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So, back to Vance pretending he didn't know Trump's AI posts of Rep. Jeffries with a Mexican Hat is racist
Last edited Sat Oct 4, 2025, 06:20 PM - Edit history (4)
...like the Vice President of the United States amplifying Trump's dogwhistle by disingenuously asking the questioner, as Hakeem Jeffries has expressed offense at the racist and xenophobic meme, in essence, if the black Democratic leader (who shares my birthplace of Brooklyn) is in fact a Mexican.
Speaking at a White House press briefing, Mr. Vance characterized the post as making light of lawmakers’ policy differences. The video, which was posted on Monday and falsely accuses Democrats of trying to give free health care to undocumented immigrants, depicts Mr. Jeffries, who is Black, as Mexican, with mariachi music playing in the background.
“Oh, I think it’s funny,” Mr. Vance said. “The president’s joking, and we’re having a good time.”
“You can negotiate in good faith while also poking a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats’ positions, and even poking some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats themselves,” Mr. Vance added.
“We’re all trying to do a very important job for the American people,” Mr. Vance said. “The president of the United States likes to have a little bit of fun when he’s doing it. And I think that’s OK.”
"Hakeem Jeffries said it was a racist, and I know that he said that," Vance said. "And I honestly don't even know what that means. Like, is … he a Mexican-American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/us/politics/vance-jeffries-deepfake-video.html
“Oh, I think it’s funny,” Mr. Vance said. “The president’s joking, and we’re having a good time.”
“You can negotiate in good faith while also poking a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats’ positions, and even poking some fun at the absurdity of the Democrats themselves,” Mr. Vance added.
“We’re all trying to do a very important job for the American people,” Mr. Vance said. “The president of the United States likes to have a little bit of fun when he’s doing it. And I think that’s OK.”
"Hakeem Jeffries said it was a racist, and I know that he said that," Vance said. "And I honestly don't even know what that means. Like, is … he a Mexican-American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/us/politics/vance-jeffries-deepfake-video.html
Not withstanding the fact that it should make no difference at all in this country whether or not the Dem leader or any other citizen or person granted citizenship has a Mexican heritage or origin, Vance's dismissal and escalation of his and the president's open attacks on heritage and ethnicity is a stunning return to the day of Jim Crow when racism and bigotry was not only promoted from the highest levels of government, but was emulated and advantaged by a majority in the nation to repress and marginalize an entire black population newly freed from legalized enslavement.
Many Americans might be surprised to learn that more than 1,500 African-American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before Jim Crow took over and white national legislators advantaged Southern states in repressing the votes that would elect them.
After the end of the Civil War and emancipation, in the latter half of the 1860s, Congress passed a series of acts designed to address the question of rights, as well as how the Southern states would be governed. These acts included the act creating the Freedmen's Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and several Reconstruction Acts. The Reconstruction Acts established military rule over Southern states until new governments could be formed.
The South was divided into five military districts, each run by a general in the U.S. Army. The five districts were Virginia; North and South Carolina; Georgia, Alabama, and Florida; Mississippi and Arkansas; and Texas and Louisiana. Tennessee was the only prior Confederate state that was not placed under military rule because Tennessee had many Union supporters during the war. Around 200,000 troops were placed in the South to enforce military rule.
More importantly, those 1500 Black national legislators were ALL eventually turned out of Congress by a withering, multi-decade long campaign of demonization and denigration which didn't accommodate the election and advancement of any sizable number of non-white or black legislators in Congress until the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, and even further, until the vote to renew that same Act in the 80's after FIVE vetoes by then-president Bush, and after a compromise by republican senator Danforth which allowed enough votes to advance Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court - a VRA renewal which included redrawn districts which enabled the election of some 40 black legislators to Congress for the very first time since Reconstruction (Trump admin already backing away from these protections).
Consider how the VRA transformed American democracy (from The Nation):
-In 1965, only 31 percent of eligible black voters were registered to vote the in the seven Southern states originally covered by the VRA, compared to 72 percent of white voters. The number of black registered voters was as low as 6.7 percent in Mississippi. In Selma, only 393 of 15,000 eligible black voters were registered when LBJ introduced the VRA in March 1965.
Today, 73 percent of black voters are registered to vote according to the US Census and black voter turnout exceeded white turnout in 2012 for the first time in recorded history.
-In 1965, there were fewer than 500 black elected officials nationwide. Today, there are more than 10,500.
-In 1965, there were only five black members of Congress. Today there are forty-four. The 113th Congress is the most diverse in history, with 97 minority elected representatives.
-Since 1965, the Justice Department blocked at least 1,150 discriminatory voting changes from going into effect under Section 5 of the VRA.
-In 1965, only 31 percent of eligible black voters were registered to vote the in the seven Southern states originally covered by the VRA, compared to 72 percent of white voters. The number of black registered voters was as low as 6.7 percent in Mississippi. In Selma, only 393 of 15,000 eligible black voters were registered when LBJ introduced the VRA in March 1965.
Today, 73 percent of black voters are registered to vote according to the US Census and black voter turnout exceeded white turnout in 2012 for the first time in recorded history.
-In 1965, there were fewer than 500 black elected officials nationwide. Today, there are more than 10,500.
-In 1965, there were only five black members of Congress. Today there are forty-four. The 113th Congress is the most diverse in history, with 97 minority elected representatives.
-Since 1965, the Justice Department blocked at least 1,150 discriminatory voting changes from going into effect under Section 5 of the VRA.
When a virulent, old-school racist is denigrating the black Democratic leader in the House as a Mexican, it's about more than just a 'joke' or an attempt at humor. It's a revival of the time-worn practice of repressing and working to deny people of color from exercising their political power by denigrating their leaders as foreign to Americans and our interests.
But unlike the newly emancipated people in the nation's past who the white majority in power successfully disenfranchised from asserting their own citizens' political influence and power over a government which its lorded authority over them, to the frustration and disdain of the white majority government in power today, people of color in this country are steadily increasing their numbers in workplaces and communities around the nation; black Americans and others elevated into positions of power and authority over people who've long believed they were inferior and unworthy of governing the white majority that was once so comfortable in repressing that very power for their own political advantage.
Here's the thing about the Mexican hats superimposed by the racist president and his clan on our black Dem leader. It's so not new, that, if they don't know their history, they're just dupes of that racist, Jim Crow past; caricatures of the weak and cruel leaders of that disgraceful, discredited past, dear DUers; some history and some observations about immigration, prohibition, the KKK, and Catholicism, if you please:
Illegal immigration wasn't actually criminalized until 1929 when prohibitionists and anti-Asians made laws criminalizing Mexicans crossing the border illegally; giving preferential treatment to white, Anglo-Saxon Europeans, much like today.
That edict has become the tool that this republican administration is using to dehumanize ALL immigrants in America as the federal government's new Stasi-like state security service and secret police which has no apparent limits on the brutality with which the mercenary-like new, mostly white recruits hired with the appeal to "defend your culture," as if we were still back in the 1920s and the KKK was the driving force in our politics again.
...excerpt from The Klan and The Catholics
09.28.16 | Aidan Lee
Alfred E. Smith was the first American Catholic to run for presidential office when he secured the Democratic nomination in 1928. A strong opponent of prohibition, Smith doubted that it could be effectively enforced and feared it might lead to an erosion of faith in the rule of law. As a result, he advocated for the law’s repeal. But many Americans supported it and in addition to his Irish heritage, New York background, and Catholic faith, many voters found him off-putting. Smith ended up losing–badly–to Herbert Hoover, who took 58.2 percent of the vote and all but 8 of the 48 states. Most painful of all for Smith, however, was the discovery that his home state of New York hadn’t voted in his favor.
The cultural context of the 1928 election helps us understand why Smith lost so badly. Rewind to 1924, when the Ku Klux Klan was at its height in American politics. The Klan perceived the waves of new immigrants from predominantly-Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy as a “threat” to their vision of America as an Anglo-Protestant nation. As a result, the Democratic Party had two distinct groups at their nominating convention in 1924: the “rural wing” led by KKK-endorsed William Gibbs McAdoo, and the new, immigrant, “urban wing” led by Al Smith. These sides clashed head-on at the convention, but the party ended up with the dark-horse candidate, John W. Davis, who promptly lost to Calvin Coolidge.
Robert A. Slayton, a professor of American history at Chapman University and author of Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith, characterizes 1920s America as a country caught in a cultural civil war between “small-town and big-city America.” Part of this culture war was the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Ratified in 1919, it was the culmination of decades of work by activists in what is now known as the Third Wave of the Temperance movement.
Groups like the Anti-Saloon League, which drew support from Protestant denominations, claimed that consumption of alcohol led to moral corruption, criminal behavior, and domestic violence. But is was more than that – for many, the stance on Prohibition was tied to cultural, religious, and domestic identity. Many Protestant Americans thought of Catholic immigrants, who congregated in cities and had a less rigid relationship to alcohol, as cultural and religious ‘others.’ They quickly became targets of the temperance movement.
https://backstoryradio.org/blog/the-klan-and-the-catholics/
Alfred E. Smith was the first American Catholic to run for presidential office when he secured the Democratic nomination in 1928. A strong opponent of prohibition, Smith doubted that it could be effectively enforced and feared it might lead to an erosion of faith in the rule of law. As a result, he advocated for the law’s repeal. But many Americans supported it and in addition to his Irish heritage, New York background, and Catholic faith, many voters found him off-putting. Smith ended up losing–badly–to Herbert Hoover, who took 58.2 percent of the vote and all but 8 of the 48 states. Most painful of all for Smith, however, was the discovery that his home state of New York hadn’t voted in his favor.
The cultural context of the 1928 election helps us understand why Smith lost so badly. Rewind to 1924, when the Ku Klux Klan was at its height in American politics. The Klan perceived the waves of new immigrants from predominantly-Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy as a “threat” to their vision of America as an Anglo-Protestant nation. As a result, the Democratic Party had two distinct groups at their nominating convention in 1924: the “rural wing” led by KKK-endorsed William Gibbs McAdoo, and the new, immigrant, “urban wing” led by Al Smith. These sides clashed head-on at the convention, but the party ended up with the dark-horse candidate, John W. Davis, who promptly lost to Calvin Coolidge.
Robert A. Slayton, a professor of American history at Chapman University and author of Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith, characterizes 1920s America as a country caught in a cultural civil war between “small-town and big-city America.” Part of this culture war was the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Ratified in 1919, it was the culmination of decades of work by activists in what is now known as the Third Wave of the Temperance movement.
Groups like the Anti-Saloon League, which drew support from Protestant denominations, claimed that consumption of alcohol led to moral corruption, criminal behavior, and domestic violence. But is was more than that – for many, the stance on Prohibition was tied to cultural, religious, and domestic identity. Many Protestant Americans thought of Catholic immigrants, who congregated in cities and had a less rigid relationship to alcohol, as cultural and religious ‘others.’ They quickly became targets of the temperance movement.
https://backstoryradio.org/blog/the-klan-and-the-catholics/
It's interesting that the KKK back then virulently opposed the immigration of Europeans, mostly because they were Protestants and the favored influx of the millions of Europeans were mostly Catholics; and they were white and able to vote.
Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy, eastern Europe, French Canada, and southern Germany had poured into the country by the millions in the previous decades, competing with native-born American workers for jobs and driving down wages. Worse for the Klan was that immigrants voted, particularly in the big cities where they supposedly supported crooked political machines, most prominently New York City’s notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall. The Klan also associated immigrants with drunkenness and saloons (in an era of Prohibition), as well as with being un-American because of their languages, foods, and customs.
The great majority of Klan members were Protestants who feared Catholics because they were convinced the average Catholic was completely under the thumb of his or her parish priest or (worse) a foreign, authoritarian Church hierarchy led by the pope. “Most Klansmen,” noted historian David Chalmers, “did not believe that they were opposing the Catholic because of his religion but because hierarchical control from Rome prevented his assimilation.” Or as Alabama’s U.S. Senator J. Thomas Heflin put it: “God has raised up this great patriotic organization [the Klan] to unmask popery.”
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-ku-klux-klan-in-the-1920s
The great majority of Klan members were Protestants who feared Catholics because they were convinced the average Catholic was completely under the thumb of his or her parish priest or (worse) a foreign, authoritarian Church hierarchy led by the pope. “Most Klansmen,” noted historian David Chalmers, “did not believe that they were opposing the Catholic because of his religion but because hierarchical control from Rome prevented his assimilation.” Or as Alabama’s U.S. Senator J. Thomas Heflin put it: “God has raised up this great patriotic organization [the Klan] to unmask popery.”
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-ku-klux-klan-in-the-1920s
Racists, bigots, and demagogues - who get the most attention and the most support in America for their views and campaigns against 'illegal' immigrants - have become just fine with the white Anglo-Saxons who have become a large part of the fabric of America and their votes; having turned the majority of their hatred, fears, and self-interest against Mexicans and Latin Americans voting in our elections and competing for jobs, and not just the ones who run afoul of our immigration laws, as evidenced by the republican administration's military campaign waged against entire communities.
We have a mob action by this president against immigrants today, sanctioned and exercised by the federal government in Americans name; people in this country encouraged to fear our neighbors because of politicians' opportunistic lies behind the brutality they and the courts allow; criminalizing all migrants who run afoul of our immigration laws, and hide antipathies toward migrants behind what are vastly unfounded fears and outright lies that our politicians have taught Americans to use when they mob up against migrants in our legislatures and railroad them out of the country in Potemkin, Kafka-like hearings with 'administrative' judges meting out criminal penalties of punishment against mostly working people and their families like they're terrorists.
Vance and Trump are advantaging all of their punitive action by the government they control on top of LIES they've revived from our nation's racist past to curry the favor of Americans fearful of and hateful toward mostly Mexicans, Latin Americans, and Asians, perpetuateing and expanding that prevaricating racism across the country.
It's no different than the way politicians a century ago exploited Americans' fears about people immigrating to this country as an extension of their own political and religious zeal; to consolidate political power for their own narrow and partisan interests.
We can see the ignorant past has become prologue for the Trump administration. That's what the Mexican hat superimposed on our black Democratic leader represents.
No dual-meaning in the clownishness, just the open dogwhistling appeal to deliberately imposed fears of many Americans which propelled and perpetuated the desperate defense in our nation's past of a class of white people who believed they were destined or ordained to lord over people in this country by virtue of their skin color, and took pleasure in arrogantly encouraging others to do the same.
“I mean, I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make this solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop,” Mr. Vance said. “And I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that.”
Here, Vice President Vance is telling the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives that he'll stop denigrating him with racist memes IF he'll agree to let his republican party and president advance a 100% partisan budget.
The ludicrousness of this can't be understated; nor the utter depravity of the presidency so deeply practiced and committed to tearing down so many people of color to advantage their exercise of almost totalitarian power over ALL Americans.
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