Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.
Yet another nightmare candidate is embarrassing the GOP — this time, in a state legislative race in North Carolina.
According to the Charlotte Observer, Republicans are bolting from a nominee for the North Carolina General Assembly, Russell Walker, in light of a series of racist ramblings on his personal website, called “Christ Descended from Joseph.”
“What is wrong with being a white supremacist? God is a racist and a white supremacist,” says his site. “Someone or group has to be supreme and that group is the whites of the world … someone or something has to be inferior … In all history in sub-Saharan Africa, no two-story building or a waterproof boat was ever made.”
Another passage on the site says that the Jewish people “all descend from Satan,” and that Martin Luther King Jr. was “an agent of Satan” who “wanted to destroy the Caucasian race through mixing and integration.”
This week, the North Carolina Republican Party publicly disavowed Walker, with GOP House caucus chair John Szoka saying “he should strongly consider withdrawing his candidacy.” But the mystery is why Republicans did not condemn his candidacy sooner.
Last year, Walker drew national attention while suing the town of York, South Carolina, over their removal of Confederate flags from government buildings. Confronted by reporters, Walker denied that Confederate symbols are racist, and then went on a racist screed against Martin Luther King Jr.
Despite this, GOP voters in North Carolina nominated him by a 2-to-1 margin over his primary opponent.
This is simply the latest incident in a broader pattern. Across the country, Republicans have struggled to extricate themselves from the racist candidates running with their nomination.
The GOP in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District nominated Arthur Jones, a former American Nazi Party leader who has called the Holocaust “an international extortion racket.” And in New Jersey’s 2nd District, GOP nominee Seth Grossman has called diversity “a bunch of crap,” and that Democrats are causing white people to commit “mass suicide.”
Meanwhile in Virginia, Republicans’ pick for U.S. Senate, Corey Stewart, has associated with multiple white supremacists, including the man who went on to organize the violent neo-Nazi demonstrations in Charlottesville.
There’s no low the modern GOP won’t stoop to — and the party leaders who allowed this to happen are stuck with it.