New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay is attributing Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) comments about Black Lives Matter to former President Donald Trump’s behavior.
“We have Donald Trump to thank for this wonderfully disgusting and grotesque outpouring of open racism, the likes of which we really haven’t seen in this country in a mainstream cultural sense, I would say, since the 1950s, if not the 1920s,” Gay said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday.
She added, “If you ask any black American of any age, they will tell you that what it means to be a black American is sometimes just to be gaslit by the rest of the country, to be told, ‘You aren’t seeing what’s in front of your face.'”
Gay explained Black Americans are told, despite being “oppressed for generations,” they are the threat.
Watch her remarks below:
.@MaraGay: "We have Donald Trump to thank for this wonderfully disgusting and grotesque outpouring of open racism, the likes of which we really haven’t seen… in a mainstream cultural sense, I would say, since the 1950s, if not the 1920s."
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 16, 2021
Read more: https://t.co/FY2SjAGXmB pic.twitter.com/e5igQyK1g5
“You can literally have a white mob attack the seat of democracy, bash the heads of police officers, and still, you are the threat because you’re black,” Gay continued.
She added, “It is the blackness and the whiteness that is just the screaming elephant in the room in this case, and I think we’re really confronted now with the fact that a majority of the country, not just Black Americans, is now being gaslit.”
Gay argued when politicians are “desperate for power” they “turn to racism.”
“This is really a sign, in my opinion, of the desperation of the Republican Party in this moment. This is really the easiest, lowest hanging fruit: When all else fails, blame black people,” Gay said.
Johnson said during an interview on “The Joe Pags Show” podcast he may have felt more threatened during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 if it were “Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters” storming the building, as IJR reported.
Johnson later told WISN-AM “there’s no racism involved” in his remark.
“It has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with riots,” Johnson said. “I completely did not anticipate that anybody could interpret what I said as racist. It’s not.”