Last updated on October 17th, 2015 at 01:44 am
It is an open secret that the Republican Party has a problem with non-white voters. While Donald Trump’s headline grabbing comments implying that Mexican immigrants were rapists drove that point home most, even the supposedly moderate Jeb Bush has fumbled his way into making a series of ethnic slurs on the campaign trail.
Bush made headlines in August when he argued that Asians were taking advantage of birthright citizenship to have “anchor babies”. While he later tried to clarify and apologize for his remarks, Bush and the Republicans still seem intent on alienating as many non-white constituencies as possible.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Jeb Bush has now inserted jokes about the Washington Redskins team name into his stump speeches, in a way that is likely to offend many American Indians/Native Americans. Jeb, attempting to be funny, has begun arguing that in the team name Washington Redskins, it is the word “Washington” and not the word “Redskins” that people should find offensive.
Jeb has hammered home that point several times, with comments like:
Now, there was a big argument about the Washington Redskins, the ‘Redskins’ being a pejorative term. I think ‘Washington’ is the pejorative term, not the ‘Redskins.
[[AD2]]
How clever of him. In two short sentences, Bush’s message encapsulates many of the GOP base voters’ greatest prejudices. Jeb’s corny joke attacks Washington, because of course the federal government is the true villain in any tea party tale of national malaise. In addition, his joke dismisses the controversy over the Redskins team name as needless political correctness, and by extension, he belittles the concerns Native people have about the derogatory stereotypes the name invokes.
Jeb Bush is probably well aware that there is little direct political cost to ignoring American Indian concerns. Few Native Americans vote Republican, and if Bush can get some mileage out of mocking indigenous people to shore up his support from White racists, so be it.
The problem for Bush however, is that his callous jokes reinforce a larger narrative about the Republican Party as being hostile to racial and ethnic minorities. That perception not only damages the GOP with minority voters, it also alienates a significant chunk of white voters who would rather not elect an openly racist president.
Jeb Bush’s silly jokes about changing the Washington Redskins team name to something less offensive like the “Northern Virginia Redskins” may generate some laughs in rooms full of Republican primary voters, but they aren’t funny to most of the rest of America. They only further reinforce the GOP’s image as a party that has become a haven for insensitive bigots and the political cowards who cater to them to harvest votes.
Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.
