demonize” President Trump. With his usual prideful ignorance, he conceded that he had not read the article but didn’t let that embarrassing fact stop him from pontificating baselessly. The man is a complete joke and the fact that he has such a massive platform from which to spew his nonsense is a disgrace.
Fox News host showing that preparation and research Fox News is known for: "That slave article … I didn't read it, but my assumptions are this is part of a greater narrative to paint Donald Trump as racist" pic.twitter.com/estxteo4uA
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 19, 2019
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Former Republican Speaker of the House and pro-Trump ghoul Gingrich got in on the action as well, appearing on Fox to call the 1619 Project a “lie.” He engaged in the usual racist, conservative revisionism by trying to shamelessly downplay the significance of slavery in a manner in which no serious student of history would.
Fox's Newt Gingrich calls The New York Times' #1619Project "a lie" and complains that the "several hundred thousand white Americans who died in the Civil War" don't get enough credit. Gingrich also suggests that the #1619Project is ultimately about impeaching Trump. pic.twitter.com/W489EABIsX
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) August 19, 2019
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Other prominent conservatives joined the stampede on Twitter.
Contrary to its stated goals, it appears the purpose of the 1619 Project is to delegitimize America, and further divide and demoralize its citizenry https://t.co/1c1F0hyZ5A
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) August 18, 2019
If the land in which the United States was founded has been tainted by racism since the 1600s and everything derived therefrom is therefore tainted, then the US is illegitimate, the constitution is illegitimate, and revolution is the answer —
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 18, 2019
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that’s the path down which The NY Times heads and it will make the President’s remarks about the New York Times being the enemy of the people sound prescient to a lot of people.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 18, 2019
Once you declare the United States a racist enterprise, you light a fire that will eventually consume you too.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 18, 2019
This Republican backlash is so telling as to be almost laughable. Republicans need racism to stay in power and stoking racial divisions is specifically what got Donald Trump elected. The media is finally starting to honestly discuss those basic, inarguable facts and so conservatives are losing it.
There’s a simple litmus test here: if you’re angry about a frank discussion of slavery, you’re probably in a racist party.
