Watch: Matt Gaetz invokes racial stereotypes in bid to make MAGA movement 'more diverse'
In a recent interview, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) appeared to recognize that the far-right is overwhelmingly white, and he issued a call for diversity that's being mocked on various corners of the internet.
While speaking with host Carl Higbie on far-right network Newsmax, Gaetz spoke optimistically about how he feels people of color will be compelled to join the "MAGA movement" in 2024, and that Black and Hispanic men — which he used stereotypical names to describe — can help replace the growing exodus of women from the right.
"[F]or every ‘Karen’ we lose, there is a 'Julio' and a 'Jamal' ready to sign up for the MAGA movement," Gaetz said. "That bodes well for our ability to be more diverse and to be more durable as we head into not only the rest of the primary contests but also the general election."
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In his Substack newsletter, Black journalist Stephen Robinson pointed out that Gaetz is relying on myths to justify his party's appeal to working-class people of color, writing "it's just not true that the Republican Party has a 'blue-collar' base."
"The majority of voters earning less than $100,000 backed Joe Biden in 2020, and those earning more than $100,000 voted for Trump. Even if you define 'blue collar' strictly based on educational background rather than income — so a struggling public school teacher with a master’s is somehow more 'elite' than a well-paid plumber — Democrats consistently win voters of color without a college degree," Robinson wrote. "The true 'realignment' within the GOP is how it’s steadily become a white Christian nationalist party."
Charles Weber — whose X/Twitter bio describes him as a "Jewish conservative from S. Florida — was more direct in his criticism of Gaetz, tweeting "We are going to get clobbered in 2024, aren't we?"
As Politico reported in 2023, the Republican Party is having an increasingly difficult time recruiting young women to its cause. And since the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the GOP struggled in both that year's midterm elections and various statewide elections in 2023 — including in the reliably red states of Kentucky and Ohio, where the former reelected its Democratic governor despite former President Donald Trump endorsing his Republican opponent, and where the latter's voters passed a ballot referendum enshrining abortion rights in the state's constitution.
READ MORE: Kentucky's Democratic governor re-elected in victory over Trump-backed former AG
Watch the video of Gaetz's comments below, or by clicking this link.
