A Republican lawmaker went full Donald Trump on Tuesday, saying in a Fox Business interview that the YouTube shooter “could be” an undocumented immigrant.
In the interview, GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said “everybody knows that it could be” an undocumented immigrant who was behind Tuesday’s shooting at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California.
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More of Rohrabacher’s off-the-rails comments:
You were going to discuss with me sanctuary cities and the sanctuary state movement, and it fits right into what you’re talking about right now. Would anyone be surprised? .We have a state government in California that’s trying to prevent our law enforcement people from working with the federal law enforcement people to get together the criminal illegal aliens. … Would anyone right now listening to you think, ‘Well, this certainly wouldn’t be an illegal immigrant there.’ Well, it could be. Everybody knows that it could be. … We should be making sure we emphasize that any illegal in this state should be sent back, whether he’s criminal or not.Â
Rohrabacher’s insane comments connecting Tuesday’s shooting with undocumented immigration have no basis in reality. As NBC News noted after the shooting, authorities believe the incident was a “domestic dispute.”
At this hour, at least three people are reportedly wounded as a result of the incident, and the female shooter is dead.
This is the Republican Party under Donald Trump
This sad rhetoric from GOP lawmakers shows just how low the party has gone in the era of Trump. The only way to rile up their base of angry white voters is to inject race into the conversation and continue perpetuating the Trump-GOP myth that all of America’s ills are caused by minorities and immigrants.
For Rohrabacher, this isn’t the first time he has spewed offensive conspiracy theories after a fatal incident. As The Hill noted on Tuesday, “He pushed a conspiracy theory last year that the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. involved Civil War re-enactors manipulated by ‘left-wingers…in order to have this confrontation.'”
This type of language used to be isolated to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. Now it is standard campaign talking points.
For that, we can thank the man in the Oval Office.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
