Republicans have been using racist dog whistles to divide Americans since LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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Back in the 1970s, Republican campaign consultant Lee Atwater explained the Republicans’ Southern Strategy:
Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “nigger, nigger.”
This spells out the Republicans’ desire to use race to divide Americans against each other in order to gain power and conquer. It works almost every time and the media is totally complicit.
The latest in a long line of epithets is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — or DEI. Donald Trump and his Republican machine are busy removing any hint of DEI from the entire government. They are trying to ban it from private companies and institutions of higher learning as well.
It makes no difference that DEI is designed to improve the overall performance of organizations by getting the most from every employee. All that matters is that Republicans want to blame DEI for allowing people of color to rise to positions equal with whites. They can’t accept the words of our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While you’re here enjoying DonkeyHotey’s latest cartoon, please take a moment to read these articles on related topics:
- Trump’s Unlawful Firing of Inspectors General Draws Bipartisan Inquiry
- Musk’s DOGE Hit with Multiple Lawsuits Over Violating Federal Law
- Other DonkeyHotey cartoons
The cartoon above was created by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy from these images: Donald Trump caricature (DonkeyHotey / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED), hall (Pinakpani / Wikimedia – CC BY 4.0 DEED), hammers (Renee Gaudet / Pixabay), hammer (Maria_Domnina / Pixabay), and mallet (rarestohanean/ Pixabay).
