It’s so refreshing when a hack politician commits candor in public. No obfuscation, no word salads, no bullcrap. It’s a breath of fresh air (or, in this case, foul) when someone like Mitch McConnell speaks his true mind.
He did it yesterday when asked whether voters of color should be concerned about the GOP’s sabotage of federal voting rights reform in advance of the midterm elections. His response: “If you look at the statistics, African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”
Gee. I’d always assumed that all citizens, in this land of immigrants, are “Americans” regardless of race, color, or creed. But apparently Mitch insists that a key distinction must be made. Whether it was a Freudian slip (a subconscious belief uttered aloud) or a craven dog whistle (red meat for The Base), his message was crystal clear:
There are real red-blooded Americans (white folks, especially southern Christian white folks)…and then there’s pretty much everyone else.
I tend to suspect that it was a Freudian slip, that for Mitch it’s a core conviction embedded in the genes that can be traced to his slave-holding ancestors who benefited from the labor of people in chains.
His remark inspires all kinds of brain teasers: Are the descendants of the Black folks who literally built the White House less “American” than all the white folks who arrived at Ellis Island a century later? Are the descendants of the Sioux and all the other tribes less “American” than the white folks, even though they were here first? Toni Morrison gave us the best answer 30 years ago: “In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
Fortunately, Black folks appear to be bemused by Mitch’s slip. The hashtag #Mitchplease is trending on Twitter, chock full of shrewd observations. One woman: “I’m so American I don’t even know which part of Africa Mitch’s ancestors stole mine from.” Another: “I’m more American than Mitch McTraitor.” Someone posted a pic of Barack and Michelle, and simply said, “They are Americans.” Someone else posted a pic of Black soldiers in the Union Army and told Mitch, “These Americans helped kick your confederate ass.”
The bottom line, of course, is that Mitch merely stated what MAGA Republicans deeply believe, that it’s imperative to rig minority rule and defend white hegemony against the looming threat of hyphenated pluralism.
In fact, the intended point of his remark yesterday – Black voters are turning out in percentages just as high as so-called real Americans; therefore, they don’t need federal protection – gave away his entire game. It’s broadly true that, in 2020, Black voters (mostly of them anti-Trump) did indeed surge to the polls. Mitch was mostly right about that. But it’s precisely for that reason that Republican state legislatures are currently working overtime to suppress Black clout in future elections – abetted this week by Mitch’s blockage of voting rights reform.
As the old saying goes: When someone lets slip who they really are, believe them.