Senator Mark Kirk Mocks Disabled Veteran Tammy Duckworth for Mixed-Race Heritage

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:26 pm

During a debate between Rep. Tammy Duckworth and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) for his U.S. Senate seat in Springfield, Illinois, Kirk mocked Duckworth’s ancestry, saying in rebuttal of her comments on the true cost of war,

“I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

His remark came in response to her statement that, “My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a Daughter of the American Revolution.”

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Watch courtesy of Deadspin:

Kirk, of course, has claimed to receive military honors he did not, in fact, receive. For him to attack Duckworth is not only the height of hypocrisy but mocking her ancestry is appalling.

The Republican position, as restated here by Kirk, is that it’s okay to come from another country as long as you’re white. Neither Kirk nor his campaign has apologized. Kirk has said Trump should quit over his misogynist comments; apparently, it’s okay to make racist comments.

When Duckworth said her family had served since the American Revolution, she wasn’t joking, and she set Kirk straight in a tweet:

The Illinois senator has unendorsed Donald Trump, one malignant clown calling another a malignant clown, and this latest move has given Kellyanne Conway a rare opportunity to gloat, tweeting,

With a single sentence, Mark Kirk proved you don’t have to support Donald Trump to be a deplorable.

Photo: Screen Capture

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.