It was only a matter of time before U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville would have to change his tune about white nationalists. After a debate on the topic Monday night with a CNN host, that time was Tuesday.
Tuberville, the first-term Republican senator from Alabama, repeatedly defended white nationalists Monday night, as he had been doing for the past few months, ever since he complained that the armed forces are trying to run soldiers with those beliefs out of the military.
On Monday, CNN host Kaitlin Collins, interviewing Tuberville, told him that by definition, white nationalists are racist because they believe their race is superior to all others. Tuberville said that was just Collins’ opinion, and then mystifyingly described them as people who hold “a few probably different beliefs.”
Tuberville may be best known for his political strategy of holding up hundreds of military promotions to protest the Defense Department’s abortion policy. But he jumped on the white nationalist train back in May, when he said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was trying to get “the white extremists, the white nationalists” out of the military.
He accused military leaders of trying to drive away supporters of former President Donald Trump, and said he views white nationalists as Trump Republicans.
Why would Tuberville or anyone else think the military benefits from including soldiers — using the senator’s words — with extremist views? Does he also think that black gang members should be allowed to remain in the military?
On Monday night, Tuberville blended his defense of white nationalists with several statements that he’s against racism. Which, given his years as a college football coach, must be true. Black athletes would not have played for a coach who discriminated, and no university would have tolerated it.
On CNN, Tuberville cited his coaching experience, saying he had been around more minorities than anyone in Congress. But sticking up for people who believe in their own racial superiority will not help Tuberville when he attends football reunions.
More to the point, what was Tuberville thinking when he equated Trump Republicans with white nationalists? If that’s the core of Trump’s support (and it isn’t), then the Republican Party is in serious trouble.
Tuberville dug himself quite a hole on this one, and finally Tuesday he began the process of removing himself from it. Maybe he got the message from fellow Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who told reporters that white supremacy is unacceptable in both the military and the country.
“White nationalists are racists,” Tuberville told reporters on Capitol Hill. It’s still a mystery, though, why the senator allowed himself to get involved with this topic in the first place.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
