Bigotry Isn't The Cheat Code MAGA Thinks It Is
And Democrats shouldn't let Republicans or centrists pollsters convince them otherwise
Earlier this month, a woman in Rochester, MN, called a five year old child a “n****r,” and for her sins, MAGA rallied to raise her almost a million dollars on a platform called GiveSendGo, which markets itself to Christians.
The story roiled the community and the internet—particularly on the platform formerly known as Twitter—but barely made a blip in national politics.
Now imagine if it had.
I think all decent people who watched this episode unfold were appalled by it, and what it revealed about the character of the American right. It’s a rare controversy where the antagonists are clear and there’s nothing redemptive or sympathetic about them. No extenuating circumstances conservatives can point to and say, “wellll…”
For this reason, it also divided MAGA. Most pro-Trump influencers climbed on board with the goal of making the “called-a-child-the-n-word” lady rich, but some did not. They understood this campaign stained the whole movement. Some of them know, at some level, that there are degrees of bigotry and callousness past which Republicans alienate the center.
“What’s the goal in rewarding this?” asked the anti-trans MAGA activist Riley Gaines.
All things considered, I think it’s fine that the political left didn’t really drive the wedge here. I could argue it both ways. This is something MAGA did. MAGA deserves the brand damage and internal recriminations. The right managed to create an incentive for racists to harass children then martyr themselves—it’s hard to think of anything more cynical and cruel this side of murder. At the same time, we’d probably be better off as a society if this incident receded from the spotlight before copycats seized on it. We all bear responsibility for the consequences of the discourse we choose, and it’s not as though national discourse isn’t replete with farther-reaching questions of racial injustice at the moment.
But I think the incident illustrates a broader point. Republicans often think they can hold pluralities, maybe even majorities, by antagonizing minorities—at least so long as they maintain the plausible deniability that they aren’t fomenting outright hatred. They choose weak targets, stigmatize them to the unwashed masses, then sit back and hope people on the left sharpen dividing lines by siding with the weak.
Sometimes, as a matter of raw, immoral politics, this works out OK for them. It has arguably even helped Republicans win elections. But it isn’t quite as plug-and-play as they imagine. For one thing, they don’t control the actions of their most feral supporters, some of whom will take popular appeals—free speech good, cancel culture bad—and strip away the artifice: you should be able to call a five year old the n-word, and raise money off the backlash.
They also don’t really know where the line is.