But How?

“What I did not realize was all of the national conversation about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” https://t.co/QuLQUwlh4s

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 15, 2021

When Ted Cruz and others pulled their dumb "contest the electors" stunt, one of the people I was surprised to see add their voice to the appalling lie was Sen. Lankford, who just never struck me as the type. Maybe 2022 was just creeping up on him and giving him the willies about possibly being primaried if he wasn't going to pull his head out. I don't know. What I do know is, it's absurd that he had no idea that contesting the votes in the areas that were contested would be "perceived" as being about the legitimacy of Black voters. It's doubly absurd that he would expect people to believe that.

My perspective might be colored, in part, by being from Philadelphia. The specificity with which Trump and his campaign legal team attacked voter counts in some areas wasn't lost on us here. But it was a national story. Giuliani and friends knew exactly what they were doing.

I note that it seems like Lankford was particularly interested in contesting the Arizona vote count--Biden was put over the top there with the help of the Navajo Nation. COVID-19 has hit native people hard, and they were voting for their lives. That man did a whole lot of "not thinking".

So on one hand, yes, an apology was in line, and kudos for getting right on it, because Hawley*, Cruz, others, probably won't apologize at all. But saying "I didn't know it was racist," just really exceeds my bullshit bandwidth. He needs to be more honest about what his own motives had been, and what his party has been about for literally decades now.

UPDATE: Sen. Hawley explains that he was representing the people of Missouri, who were just deeply concerned with whether the Pennsylvania state constitution was being followed or some such twaddle. To which I obviously and without equivocation state, "Mind your own fucking business."