In racist tweet, Blake Masters blames diversity in Fed leadership for economic challenges

On Sunday, Arizona Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters appeared to blame the nation’s economic challenges on the fact that the Federal Reserve Bank has more women, LGBTQ people, and people of color in charge. This fits a long pattern of bigoted behavior from the millionaire venture capitalist candidate.

The Associated Press noted in a tweet Saturday that, “Leadership at the Federal Reserve has become its most diverse ever. There are more female, Black and gay officials contributing to the central bank’s interest-rate decisions than at any time in its 109-year history.”

In response to the news, Masters sarcastically tweeted, “Finally a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well.”

The news marks a significant step forward for the powerful central bank. It did not have a Black governor until Andrew Brimmer was appointed in 1966, and it did not have a female governor until Nancy Teeters was appointed in 1978. Lisa Cook became the first-ever Black woman appointed to be a governor this year.

While Masters expressed outrage at the Federal Reserve leadership’s diversity, nearly half of the members of its current Board of Governors, including Chair Jay Powell, are Republicans who were put there by former President Donald Trump.

The economy has seen significant improvements since Trump, whose endorsement tops Masters’ list of supporters, left office in January 2021.

Under President Joe Biden, the United States economy has regained all of the jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, and unemployment has dropped below 3% in 22 states. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that inflation slowed last month, even before Biden and Democrats in Congress enacted the Inflation Reduction Act.

Nonetheless, Masters has railed against Biden’s economic agenda while claiming the economy is “cratering“.

In a section on his website about his commitment to stopping “Bidenflation,” Masters claims that “Biden’s America is starting to feel like Soviet Russia.”

This is not the first bigoted statement Masters has made.

On April 11, he told the right-wing Jeff Oravits Show podcast that gun violence in the United States problem was principally a problem in communities of color.

“We do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence, right?” he baselessly claimed. “It’s gangs. It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly. And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.”

He has also attacked LGBTQ rights. In June, the Daily Beast reported that he opposes marriage equality for same-sex couples.

“Marriage is between a man and a woman,” Masters said at a February campaign event. “Marriage is an institution that goes back thousands of years, and it has a point. The point is procreation and creating children.”

He has also proposed nationalizing Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law, which prohibits public school teachers and staff from talking about LGBTQ families and issues with students before they reach the fourth grade.

“When I’m in the U.S. Senate, I will push a federal version of the Florida law: your tax dollars should not fund radical gender ideology and weird sex instruction for children,” Masters tweeted on March 10.

He has also repeatedly suggested that diversity and LGBTQ inclusion efforts in the U.S. military undermine national defense.

“We’re just not going to be an effective lethal fighting force if we’re teaching soldiers about social justice and diversity, inclusion, and critical race theory, and we’re naming warships after, you know, gay rights heroes instead of, you know, World War Two admirals and stuff,” Masters said during a Twitter Spaces session in November.

Masters will face first-term Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in November. Recent polling has shown Kelly ahead by a few points in the competitive race.

This latest racist, sexist, and homophobic tweet comes as Masters is trying to convince Arizona voters that he is not as extreme as he claimed to be during the primary campaign.

Last week, he launched a television ad intended to lie to voters about Kelly’s pro-choice abortion positions and to convince them that Masters no longer wants a federal ban on abortion from conception onward. Masters also scrubbed language from his campaign site calling for a federal fetal “personhood” law.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.