Contact: Courtney Beyer, [email protected]
“The Party of Trump has replaced the Party of Lincoln”
MADISON — President Donald Trump has spent the last few days doubling down on his racist attacks against four congresswomen of color, suggesting they “go back” to where they came from and that they are “[in]capable of loving” our country. Consequently, Wisconsin Republicans have spent the last few days fumbling in their responses to Trump’s tweets, none willing to stand up to Trump and call the tweets what they are — racist.
On the House floor on Tuesday, Rep. Sean Duffy gladly covered for Trump’s tweets, attempting to make the case that they couldn’t be racist without explicitly mentioning race. He even echoed Trump’s racist sentiments, calling the four congresswomen “anti-American.”
Freshman congressman Bryan Steil struggled to say anything of substance when asked point-blank on Capital City Sunday whether or not he found Trump’s tweets racist. Instead he sputtered three different responses about being “frustrated.” Evidently he wasn’t frustrated enough to directly address the question.
Senator Ron Johnson meanwhile waxed nostalgic about the 1960’s when Trump’s language towards the congresswomen “wasn’t considered racist” and lamented that the tweets, targeted at four women of color, were being considered in a “racial framework.”
Reps. Gallagher, Sensenbrenner and Grothman all refused to call the tweets racist.
“When Trump stokes hate and division, Wisconsin’s Republican congressional delegation refuses to hold him accountable—or worse yet, actively enables him,” said Ben Wikler, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “The GOP’s complicity in Trump’s racism demonstrates that the party first founded in Ripon to oppose slavery is dead. The Party of Trump has replaced the Party of Lincoln. The GOP betrays inclusive Wisconsin values in order to inflame hate while picking the pockets of people of all races.”
