This is Tommy Tuberville. He used to be the football coach at Auburn University, in Auburn, Alabama, for ten years. He led the Auburn Tigers to an undefeated season in 2004. He led them to eight bowl appearances, including five New Years Day. Most notably, his Auburn Tigers had a 7-3 record against hated state rivals the Alabama Crimson Tide, including six straight wins.

In Alabama, football is king. He used his popularity as football coach to run and win a senate seat in 2020. He is now in his third year, as Senator representing Alabama.

Tuberville, while a notable football coach, is lacking in other areas. He said that his daddy fought, in World War 2, against socialism. Tommy, it was fascism. He also thought that Al Gore was President-elect for 30 days, during the Florida recount of 2000. Nope. Now Tommy is a man of the South. The other day, during an interview, on CNN, he was asked about white nationalists. This is how he responded.

“My opinion of a White nationalist, if someone wants to call them a White nationalist, to me is an American. If that White nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do because I am 110% against racism.”

Tommy, a white nationalist is a racist, plain and simple. Tuberville knew darn well that a white nationalist is a racist, but he did not want to antagonize a segment of his base. The response was so vicious that Tommy had to backtrack, the next day, and admit that white nationalists are indeed racists.

Tommy is not the first Republican to play this game. He learned from the best. Donald Trump, back in 2016, was asked about David Duke’s support for him. Trump replied that he did not know who duke was. He did. Trump referred to Duke in the past. Of course, there was the ‘good people on both sides’ quote following Charlottesville and the ‘stand back and stand by’ quote Trump made during a 2020 Presidential debate. The Proud Boys did stand by. They and those ‘good people’ were in Washington, in force, on January 6.

Will the Republicans ever come to terms that a segment of their base is racist? Internally they have. Externally, they will keep playing the game. Nudge, nudge. wink, wink.