CNN has finally fired senior political commentator and republican troll Rick Santorum for his racist comments about Native Americans. The republican former senator, who spent his political career aggressively attacking reproductive rights and the LGBTQ+ community, came under fire last month for a speech he gave at the “Standing Up for Faith and Freedom” summit organized by the ultra-conservative youth organization Young America’s Foundation.
In his speech, Santorum said, “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes, we have Native Americans but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture. It was born of the people who came here, pursuing religious liberty.”
Hmm, I wonder why there isn’t much Native American culture in “American culture”, whatever the f-ck that means. Maybe that’s due to the fact that white colonizers slaughtered Indigenous communities, spread disease, and stole land and valuable goods while exiling Native Americans to reservations. Santorum’s glib and ignorant treatment of the genocide of Native Americans was swiftly met with backlash.
Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, released a statement saying, “Rick Santorum is an unhinged and embarrassing racist who disgraces CNN and any other media company that provides him a platform, … Televising someone with his views on Native American genocide is fundamentally no different than putting an outright Nazi on television to justify the Holocaust.”
In addition to being racist and ignorant, Santorum is just plain wrong. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (formerly one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress along with Rep. Sharice Davids) quickly corrected Santorum’s baseless ramblings in a statement of her own, saying “It’s unfortunate that, first of all, that perhaps we haven’t done a good job of educating Americans about Indian history, because Native American history truly is American history,” Haaland said. “When we think about the influence that Native Americans have had on the forming of the United States, right? The U.S. Constitution is based on the Iroquois Confederacy. Native Americans from some tribes here in this country have some of the oldest democracies in the world.”
Santorum was also called out by anchors on his own network, including Don Lemon, who were angry that Santorum didn’t even offer an apology for his unhinged racism, claiming he “misspoke” and that his comments were taken “out of context.”
Don Lemon tears into Rick Santorum for not apologizing for his Native American remarks on CNN tonight.
"Did he actually think it is a good idea for him to come on television to whitewash the whitewash that he whitewashed? It was horrible! It was horrible and insulting!" pic.twitter.com/vLndQKE66A
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 4, 2021
But why did it take nearly a month to axe Santorum for such a fireable offense? Frustrated with the lack of action regarding the former senator, Native American activist groups and celebrities teamed up for day of action to pressure the network to get rid of Santorum, using the hashtag #RemoveRick.
Rick Santorum is a man whose beliefs about civil liberties are so archaic, they line right up with those of his early colonial ancestors. Wondering if this dim-witted, pioneer cosplaying turd smells as badly as his forefathers did. @CNN, do Natives a solid and #removeRick
— jana (@janaunplgd) May 20, 2021
Hi, loyal CNN viewer here, still wondering if @CNN will display even a small bit of respect for the Native peoples who watch their programming. Maybe their leadership team agrees with @RickSantorum that we are insignificant 😐 #RemoveRick
— G R A Y (@sarahgraysaid) May 20, 2021
Your ignorance & racism, is continuing to perpetuate the erasure of myself, Native communities, our ancestors & the long history of violence & injustice we have experienced.
We existed long before settler colonialism. We didn’t need saving.https://t.co/RgKEtNCssX pic.twitter.com/ocXSimXeUU
— Jordan (@_NativeInLA) April 28, 2021
Many took to Twitter to respond to Santorum’s firing:
The answer to my essay? Apparently 3 weeks. Glad CNN dropped Rick Santorum. Should have happened a long time ago. The double standard in cable news favoring white conservative men with an atrocious history of bigoted comments still exists however.https://t.co/2JsvfkGkRq
— Wajahat "Not Fasting" Ali (@WajahatAli) May 22, 2021
CNN finally did to Rick Santorum what we Pennsylvanians did in 2006:
Dumped his flaming hot santorum (noun; synonym of s—)
— Lindy Li (@lindyli) May 22, 2021
I’m not celebrating because Rick Santorum got fired. I’m celebrating because, in a rare move that I hope becomes more common, someone faced actual consequences for making openly racist statements against Native Americans AND because Rick Santorum got fired 😎 https://t.co/II90MGUOzx
— Joey Clift (@joeytainment) May 22, 2021
📣BREAKING NEWS!! 📣 Rick Santorum is GONE!We did it everyone! Together we have power. Thank you to all our Native organizing partners, allies and to @jbendery and @HuffPost for their important coverage on this. Thank you @cnn for finally doing the right thing. https://t.co/ieZsAmuJFg
— Crystal EchoHawk (@CrystalEchoHawk) May 22, 2021
Frankly, Santorum never should have been allowed on CNN in the first place. His hiring as a “political analyst” was a craven attempt at “balanced coverage” to woo conservative viewers to the network. Like so many cable news outlets, CNN has conflated non-biased reporting with giving every opinion equal airtime, no matter how half-baked or ignorant and offensive the opinions are. It’s bothsidesism and false balance to split your newsroom between one faction that supports truth and facts and one that does not. Still, the deplatforming of Rick Santorum is a gift to us all. Here’s hoping he will only be remembered for Dan Savage’s indelible neologism of Santorum.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, image: KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)
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