Racism on Twitter is nothing new. But it is always horrible to see, especially from the official accounts of state political parties.
Nina Turner, a democratic socialist and former State Senator of Ohio, posted on the platform to argue in favor of free universal healthcare, stating, “Insulin should be free. Medicine should be free.”
Of course, what should ideally be an incredibly uncontroversial statement drew the ire of many conservatives, including the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, which tweeted their horrific response: “Nina Turner should be picking crops for free.”
If that weren’t enough, the party has doubled and tripled down on their response, attempting to argue that they aren’t anti-Black but anti-politician (as a political party?!) and used memes equating her to slave owners who wanted “free cotton.”
It is perhaps the most idiotic false equivalence I’ve heard on the internet.
Socialized Healthcare is not slavery. Telling a Black woman she should be picking cotton for free, however, is extremely racist.
The NH Libertarian Party specifically invoked slavery to argue against Turner because she is Black. It was a tactic to silence her. When she called them on their racism and declared “the descendants of enslaved Black people are OWED reparations,” they responded by retweeting a comic that accused her of being unable to take the same arguments that she dishes out—basically the “no, you” of internet arguments.
The NH Libertarian Party took things even further by “offering” to send Turner back to Africa if she didn’t like living in America—another racist dog whistle that dates back to the days of slavery where abolitionists and slaveholders alike thought the end of slavery would also lead to the deportation of formerly enslaved people. (They also tried to use this racist debacle to fundraise for their organization.) The whole mess is made doubly ironic as the Texas Libertarian Party called them out while the Pennsylvania Libertarians defended them.
But seriously, make up your mind, Libertarians: Is slavery the ultimate evil/trump card or is it no big deal that black people should just get over? You can’t argue both. But they will undoubtedly continue to do so because they lack actual understanding of the system in question.
As for the argument about “socialized healthcare being slavery,” almost every other wealthy nation in the world has socialized healthcare. However, America has lagged behind in that respect, with healthcare frequently being tied to employment.
Despite being “the land of the free,” America hates providing anything free for its people. Our infrastructure is crumbling, and the few services we do provide for free like public schools are constantly under attack. There’s an argument that many of these services are targeted specifically because they benefit underprivileged people and/or minorities. (See the decline of bus systems after integration, the rise of charter and private schools, and now the death of Affirmative Action.)
The NH Libertarian Party also tried to turn Turner’s words around with parody by arguing that, “No one should have to pay for food. It should be free. No one should have to pay for housing. It should be free. All that a person needs to live should be free.”
Which, yeah. In the wealthiest countries on the planet, people should not be hungry and homeless ever. There are more empty houses than homeless people and more food waste than hungry people in America. We could solve these problems today if we actually wanted to but there’s this loud minority that has fully bought into the capitalism narrative and insists that everyone should pay for everything themselves and that having any of your money taken by the government is socialism or communism.
At the same time, this same account has also advocated for a “real January 6th” so it’s hardly a surprise that they think this way.
The worst part is that the New Hampshire Libertarian Party will not see any consequences for their actions. Twitter will do nothing to stop their racism and the social media manager who runs the account will probably get congratulated for increasing engagement. It’s entirely possible that this whole controversy was their attempt at engagement farming (basically, getting people to interact with their page) and by that measure, they were successful.
However, if you do live in New Hampshire (or anywhere with a state Libertarian party), I would advise checking your voter registration and paying attention to upcoming elections, especially ones where the Libertarian Party has candidates.
(featured image: ismagilov/Getty Images)
