Dem Senators Declare They Will Judge Biden's Nominees on Their Race

By Johnathan Jones March 24, 2021 at 8:50am

It is no longer enough to not be racist. One must be racist against white Americans.

That’s the message two U.S. senators conveyed when they pledged on Tuesday that they would vote against any further Biden administration Cabinet nominees who aren’t either a racial minority or gay, bisexual or transgender. They apparently have grown comfortable with publicly embracing racial and sexual prejudice.

Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii announced their stance as a protest of the racial makeup of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet.

Duckworth, who is of Thai ancestry, complained Tuesday to reporters at the Capitol about the lack of Asian American and Pacific Islander representation in the Cabinet, which Biden had promised would be the most “diverse” in history.

“There’s no AAPI representation in the Cabinet,” Duckworth said, according to NPR. “There’s not a single AAPI in a Cabinet position. That’s unacceptable.”

NPR reported Duckworth spoke on the phone Monday with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, who essentially told her she should just be pleased with the partial Asian heritage of Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Last night, that was the trigger for me,” the senator told reporters. “To be told that, ‘Well, you have Kamala Harris, we’re very proud of her, you don’t need anybody else’ is insulting. …

“That is not something you would say to the black caucus: ‘Well, you have Kamala — we’re not going to put any more African Americans in the Cabinet because you have Kamala.’ Why would you say it to AAPI?”

Duckworth said she immediately told Biden’s administration she would cast “no” votes on its nominees “until they figure this out” — but would continue to vote for “racial minorities and LGBTQ nominees,” NPR reported.

Do you think the senators' stance was racist?

Hirono later joined Duckworth in her prejudiced crusade to presumably deny what would be assumed to be a qualified Cabinet pick who happened to be Caucasian.

“This is not about pitting one diversity group against another. So I’m happy to vote for a Hispanic, a black person, an LGBTQ person, an AAPI person,” Hirono said, according to NPR. “I’d just like to see more diversity representation.”

Duckworth’s protest ended late Tuesday after the Biden administration agreed to add a senior liaison to the AAPI community, according to NPR.

“Senator Duckworth appreciates the Biden administration’s assurances that it will do much more to elevate AAPI voices and perspectives at the highest levels of government, including appointing an AAPI senior White House official to represent the community, secure the confirmation of AAPI appointments and advance policy proposals that are relevant and important to the community,” Ben Gash Garmisa, a Duckworth spokesman, said in a statement, the report said.

“Accordingly, she will not stand in the way of President Biden’s qualified nominees — which will include more AAPI leaders.”

Hirono said she would follow suit.

Based on the private conversation we had, I will continue voting to confirm the historic and highly qualified nominees President Biden has appointed to serve in his administration.

— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) March 24, 2021

For what it’s worth, Biden did attempt to install a woman of Asian heritage in his Cabinet when he nominated Neera Tanden as the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Tanden withdrew herself from consideration after it was disclosed that she couldn’t stop attacking people on Twitter and it became clear she wouldn’t be able to overcome that.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont seemed to doom her confirmation, and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia ended the fiasco by announcing he’d vote “no.”

That left Biden with no AAPI representation in his inner orbit, prompting Duckworth and Hirono’s protest.

The outward racist language coming from the two Democratic senators is troubling, and it shows that we’ve entered territory where people have become so anti-racist that they’re racist. Can you imagine if a white Republican in a reversed situation had said something remotely similar?

There isn’t a defense for what Duckworth and Hirono did. There is nothing progressive about judging people based on the color of their skin.

But this is who Democrats have become. We have entered a political arena where a white man is not qualified to be accepted by these two bigots unless he’s attracted to other men.

There is a silver lining here: The more Democrats fight among themselves, the less they might ultimately get done between now and 2022, when hopefully the GOP can nab back at least one chamber of Congress. Until then, the less they can accomplish, the better off this country will be.

The first two months of Biden’s disastrous term are ample evidence of that.

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