In an angry press conference Tuesday, yelling at times, Patrick objected to suggestions that Republicans are deliberately targeting voters of color in Democratic strongholds.

"Senate Bill 7 is about voter security, not about voter suppression, and I'm tired of the lies and the nest of liars who continue to repeat them," Patrick said, focusing much of his ire on Fort Worth-based American Airlines and Harris County leaders who spoke up against the bill.

He continued: “You’re questioning my integrity and the integrity of the governor and the integrity of the 18 Republicans who voted for this when you suggest that we’re trying to suppress the vote. You are, in essence, between the lines, calling us racist, and that will not stand.”

As they successfully shepherded SB 7 through the Senate over the last two weeks, Republicans argued that it is a race-neutral bill, not designed to discriminate, in part because the state’s voter rolls are “color blind” and voters don’t list their race or ethnicity when they register.

In an angry press conference Tuesday, yelling at times, Patrick objected to suggestions that Republicans are deliberately targeting voters of color in Democratic strongholds.

"Senate Bill 7 is about voter security, not about voter suppression, and I'm tired of the lies and the nest of liars who continue to repeat them," Patrick said, focusing much of his ire on Fort Worth-based American Airlines and Harris County leaders who spoke up against the bill.

He continued: “You’re questioning my integrity and the integrity of the governor and the integrity of the 18 Republicans who voted for this when you suggest that we’re trying to suppress the vote. You are, in essence, between the lines, calling us racist, and that will not stand.”

As they successfully shepherded SB 7 through the Senate over the last two weeks, Republicans argued that it is a race-neutral bill, not designed to discriminate, in part because the state’s voter rolls are “color blind” and voters don’t list their race or ethnicity when they register.

Although former President Donald Trump has been gone from the White House since January 20, his diehard supporters remain true believers — and many of them are still sending him money. Richard W. Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, laments how gullible those voters are in an op-ed published by MSNBC's website on April 9.

Painter notes recent reporting by the New York Times' Shane Goldmacher that describes the Trump campaign's unethical fundraising tactics. Voters who agreed to make single donations were slammed with recurring billing that they didn't know they were signing up for.

"Legal or not, one would have hoped presidents would be above such things," Painter writes. "But Trump hammered home the lesson that not all commercial speech is free speech. It's certainly not free for the person stuck with the credit card bill."

Although Trump was voted out of office in 2020 and now-President Joe Biden defeated him by more than 7 million in the popular vote, the former president still knows know to fire up his MAGA base.

"Like so many before him, Trump knows how to mesmerize people as he lightens their wallets," Painter observes. "For decades, he was the champion of brash new money — someone who played by his own rules against the establishment. He sold hundreds of millions of dollars of casino bonds backed up by his promise to build one of the glitziest casinos in Atlantic City…. Then came the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump shifted his focus to the right wing of the Republican Party and to disengaged and disillusioned voters who needed someone to appeal to their masculinity, White racial identity and anger at immigrants who they believed robbed them of jobs. Campaign fundraising soared."

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called on Friday morning for the firing of Fox News host Tucker Carlson, after Carlson embraced the white nationalist “replacement” conspiracy theory on Thursday night.

“Now, I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” Carlson said during an appearance on Fox News Primetime. “But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it: That's true.”
https://twitter.com/JGreenblattADL/status/1380528052061544455

The so-called “great replacement” theory posits that white people are being systematically “replaced” by people of color through mass immigration. The Guardian explained that under this theory, “replacement has been orchestrated by a shadowy group as part of their grand plan to rule the world … . This group is often overtly identified as being Jews, but sometimes the antisemitism is more implicit.”

The theory has also been linked to far-right terrorists who committed mass shootings in both New Zealand and El Paso, Texas, in 2019. The white nationalist groups who marched in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, were also heard chanting both “You will not replace us” and the variant “Jews will not replace us.”

In addition, Fox News personalities (including Carlson) have promoted the conspiracy theory for years, casting immigration as a “purposeful repopulation of America” and helping to propel the idea further into the mainstream of public discourse.