When I was a kid growing up, my mother taught us that prejudice, as we called racism, was intolerable. She once stopped using a babysitter who used the n-word while caring for us. She would not let my brother go home from school with one of his classmates because the family used derogatory language in referring to African Americans. Her actions informed us but did not change them.

Fifty years later, that boy is grown and still using the n-word and sharing racist memes on Facebook. He’s not a miscreant. He’s college-educated and a respected member of his community who has a good job and volunteers regularly. He’s also a rabid Trump supporter and hard-core Republican. 

He’s not alone. I’m originally from a part of the world where Trump flags still fly and signs on convenience stores declare it “Trump country.” 

After the assault on the Capitol, I went down the rabbit hole of Facebook pages belonging to Trump supporters from my home county. Most of these folks are solidly middle class. 

I stumbled on one meme from five years ago that showed a moving van with lettering that read “Two n****** and a stolen truck” and “We move shit like it was our’s.” It contained caricatures of two African natives carrying spears. The meme had nine shares and fifteen likes. It’s still up on Facebook. 

A quick trip through the profiles of the people who liked and shared the meme showed they have a few traits in common. Most were proud Trump supporters. They were solidly middle-class and proudly Christian. They were also middle-aged and retirees. And, clearly, they were not ashamed of their views. I am sure that if you asked them if they were racist, they would answer, “No.”  

That’s who the Republicans are scared of alienating. Certainly, not all Republicans are racists, but, right now, the leaders of the Republican Party are coddling the racist wing of the party. They are indulging the fantasies of conspiracy theorists and seditionists who see themselves as patriots. 

Last night, the GOP House caucus gave a standing ovation to Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a Congresswoman from Georgia who spews Qanon conspiracies, promotes racist memes, and believes the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary and Stoneman Douglas High School were false flags meant to promote gun control. Then, the GOP caucus debated for three hours to determine whether or not to strip Congresswoman Liz Cheney of her leadership position because she voted to impeach Trump. Fortunately for the sane wing of the GOP, Cheney prevailed. 

This morning, hot takes contend that the Cheney vote proves that most Republicans really don’t believe the stuff they are defending. Morning Dispatch wrote, “As we’ve written repeatedly, the majority of Republican lawmakers here in Washington are far less Trumpy personally than they would ever let on.” Blogger Erick Erickson wrote, “In public, the House GOP engages in performance art for Trump and Trump voters. In private, they’re still more the Bush-Cheney Party than the Trump Party.”

So the best defense of Republican elected leaders is that they aren’t who they say they are. And here’s the kicker. They say they support racist, conspiracy theorists who instigated an assault on the Capitol by people who wanted to kill the vice-president and members of Congress.

That’s quite a reversal. Not too long ago they insisted that they did not support the racists that they are now defending. They blasted Democrats accusing them of backing White supremacists. Now, we’re supposed to believe that they are only pretending to support them. 

Regardless of whether the GOP leadership was playacting then or now, the people to whom they are trying to appeal are racists and dangerous conspiracy theorists. They conflate patriotism with nationalism and eschew democracy for authoritarianism. They are not a fringe group. Many are community leaders, often with college degrees, and they have always believed quietly what they are saying out loud today because, until recently, one party condemned their beliefs and the other denied they held them. 

They have been here my whole life. In telling my brother he couldn’t go to that boy’s house, my mother taught us that what they said and believed about Black people was socially unacceptable. That type of ostracism drove the bigots into the shadows. In a country that values freedom speech and freedom of expression, that’s the best that we can do. They will never completely go away.

The Republican Party today is telling their base that it’s okay to be racist and crazy. They won’t be condemned anymore. On the contrary, they will get a standing ovation. They have made bigotry acceptable again and, THAT, is unacceptable. We should be ostracizing them and driving them back into the shadows, not making excuses for them.  We might not be able to eliminate the racists, but we certainly don’t need to give them a platform.