GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama Demonstrates the Racism in the Republican Crime Narrative

In the final weeks of the 2022 midterm campaign, Republicans across the country are blaming Democrats for the uptick in crime rates since the end of covid-related lockdowns. At a Trump rally in Nevada last week, GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville injected some overt racism into the Republican narrative on the issue of crime. It had always been an unstated part of the message, but Tuberville said the quiet part out loud.

C-span: "I have never seen like the crime in this country. We all grew up respecting the police. Our moral values. Doing what we could do to help law enforcement in this country. The Democratic party, they have a majority, they could stop this crime today. Some people say, well, they’re soft on crime. No, they’re not soft on crime, they’re pro crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that."

First, Tuberville is a moron if he thinks that Democrats are orchestrating an increase in violent crime as part of some nefarious conspiracy. Second, he is outright lying about recent crime statistics. He lived through the 1980s and 1990s when violent crime rates were much higher, and today the safest states in America are blue states in the northeast. New Jersey's violent crime rate is less than half that of Texas, for instance. But, more importantly, how in the world did Tuberville get from crime rates to reparations? The answer is race, of course.

AOL/The Hill: "Tuberville’s words at a Nevada campaign rally featuring former President Trump have put race at center stage in the final weeks of the campaign, leaving Democrats arguing the GOP’s crime narrative carries nasty racial overtones."

"The NAACP and other civil rights groups condemned Tuberville’s line as “flat out racist,” but it got a big cheer at the Nevada rally and Republican lawmakers aren’t condemning it, as the sentiment is not unpopular among some GOP base voters."

As far back as the 1980s, race has always been an integral part of the GOP's anti-crime message and former President Donald Trump tied street crime to the Black Lives Matters protests during his 2020 campaign. Tuberville's racist rant was nothing new, but it's a reminder of what Republican politicians believe motivates their base.

#race #politics #news #crime #culture

By: Don Lam & Curated Content