Why Are Progressives Reluctant to Condemn These Racist Remarks?
Rex Chapman made a racial mockery against Justice Clarence Thomas and progressives seem to not care. The progressive movement needs a David French of their own, to restrain their bigoted fringe.
In case anyone missed it, the Supreme Court recently reversed Roe v. Wade and a lot of people are, well, quite upset.
Now, as I’ve previously pointed out, I believe most of this anger is misdirected. I understand why pro-choicers are unnerved that strict abortion laws are going into effect in many states, but believe this passion should be directed at legislators instead of the courts. Simply speaking, handing such a divisive and controversial issue to democratic legislatures is a better outcome than having unelected justices legislate from the bench. If the Supreme Court had ruled that abortion access was unconstitutional, pro-choicers would be outraged for the same reason that pro-lifers opposed Roe; that it removed democratic processes from deciding on abortion.
To my utter surprise, however, progressives have not exactly heeded my advice. My feelings are hurt, but that’s okay. People have a right to criticize and admonish the Supreme Court Justices even if I think it to be ineffective and mistaken. What has grossly appalled me more than anything is to see the relentless racist attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas in particular.
Now, it is a sad truth that there will always be racist people saying racist things, especially on Twitter. In a country of 330 million people, even a minuscule percentage of racists still make up a lot of racist people. Because these people are typically searching for a platform and trolling for attention, it’s generally best to ignore them and not highlight their racist antics. However, when people with a significant following take their anger to a place of race, it should be unilaterally called out.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Rex Chapman took to Twitter to unleash a bizarre and detestable rant against Justice Clarence Thomas. If you are not familiar with Rex Chapman, don’t worry, neither was I. Chapman, a former college and professional basketball star turned social media influencer and political commentator, boasts 1.2 million Twitter followers. He was a host on the ill-fated CNN+ and currently produces a popular podcast, The Rex Chapman Show.
The apparent assertion in Chapman’s first top two tweets seems to be that Clarence Thomas does not obtain the skill set of a professional basketball player—and isn’t even an NBA fan!—clearly rendering Thomas unfit for the Supreme Court.
In the bottom tweet, Chapman ostensibly seems to be mocking the Justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas, who succumbed to wackadoodle tribalism and became active in the “Stop the Steal” movement. However, a closer look will reveal that the bottom two images are actually of Kentucky Attorneys General Daniel Cameron and his wife Elizabeth Cameron (who was not involved in an effort to overturn the election). Chapman predicts in a preceding tweet that Cameron will eventually succeed Thomas’ seat on the Supreme Court. Yet, the parallel Chapman makes is not one of similar judicial philosophies of Thomas and Cameron, but of the shared race of their wives. Absolutely grotesque.
Now some may contend that these tweets are necessarily racist. That’s fine. My point here is not to quibble over the semantics of racism, but to note that these foul and incoherent ramblings of a Twitter performer should be condemned. However, not a single blue-checkmark progressive has condemned Chapman’s remarks.
These should be the type of comments that progressives find easy to denounce. Afterall, the people who pride themselves in being actively anti-racist, and chant that silence is complicity should find it easy to condemn those who make a mockery of interracial marriage. Yet, it seems to be the case that popular front mentality—no enemies to the left, no friends to the right—is the prevailing factor here.
It also may be that some progressive leaders simply aren’t bold enough to challenge Rex Chapman. Afterall, his 1.2 million Twitter followers provide him considerable influence, more followers than The Daily Wire, Ana Kasparian, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and the personal accounts of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The irony here is that withholding condemnation for Chapman does not benefit the progressive cause. Even those praying for a Clarence Thomas impeachment and believe that his judicial philosophy derives from a Margaret Atchwood novel must recognize that resorting to racial attacks doesn’t persuade more people to their side, but likely induces the opposite.
Progressives should learn that policing loathsome extremes of their own side would improve their movement while also elevating the level of civil discourse. Conservative intellectual William F. Buckley famously exercised this approach in the 1960s, exiling the extreme-right John Birch Society from the conservative movement. While the current conservative movement has had some notable reluctance to do the same to Q-Anon and Nick Fuentes-types, there still exist prominent conservatives policing the extremes of their movement.
Perhaps the most notable of this bunch is David French of The Dispatch and The Atlantic. French’s conservative bona fides are apparent; he formerly wrote for the Buckley-founded National Review, was President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and is a recipient of the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) Reagan Award. And unlike the former “conservatives” at the Lincoln Project, now functionally a Democratic party SuperPAC, French still advocates for traditional conservative values. Yet, he often criticizes various factions within the conservative movement, such as the MAGA-crowd, right-wing statists, conspiracy theorists, and parts of the religious right.
Some examples of French criticizing certain depths of the right include, “The New Right’s Strange and Dangerous Cult of Toughness,” “For Abortion Abolition, Against Abortion Abolitionists,” and “A Critique of Tim Keller Reveals the Moral Devolution of the New Christian Right.”
Naturally, this hasn’t exactly made French popular on the right. However, unlike many on the right, his goal isn’t to be popular but to strengthen the conservative movement by fighting off disingenuous arguments, reactionary takes, and conspiracy theories. French, like Buckley back in the day, recognized that unrestrained fringes can be destructive to the conservative movement.
When will progressives realize that the same applies to their movement? When will progressives realize that they need a David French of their own; someone to challenge the unrestrained fringe, to reject making a racial mockery of a black Supreme Court Justice.
Wow, who would have thought it? Democrats are the real racists!!!