It’s the Racism, Stupid

The Tea Party’s Legacy and the Rise of MAGA

As I watched the “No Kings” protests unfold this Flag Day, I thought of how many opportunities we Americans had to stop the current fascist regime if only we’d had the courage to call out our festering racism earlier. Instead, the people who don’t think like the fascists but benefit from looking like the fascists didn’t hold them accountable. This is especially true for the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, from 2008 through 2016. The election of the first Black president of the United States caused a tidal wave of white backlash that brought fascism to our shores.

The normalization of the rejection of American diversity by members of the Tea Party in 2009 has led us to where we are today. The Tea Party was a conservative political movement who claimed their goals were opposing excessive taxation and government intervention in the private sector while supporting stronger immigration controls (1). However, this movement was suspiciously only popular from 2009-2016, when Obama was president. Did you ever wonder where the Tea Party members went after President Obama’s term? Did they leave because we fixed government waste and spending after Obama, so the party wasn’t needed anymore? If that were true, we wouldn’t need the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) right now. There wouldn’t be any fraud, waste, and abuse of tax dollars to cut. I believe those Tea Party members found a home in a new cult of racism that was more open about their bigotry, the Make America Great Again movement.

If you're an African-American like me, you’ve watched since 2016 as centrists, and even people who call themselves liberals, try to make nice with people who have made racism their driving ideology. Some Americans really believe, still to this day, that the members of this cult of white supremacy will eventually “come around to their senses” and stop supporting the fascists they’ve chosen to vote for three times.

Some white Americans woke up to the reality that these people will never change on November 6th, 2024, but that was a day late and a dollar short. Fascism had already been elected to the Oval Office by then. People who align themselves with the MAGA movement have unmistakably shown us that they’ll never offer the grace and understanding that has been extended to them to brown and black people. Not only that, they are willing to suffer and watch their children suffer as long as it means people of color hurt too. I find that this kind of sadism is unique to Americans. Until November 2024, African-Americans were the only ones who openly talked about it.

Mainstream Media’s Failure

The American right to a Free Press also comes with a responsibility to inform the public. American journalists had many opportunities to call out the racism of the MAGA movement and every time African-American journalists did, their white colleagues made excuses for them. So many “think pieces” were written from 2016-2024 trying to intellectualize the racism, I lost count. The economy was their usual scapegoat, when even back in 2016 we had data showing that the average Donald Trump voter in the Republican primaries had an annual salary of $70K2.

I remember political talking heads of color calling out the racism of the MAGA movement from 2016-2020 and their voices being dismissed by their white colleagues. Usually along the lines of,

“Well, we don’t know that they're racists.”

“Outside of calling them racists, what do you think motivates these voters?”

“We don’t want to go as far as calling these people ‘racists.’”

American mainstream media’s behavior in the past six months solidifies what we all feared based on their behavior during the first Trump presidential term. As long as their advertising checks are coming in, they will gladly fall in line with fascism and racism. The increasing influx of their newly fired employees into the independent journalism sector should frighten all of us. Our mainstream media normalized Donald Trump and the racism of the MAGA movement every step of the way.

White Liberal Complicity

Finally, let’s not forget the not-so-quiet racism of white centrists and liberals who don’t hold their racist family and community members accountable for their negative behavior. The open racism of white conservatives is useful to white Americans who want human rights the Democrats promise, but still don’t want to live around black and brown people. They can use the systemic racism implemented and upheld by their conservative colleagues to achieve this goal. Remember the viral clip of the white parents in the New York angry about their school becoming more diverse?

These people spent the last sixteen years around their racist family members at family gatherings, holidays, and places of worship. They heard the racist comments from their Tea Party uncle and their MAGA-voting moms. They know exactly who these people are. They grew up around them. Yet they have been gaslighting African-Americans for the last sixteen years every time we tried to call out the racism we saw in the MAGA movement. We were told we were being “too sensitive”, playing the “race card,” or “always blaming racism.” When in reality, we were trying to get a severely avoidant group of people to deal with their most major and glaring flaw before it turned into fascism for everyone else.

The Consequences of Inaction

Since the presidential election of 2024, a lot of white Americans still feign surprise that the festering wound of racism they ignored for eight years has now grown into a stage 4, purulent infected mess. And their sons are right in the middle of it. I’m guessing that’s where a lot of the fear and anxiety comes from now. They did everything “right” as parents. They voted Democrat, raised their kids on Sesame Street, taught them not to be openly racist or bigoted like their Boomer parents. Unfortunately, they never unpacked their own racism (or misogyny) which is why they couldn’t recognize it when their sons were being radicalized by the same online fascist content as the conservatives’ sons.

For white Americans, the retribution that we warned them about for decades is here and no one can save them but themselves. This is why we stayed home today, but are still cheering from the sidelines. This is what we meant when we tried to explain that racism inevitably hurts everyone.

So the next time someone is being racist in private or public, call it out. It will be uncomfortable for everyone and that is how it needs to be. Make racists uncomfortable. Show them they will have no sanctuary in American society.

References

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11317202

2.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/05/05/donald-trump-average-voter-income-72000-middle-class/83972800/