GOP lawmaker says Trump isn't racist and neither was slavery

An attempt to defend Trump’s racist attack on four Democratic congresswomen led a Republican lawmaker down the path of arguing that slavery in the United States was not racist.

“Owning slaves doesn’t make you racist,” New Hampshire state Rep. Werner Horn wrote online, according a Wednesday report from the New Hampshire Union Leader.

The comment was made during an exchange with another Republican, who said Trump is being unfairly depicted as the most racist president, since other presidents owned slaves.

“Owning slaves wasn’t a decision predicated on race, but on economics,” Horn said. “It’s a business decision.”

The enslavement of black people in the United States was based on the belief that blacks were inferior to whites. This painful part of American history wasn’t merely about economics.

In an interview with the Union Leader, Horn took a page from Trump’s playbook and doubled down on his absurd comments.

“Slavery later on in the American South was not about the color of the skin of the slaves, but their value as workers on the plantations,” Horn said.

“They weren’t enslaving black people because they were black,” he added. “They were bringing in these folks because they were available.”

While whitewashing the bigotry that fueled slavery, Horn also took a moment to leap to the defense of Trump.

He said Trump’s comments that the four American congresswomen of color should “go back” to where the came from was not racist. Horn said the attack was just “rude.”

“It was certainly rude, but he’s just tossing gasoline on the fire that started the previous week when these liberal Democrats took on Pelosi,” Horn said.

An overwhelming majority of Americans have said Trump’s attack was racist and “un-American.” However, it appears Trump has a Republican in his corner who doesn’t understand racism in the United States.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.