Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville took time out of his one-man war against the U.S. military to be racist again, which isn't too much of a surprise considering that being racist is Tuberville's second favorite hobby.
This time around Tuberville is disputing whether white nationalism is racist to begin with. Tuberville offered up this wisdom during an interview conducted by CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who was pressing Tuberville on another racist outburst a few months back in which he claimed that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was "destroying" our military by attempting to "get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don't believe in our agenda, as Joe Biden's agenda."
Tuberville wouldn't take Collins' invitation to revise those past remarks, but instead cemented his shoes firmly into that ground. Collins again asked Tuberville to weigh in on whether the military should accept open white nationalists, who believe "that the white race is superior to other races."
"Well that’s some people’s opinion," Tuberville said dismissively. Asked to clarify, he instead offered up a bowl of word mush.
"My opinion of a white nationalist—if someone wants to call them white nationalist—to me, is an American. It’s an American. Now if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do because I am 110 percent against racism."
Tuberville went on in the same vein, appearing to believe that by "white nationalists" the military was discriminating against all white people no matter how many times Collins tried to explain it to him.
Tuberville: "I'm totally against identity politics. I think it's ruining this country and I think that Democrats oughta be ashamed for how they're doing this, because it's dividing this country, it's making this country weaker every day."
Collins: "But that's not identity politics. You said a white nationalist is an American, but a white nationalist is someone who believes horrific things. Do you really think that's someone who should be serving in the military?"
Tuberville: "Well that's just a name that's been given."
Collins: "It's not! It's a real definition. There's real concerns about extremism."
Tuberville: "If you're going to do away with most white people in this country out the military, we've got huge problems."
Collins: "It's not people who are white, it's white nationalists. You see the distinction, right?"
Tuberville: "That have a few probably different beliefs, they have different beliefs. Now, if racism is one of those beliefs, I'm totally against it. I'm totally against racism."
At this point, reader, you are probably asking yourself the question: Is Tommy Tuberville stupid? And the answer is an emphatic yes, and how. The man isn't just stupid, the man is a walking monument to stupid. He’s a shambling and besuited Washington Monument of stupid wandering around the U.S. Capitol because Alabama Republicans apparently thought it would be hilarious to nominate a block of wood to the Senate, and Tuberville was as close as they could get while still meeting the technical qualifications for office.
It is very likely that Tuberville does not understand the difference between white nationalism and white Americans in general, because it's entirely possible that Tuberville has never met a white American who wasn't a white nationalist and he, like plenty of other white nationalists, can't fathom how you'd separate the two to begin with.
We could bicker over Tuberville's argument that white nationalism is "just a name that's been given," instead explaining that since white nationalism is the belief that white citizens must be in charge of government while nonwhite citizens are either granted far less privileges or removed from the country entirely so as to maintain white hegemony, it is inherently and explicitly racist because come the f--k on here. But all Tuberville hears is that you're planning to "do away with most white people in this country out of the military" because the man has a cinderblock where his brain should be.
Tuberville was careful to preface this whole bizarre rant with an explanation of why he himself wasn't racist, though. It's because he was a football coach. Everything in Tuberville's political career revolves around being an ex-football coach.
"I was a football coach for 40 years and had the opportunity to be around more minorities than anybody up on this Hill," he told Collins. Oh, so there you go. It's not even that Tommy has a Black friend, he's just seen a lot of Black people.
I swear Alabama Republicans inflicted this jackass on us out of spite.
In any event, we're now to the second part of the Tuberville Says Plainly Racist Things news cycle, the one where other Republicans are already being asked to weigh in on whether they agree with Tuberville that white nationalism doesn't count as racist and they run for the hills until reporters forget about it again. Expect more than a few flubs as Tuberville's colleagues try to distance themselves from his claims while simultaneously trying to avoid pissing off the party's white nationalist base.
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