Republican efforts to enhance their appeal with minority voters suffered a series of setbacks this week when a pair of GOP lawmakers made racially explosive comments, stirring immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and threatening to muddy the party\u2019s message of big-tent inclusivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House Republican leaders have spent much of the year highlighting the party\u2019s advances in recruiting women and minorities, linking a diverse slate of candidates to their success in flipping control of the lower chamber last year. And they retain high hopes of expanding on those gains in the 2024 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that image-shaping campaign was dealt a hard blow this week when Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) gave voice to bigoted sentiments, prompting rebukes from Republican leaders and sparking warnings from some rank-and-file members that the party\u2019s efforts to attract more minorities just got more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt makes it very tough,\u201d Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said. \u201cWe want to be a big tent; we want to have diversity in our party; and it makes it difficult to do that when those types of comments are made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tuberville stirred a firestorm of controversy on Monday, when he told CNN that white nationalists \u2014 a group defined as \u201cmilitant white people who espouse white supremacy and advocate enforced racial segregation,\u201d according to Merriam-Webster \u2014 are not inherently racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s your opinion,\u201d he told host Kaitlan Collins, adding that a white nationalist \u201cis an American.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The remarks were widely denounced by senators in both parties, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who pushed back by declaring white supremacy to be \u201csimply unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amid the outcry, Tuberville changed his tune, stipulating that white nationalists \u201care racists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across the Capitol, Crane sparked his own uproar on Thursday evening, when he referred to African Americans as \u201ccolored people\u201d while promoting an \u201canti-woke\u201d proposal on the House floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The highly derogatory comment drew an immediate response from Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), a former Black Caucus chair, who asked for the remarks to be stricken from the official congressional record \u2014 a request that was granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Crane later issued a statement asserting that he \u201cmisspoke,\u201d and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), after deeming the remarks \u201cnot acceptable,\u201d said he would \u201ctake him at his word.\u201d But some Democrats want Crane to go further, to issue an apology, and Beatty said Friday that she\u2019s not buying Crane\u2019s slip-of-the-tongue explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely part of a political strategy,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is all about elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Race has always been a delicate \u2014 and highly charged \u2014 issue on Capitol Hill, frequently dividing the parties in debates over thorny topics like voting rights, criminal justice and the role of the federal government in confronting historic systems of abuse and discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the polarization rose to new heights under former President Trump, who stirred countless race-based controversies, including a show of support for the white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, and for similar groups that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Many Democrats openly accused Trump, the current frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary, of being a racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that context, Democrats wasted no time this week assailing the incendiary remarks from Tuberville and Crane, saying they reflect a broader \u2014 and highly toxic \u2014 GOP strategy of using racially loaded rhetoric to energize conservative base voters, who tend to be white. In this case, the Democrats say, Republicans went even further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure they do this to rile up their base,\u201d said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), another former head of the Congressional Black Caucus. \u201cThey know what they\u2019re doing, but I think it\u2019s a real moral disgrace. \u2026 These are worse than dog whistles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dust-up involving Crane came during a days-long debate over a major defense policy bill, which passed through the House on Friday after McCarthy agreed to add dozens of conservative amendments. Among the additions were several proposals to block the Pentagon from implementing so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which are designed to promote cultural understanding among service members from different walks of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republicans have bashed DEI initiatives as a form of \u201csocial experiment\u201d that will weaken the military\u2019s fighting prowess. Beatty countered that Crane\u2019s insensitive comments are just the latest evidence that DEI programs are valuable in any work environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThrough DEI, you learn about civility and how to get along,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) agreed, arguing that any troubles Republicans have in appealing to minority voters are derived not only from their rhetoric, but legislative priorities like those revealed in the defense bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s loaded up on changes that would create burdens that fall most heavily on minority families and service members. It\u2019s not implicit anymore, it\u2019s expressed,\u201d he said. \u201cSo they might talk about inclusion, but at every turn they\u2019re going in a completely different direction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most Republicans, meanwhile, have rejected the idea that their party promotes racial inequality in any form. While condemning the comments from Tuberville and Crane, they\u2019re also dismissing them as simple blunders, or at least episodes that are irrelevant to the economic concerns faced by voters outside the Beltway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe live in an amazing country, and while there are racists, like there are pedophiles, that\u2019s not what defines us,\u201d Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said. \u201cWhat I hear back home is concern about real life. When I say \u2018real life,\u2019 I\u2019m not saying that [racist rhetoric] is not important. But I\u2019m just saying back home, in a minority district, what I get calls about are inflation, gasoline prices, obviously housing prices \u2014 things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) also downplayed the week\u2019s racially-charged controversies, saying Democrats are making political hay in search of election gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe narrative that the Republican Party\u2019s racist is absolute nonsense,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cCan we be better at reaching out to minority communities and recruit more women? Yeah, we can do a better job of that. But \u2026 our opponents use it to unfairly define our party. It\u2019s just not true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked if Tuberville\u2019s white nationalist remarks make that outreach more difficult, Stewart questioned the nefariousness of the term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo. 1 is I would say: What is white nationalism? I don\u2019t even know what that means,\u201d he said. \u201cBut yeah, when people say things that are awkward, it certainly doesn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in the eyes of many Black lawmakers, the week\u2019s racially charged comments delivered by Republicans reflect a broader lack of empathy for the unique discrimination African Americans have experienced \u2014 and continue to face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Lee described an incident in the last Congress when she was racing to votes in the Capitol from her Cannon office and was blocked from a \u201cmembers-only\u201d elevator by a white, male tourist who challenged her status as a member of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI had my pin on. I said, \u201cThis is my pin, look, I\u2019m a member of Congress,’\u201d Lee said, referring to the lapel pins that identify lawmakers around the Capitol complex. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Who\u2019d you steal that pin from?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the kind of stuff we have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n