It’s the Stupid Racism
Stupid is as stupid does.
One of the many problems with Donald Trump’s (and, by extension, JD Vance’s) approach to politics is that it emboldens and empowers racism and xenophobia within his allies.
To wit, US Representative Clay Higgins (R-LA03) yesterday on Twitter:
Higgins faced immediate criticism and deleted the tweet. He also provided this less-than-impressive explanation:
“You never want to intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, and that post was intended for Haitian gangs, you understand?” Higgins told reporters. “Not for, I mean, Haiti as a country, not at all. And the unintended impact that was expressed very sincerely from one of my colleagues very graciously, that touched me as a gentleman.”
Hmm. Let’s see, he called Haiti the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere,” so that aimed straight at Haiti as a country. Moreover, the notion that he was just talking about gangs is absurd, or, at best (and I use that word with more than a little irony) that he thinks that the Haitians in Springfield are all in gangs (because, after all, what else would a bunch of darker hued foreigners be doing?).
This is very much a non-apology apology (indeed, I think the technical term is bullshit).
Further, the calls by Higgins (following Trump) that legal immigrants have to be forcibly ejected from their homes sounds pretty fascistic to me.
And he doesn’t exactly appear to be all that remorseful in any event:
Higgins deleted the social media post on Wednesday following a confrontation from members of the CBC, including Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), chair of the caucus, but doubled down on the comments shortly after in a statement to CNN.
“It’s all true. I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to,” Higgins sent to Anderson Cooper. “I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I’ll say what I want. It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life.”
Speaking of Copper, this is worth a view: Anderson Cooper reacts to GOP defending congressman who demanded Haitians leave US.
The clip of Speaker Johnson solmenly entoning that Higgins prayed about it and delted the tweet is almost cartoonish. To use language that Johnson would fully famialir with, let me note Luke 6:45, quoting some dude named Jesus: “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
I’m fascinated by the origins of this idea that “we have free speech” means “people cannot be held morally responsible for the hateful things they say.” I want reporters to ask politicians who play the free speech card exactly that: “When you say ‘free speech’, do you mean that people can’t be criticized for saying hateful or hurtful or harmful things? You were perfectly free to say it; they are perfectly free to point out that what you said is both hateful and false.”
@DrDaveT: Personally, I think he should leave the tweet up. He can say whatever crazy racist lies he wants, and this way we know how he feels and how he rolls.
And we can vote accordingly.
Along with all the other falsehoods in that tweet, he called Vance the VP. Vance has never been VP. Calling Trump the President is a bit of a stretch, too, but much less so.
[Linguistic hairsplitting ahead, you have been warned]
That is, to me, referring to him as President Trump, or Obama as President Obama is ok, though I wouldn’t do it. But calling Trump the President is just flat wrong. (Calling him the “once and future President” would be fine.) But it’s not as wrong as calling Vance the VP.
@Jay L Gischer:
As an aside, all former presidents are allowed the courtesy title of “president” preceding their surnames. This custom is and was followed by all occupants of the office except for Eisenhower, who wished to be known as “general.”
You’re certainly right about Vance.
Yeah, no, freedom of speech is the freedom of the people to speak (within proscribed limits) without facing punishment.
What we have here an agent of the government arguing that freedom of speech allows him, a government agent, to slander the people without consequence.
Not just wrong, but the exact opposite, and utterly gross.
@Jay L Gischer:
We don’t get to vote. Only LA-03 gets to vote. And they probably agree with his statement and believe he only took it down because the “elites” pressured him. But they know it expressed what’s in his heart, and theirs.
@CSK:
While this may be valid in a technical sense, it’s important to realize that Republicans right now are using the moniker “President Trump” as a way of nodding at 2020 election denialism while giving themselves plausible deniability. First of all, the practice of referring to former presidents with the “President” title tends to be restricted to fairly formal contexts. Most of the people calling him “President Trump” have rarely if ever used that title for Clinton or Bush or Obama after they left office, and if you pay attention, they’re probably not referring to the current president as “President Biden.”
I live in a small conservative town in rural Oregon. Recently a family-owned gas/mini-mart business (a local favorite for years) was sold to a company that appears to be of Indian (the country) descent. The new owners obviously are part of a chain, because they immediately made remodeling changes to enlarge and move the cigarette/vaping and coffee products to be the main focus at check-out and tore up the old sitting area where old-timers came to get coffee and chat. Not a good move from the local perspective. I noticed when I bought gas that the lady in front of me spent a lot of time reviewing her receipt and in an unfriendly manner asked for a different receipt. A suspicious and cold moment. It didn’t help that the person handling the transaction didn’t speak English well and needed assistance from his boss. I immediately though of the racist influence of the Trump/Vance ticket and groaned inwardly.
We’ve talked a lot about how Republicans use the term “freedom of speech” for situations that have nothing to do with freedom of speech. That said, I should mention that there are situations where I would agree with, or at least see some merit to, the free-speech arguments of some right-wingers–the Nazi march in Skokie, for example, or for those right-wingers who have been the target of hate-speech laws in some other countries, or the funeral-picketing by the Westboro Baptist Church (which I’m somewhat torn on). But one thing that’s clear to me is that “I have a right to free speech,” valid or not, is a terrible argument in defense of one’s views. I cannot imagine ever defending my opinions by saying “it’s a free country, I have the right to say it.” Yet that’s one of the commonest rallying cries you hear on the right.
One of the core problems is that these people are pathologically incapable of the sort of introspection needed to stand outside themselves for a few moments and separate their opinions from the underlying legal and constitutional principles they claim to stand for. Real free-speech advocates recognize that their principles may sometimes lead them to uncomfortable conclusions, such as the idea that people they find abhorrent have the right to free speech, and therefore the right to free speech does not imply anything good whatsoever about the speech under attack. Most of these right-wingers can’t process that dichotomy because their entire worldview is based on the idea that all their moral beliefs must be simple and clear to them, there are no dilemmas or things they wrestle with. As a result, their understanding of freedom of speech is always going to be limited to the notion that their own eternally correct and true opinions are being suppressed by the bad guys. That’s why, in the next breath, they’re fine trying to suppress the opinions of other people, without ever noticing the hypocrisy.
@Kylopod:
Because it’s not actually a defense at all. It expresses nothing beyond “hahaha you can’t put me in jail for saying this,” which is really as low as one can go when trying to “defend” something.
The “I HAVES FREE SPEECH” argument is so very annoying. The first amendment prevents speech from being sanctioned or censored by government. A lot of people are fundamentally very, very dumb about this distinction.
Also, free speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of what you say. If you say something blatantly racist, as Rep. Higgins (R-Dingdong) has, expect blowback and community censure and stop the whining.
Apparently Disney didn’t have free speech in Florida.
Big man with a big bad mouth. He might reconsider his words if someone kneed him in the crotch the next time he says something similar.
@gVOR10: Yeah, we don’t get to vote specifically on Higgins, but Higgins has the ability to drag the rest of the party down, which is why I’m guessing that Speaker Johnson privately took him to the woodshed, which he then described is “praying about it”.
Nastiest country inn the Western hemisphere, eh? I could take Higgins to several border towns in the southwest, from California to Texas, and he’d believe he was in a third world country if he didn’t know he could hit I-8 and I-10 and he in a space he recognized. There are some honest-to-God (if you believe in that kind of thing) shytholes right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. You never see the politicians there, though.
@Skookum: I live in a small, pop ~ 2k, blue town in rural Oregon. Waldport. Only one red light but 2 gas stations. One has a small convenience store. I think it was Gulf until about 2 years ago when it became Town Pump with an all Indian staff. I would guess it’s a family and they all work 70 or 80 hours a week. If they changed anything in the layout I didn’t notice but I’m not there often. I’ve never seen anyone being condescending towards them during my rare visits.
@CSK: Eisenhower was a five star general. Five star flag officers are lifetime appointments. After leaving active service they are listed as active duty, unassigned. When Eisenhower left office he was the first former president under the new Presidential Pension Act and his salary as a five star general was greater than his presidential pension.
One of my least favorite moves is the claim that “freedom of speech” somehow excuses their chosen speech from criticism. You have the right to espouse dumb ideas. I have the right to criticize you.
People want one side of the coin only and not both.
Some very dumb people think that they cannot be criticized because “free speech” and those that do are not disagreeing, but are assholes. (Charontwo?)