The Post-racial Republicans
The sharp exchange between former President Barack Obama and two nonwhite 2024 GOP presidential candidates captures how diverging perceptions about racial inequity have emerged as a central fault line between the Republican and Democratic coalitions.
In their presidential campaigns, Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is Black, and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who is Indian American, have repeatedly insisted that systemic or structural racism is no longer a problem in America. That drew a sharp rebuke earlier this month from Obama, who said the pair had joined “a long history of African American or other minority candidates within the Republican Party who will validate America and say, ‘Everything’s great, and we can all make it.’”
Both Scott and Haley responded by accusing Obama of treating minority voters as victims and repeating their claims that racism and structural inequities can no longer hold back anyone who will “work hard” and display “integrity” and “grit,” as Scott told a mostly white audience at a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity last Tuesday.
[Read: ‘People who are different are not the problem in America’]
“When I hear people telling me that America is a racist nation, I got to say: Not my America, not our America,” Scott declared to loud applause.
Scott and Haley have leaned into the criticism
