How Republicans invented the art of being racist without sounding racist.

[HomerJS]

Republicans in the 1960's knew it was no longer tenable to openly call black people ni**er. They need a coded language that would promote racism in the abstract while maintaining their deniability that they aren't racist. Former RNC chair Lee Atwater spilled the tea in this 1981 interview that Republicans still use in 2025

You start in 1954 by saying ‘Ni**er, ni**er, ni**er.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘Ni**er.’ That hurts you. It backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states rights and all that stuff and you get so abstract. Now you talk about cutting taxes and these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that’s part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. Obviously sitting around saying we want to cut taxes and we want this, is a lot more abstract than even the busing thing and a hell of a lot more abstract than ni**er ni**er. So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.

First it was it was... ni**er, ni**er
That became affirmative action, welfare queens, welfare cuts, forced busing.
That became quotas
That became states rights
That became small government
That became tax cuts

Followed by
Sharia Law
Birtherism
BLM terrorists
CRT
Woke
'DEI
Haitians stealing and eating your pets (although that was closer to overt racism)
Immigration

There will be a new racist abstract they will make up about people of color

I can't see Republicans changing their behavior anytime soon. Since Trump came on the scene politically it has been less coded and more overt.

 

[soulcougher73]

Momma always said “once a racist, always a racist”. They won’t change their stripes.

 

[nakedfrog]

Oh, my, how timely...
"There were two n-words, now you can't say either of them"

https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/1973020425652490609

 

[WelshBloke]

I mean they are a bit shit at it as they sound pretty fucking racist a lot of the time!