Sen. Lindsey Graham recently made a trip Georgia to stomp for Republican candidate Herschel Walker. During the campaign event, Graham made several questionable statements about race and abortion.
Graham made a claim that a win for Walker would mean that Republicans are not racist.
“They’re afraid of Herschel Walker because if Herschel Walker wins, that mean we’re not racist,” Graham said. “And if you’re a Republican, aren’t you tired of being called a racist all the time by everybody?”
Although the Republican party has always had an intriguing history when it comes to Black Americans, there are multiple policies enacted by the Republican party in recent years that have negatively impacted minorities.
For example, there is a conservative backlash against Critical Race Theory being taught in primary schools when it’s usually only taught at the collegiate level. The backlash is really a push to eliminate the teaching of how Blacks suffered due to slavery and Jim Crow laws. The Republicans have supported bills that have restricted voting rights such as S.B. 202 in Georgia. And white supremacists, who overwhelmingly identify as Republican, have been embolden since Donald Trump’s presidential administration.
FBI data show that after Trump was elected, there was a spike in hate crimes concentrated in counties where Trump won by larger margins. It was the second-largest uptick in hate crimes in the 25 years for which data are available, second only to the spike after September 11, 2001.
However, Graham continued to suggest that Walker would be a symbol to prove that Republicans have not embraced racist views over the past few years.
Walker, a former football player without political experience, has shown that he’s mentally incapable of being a U.S. Senator. But due to his popularity, the Republicans appear to be using him as figurehead to push their agenda forward.
Walker will face-off against Sen. Raphael Warnock on Nov. 8.
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