For some reason, Donald Trump Jr. thinks he’s in a position to speak with authority about the ongoing blackface scandal in the upper levels of Virginia’s government. This Monday, he whined on Twitter about Democrats supposedly not ever taking the issue seriously enough in the first place.
Thanks to the emergence of a racist yearbook page for none other than current Virginia Governor and Democrat Ralph Northam, the future of Democratic leadership in Virginia has been cast into question. On that page, there’s a photo of an individual in blackface and another in white robes like those of the Ku Klux Klan, and in response, numerous state and national Democratic interests have called on Northam to resign.
He’s refusing, claiming at this point that it’s not even him in the photo and essentially banking on the fact that nobody can prove otherwise.
In response to Northam backing off an initial apology he rushed to offer after the photo emerged, Trump Jr. griped:
‘So you no longer are sorry for wearing blackface? In the end the Dems would never give up power over any of the insanity there so whoever plays coverup best stays. Dems: Do as I say not as I do!!!’
So you no longer are sorry for wearing blackface? In the end the Dems would never give up power over any of the insanity there so whoever plays coverup best stays.
Dems: Do as I say not as I do!!! https://t.co/ZLUi55OVsB
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 11, 2019
In reality — again, Northam has faced pressure to resign from Democrats as high ranking as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). What are they supposed to do — walk into Richmond and drag Northam out of the state capitol building?
Further underscoring how this issue has essentially nothing to do with what Trump Jr. is talking about, Northam has gone so far as to reportedly consider abandoning the Democratic Party and governing as an independent, although he has not made that move at this point.
To be clear, rather than Northam even attempting to discount the issue with blackface, he claims that it wasn’t him in the photo that appeared in his medical school yearbook in the 80s. In an interview that aired on CBS this week, he clearly delineated his take on the situation, which while possibly a misrepresentation, gives no room for the kind of casual acceptance of racism that Trump Jr. suggests the Democratic Party harbors.
Northam told CBS host Gayle King that he’d just been in a “state of shock,” which prompted the initial rushed apology and concurrent acceptance of responsibility for the photo. Making his situation all the more precarious, however — he did acknowledge wearing blackface to impersonate Michael Jackson in 1984.
He’s not the only high-ranking Virginia official to face a similar issue. The state’s Attorney General Mark Herring has apologized for donning blackface in 1980 to look like rapper Kurtis Blow.
Separately, the state’s Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is also facing allegations of committing sexual assault during the early 2000s.
For Trump Jr. to suggest that the Republican Party has a comparatively stellar record on any of these issues is ludicrous. His own father has been credibly accused of sexual assault and demonstrated repugnant sexism on numerous occasions, while also perpetrating racism in a number of public and alleged private incidents.
Conservative agitators like Candace Owens have suggested there’s a “Blexit” of black Americans from the Democratic Party — but as recently as late last year, respected polling outlets measured Trump’s approval rating among blacks as only around 16-17 percent.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
