Meet Paul Nehlen
One of Trump’s new besties is a decidedly overt racist. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:
A Republican challenger to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan drew international criticism over the weekend for tweeting an image that replaced the mixed-race fiancée of Prince Harry with a dark-skinned prehistoric Briton known as “Cheddar Man.”
As of Sunday afternoon, Paul Nehlen’s Twitter account had been suspended.
The provocation is only the latest for Nehlen, an outrage artist who has used this technique to help his campaign raise funds and in turn pay his wife a salary. Last month, Nehlen drew criticism for making anti-Semitic tweets and then posting the contact information of ordinary citizens who called and emailed to berate him.
In a tweet late Friday, Nehlen shared an image of the royal couple in which a scientific reconstruction of Cheddar Man’s face is superimposed over the features of the actress Meghan Markle standing beside her fiancé, the prince.
“Honey, does this tie make my face look pale?” Nehlen tweeted along with the image, which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is not sharing.
But Matt McDermott did share it, which is how I saw it and was inspired to look for news on it.
Barack Obama was in the same room as Louis Farrakhan once and it caused a decades-long controversy.
Donald Trump gave a shoutout to white supremacist Paul Nehlen, Republican running for Congress, and nary a mention. pic.twitter.com/EVNsItEtoJ
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) February 11, 2018
The times we live in.
The British newspaper The Mirror decried the “racist tweet” in a headline, saying that Markle has been subjected to racial abuse since the royal engagement was announced. The Mirror quoted Markle’s co-star, actor Patrick J. Adams.
“You’re a sad and sick man with no sense of shame or class,” Adams said to Nehlen. “Get a life. And don’t go anywhere near MM – she’s got more power, strength, honor and compassion in her fingernail than you’ll ever know in this lifetime. Way above your weight class.”
But he’s Trump’s li’l buddy.
Wait, “outrage artist”? That’s a thing?
Yes well, that’s because the conservative base ranges from indifference to racism, through covert support of racism and up to overt support of racism. Their only concern with the overt type is that they are so conspicuous.