U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) speaks at a press conference on student loans at the U.S. Capitol on June 14, 2023, in Washington, D.C. | Source: Kevin Dietsch / Getty
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville doesn’t appear to understand what a white nationalist is. Now, if you’re familiar with Tuberville, then you know his confusion could be compared to Superman saying he’d never heard of the Justice League or Donald Trump saying he doesn’t know what MAGA is an acronym for, or Gargamel being baffled by the term “Smurfism.” (Yes, I included Trump among fictional characters, because—he has to be, right?)
On Monday, Tuberville made an appearance on CNN and went back and forth with host Kaitlan Collins about—*checks notes*—whether or not white nationalists are racist.
Before we get into this interview, here are the remarks Tuberville made in May when he was asked about white nationalists in the military during an interview with WBHM:
“We are losing in the military so fast. Our readiness in terms of recruitment. And why? I’ll tell you why. Because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda.”
So, first of all, if white supremacists “don’t believe” in the Republican “agenda,” why do they keep gravitating towards the MAGA world and the Republican party? More to the point, why is Tuberville upset that “Democrats” are looking to rid the U.S. military of “white extremists,” especially if they don’t, in fact, believe in his party’s agenda?
During that interview, Tuberville was pressed on the issue of white nationalists in our armed forces, and that’s when he first revealed that he has his own definition of the term.
“Well, they call them that,” he said. “I call them Americans.”
Tuberville also said that he looks “at a white nationalist as a Trump Republican,” because “That’s what we’re called all the time.” (Canines are also referred to as dogs all the time. Weird, right?)
Anyway, Tubbervile’s most recent interview resulted in much of the same almost-comical obtuseness.
Collins tried her very best to educate the good senator by informing him that a white nationalist, by definition, is someone who “believes that the white race is superior to other races.”
“Well that’s some people’s opinion,” Tuberville said regarding a factual definition.
“My opinion of a white nationalist, if someone wants to call them white nationalist, to me, is an American,” he continued. “It’s an American. Now if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do because I am 110% against racism.”
You know who Tubberville reminds me of? Former Iowa Rep. Steve King.
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” King asked during an interview with The New York Times in 2020. He also wondered why he himself is constantly being called a white nationalist, despite his opinion that multiculturalism is a “tool for the Left to subdivide a culture and civilization into our own little ethnic enclaves and pit us against each other.”
According to the Washington Post, in 2016, King said the “idea of multiculturalism, that every culture is equal—that’s not objectively true…We’ve been fed that information for the past 25 years, and we’re not going to become a greater nation if we continue to do that.” (And these comments are only the tip of King’s white supremacist iceberg.”
Wouldn’t it be a shame if Tubberville, who claims it’s only a matter of opinion that white nationalists are inherently racist and that he is “110% against racism” also had a history of making blatantly racist remarks?
“They’re not soft on crime,” Tuberville of Democrats during a Trump rally last year. “They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”
In case it isn’t obvious, when Tuberville said “the people that do the crime,” he meant “Black people,” despite the fact that, statistically, the vast majority of Black people don’t commit violent crimes in any given year. Besides that, Tuberville believes no Black people should receive reparations because some Black people commit crimes. But no, I’m sure he’s a full 110% against racism.
And here’s Tubberville going out of his way to deride schools and educators in the “inner city,” which, unless one is dedicated to feigning ignorance, is obviously coded language for “the schools with all the Black and brown people.”
“The Covid really brought it out about how bad our schools are and how bad our teachers are, in the inner city,” he said. “Most of them in the inner city….I don’t know how they got degrees…I don’t know whether they can read or write.”
During the CNN interview, Tuberville appeared to imply that “most white people” are white nationalists. (Well, I didn’t say it, he did.)
“If you’re going to do away with most White people in this country out the military, we’ve got huge problems,” he said, to which Collins responded, “It’s not people who are White. It’s white nationalists.”
“That have a few probably different beliefs, they have different beliefs,” Tuberville said. “Now if racism is one of those beliefs, I’m totally against it. I’m totally against racism.”
And to prove he’s not racist, he invoked his decades-long career as a college football coach at Auburn University and other schools.
“I was a football coach for 40 years and had the opportunity to be around more minorities than anybody up on this Hill,” he said in typical “but, but, I have a Black friend” fashion. (His use of “minorities” is also very telling.)
So, basically, if Tuberville is truly confused about the definition of white nationalism, he need only find the nearest mirror.
But that’s just my “opinion.”
SEE ALSO:
Tommy Tuberville Tries To Whitesplain His Defense Of White Supremacist ‘Americans’ In The Military
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville’s Racist Tirade On Brand For Trump’s Fascist MAGA Movement
