After an even worse-than-expected “blue wave” midterm election, MAGA influencers such as Benny Johnson engaged in sober reflection about the mistakes and miscalculations the GOP made that led to such an overwhelming rebuke. Just kidding. They decided to blame the election on the existence of brown people, instead.
That might sound like an exaggeration or caricature, but it’s really not. Around 11:30 p.m. on election night, after it was clear that Texas was flipping blue, Johnson tweeted, “In 1970, the White population in Texas was 89%. In 2000, it was 50%. Now it’s less than 39%. Demographics is destiny.” (Among many other oversights, the serial plagiarist turned viral MAGA slop creator left out the pesky facts that 1970s-era population data in Texas counted Hispanic people as white and that Texas elected Democrats back in the ’70s.)
Others similarly blamed the Texas results on “demographics,” essentially suggesting that the leftward political lurch is a result of America becoming more racially diverse and less white.
For example, Christian nationalist activist William Wolfe explained Texas flipping blue by saying, “It’s not Texas anymore. It’s the Third World wearing the Lone Star State as a skin suit.” Hosts on BlazeTV, such as John Doyle and Auron MacIntyre, similarly invoked this white-nationalism-tinged rhetoric in their election night coverage.
This style of conservative politics is ugly, un-American, and eerily reminiscent of left-wing identity politics. But it has a deeper problem: It ignores factual reality.
Republicans overwhelmingly won Texas in the 2024 election. Now, just two years later, the state has flipped blue. Yet the racial composition of the state hasn’t significantly shifted over that two-year period. As the pollster Frank Luntz pointed out, “In 2024, the white population in Texas was also less than 39%… And Trump won the state by +13.6% while running on a platform of affordability.”
Conservative CNN pundit Shermichael Singleton similarly pushed back on the “demographics are destiny” explanation for the midterms, writing, “In 2024 Trump won 55% of Hispanics in Texas and 34% of Black men. Was it conveniently demographics then? We had every opportunity to deliver and didn’t.”
So, the GOP lost many of the minority voters whose support it had just two years ago. That strongly suggests a political and policy failure by the Republican Party, not an unwinnable block of racial minority voters.
But even more glaringly: White people also overwhelmingly turned against Republicans this election! According to exit polls, young white men, a group that went for Trump in 2024, overwhelmingly voted blue this time around. Is that, too, somehow because of demographics?
CRUZ SUGGESTS GOP IGNORED COST OF LIVING AS TOP MIDTERM ISSUE: ‘THEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND’
These right-wing commentators are so obsessed with white nationalist victim politics that they are burying their heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge the reality of what happened on Tuesday. (They’re also totally ignoring the fact that Republicans might do better with minority voters if they didn’t have candidates such as Bo French engaging in blatant, vitriolic racism against Indian-Americans.)
The real lesson of the midterm election is that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the last two years of Republican governance. From the Iran War and its impact on gas prices to the president’s tariffs to corruption scandals and more, conservatives should be taking a long, hard look in the mirror right now. Rage-tweeting and ranting about brown people instead is a pathetic attempt at coping that requires ignoring reality and burying your head in the sand.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
