GOP Candidate Suggests Women, Black People, Gays to Blame for Economic Woes
Republican senate candidate Blake Masters sent out a tweet suggesting that the nation's economic woes could be pinned on Black people, gays, and women. Twitter had some thoughts about that.
"On Sunday, Masters, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump, shared a story from the Associated Press on Twitter about diversity at the Federal Reserve," Newsweek recounted. "The AP said that the Fed's leadership '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.'"
Masters' comment, which he tweeted along with the story, said, "Finally a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well."
Newsweek noted that the GOP candidate, who is running for Sen. Mark Kelly's seat, was "likely speaking with sarcasm about problems currently facing the U.S. economy, such as high inflation and concerns about a recession."
What such a narrative misses, however, is that "inflation is a global phenomenon right now — and the U.S. has actually fared better than other countries in recent months," as The New York Times pointed out in a recent article, noting that "the disruption of supply chains by both the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and soaring consumer demand for goods" have led to spiking prices across the world, even though the dual forces of supply and demand played different roles in different countries.
In the U.S., the Times pointed out, "demand has played a bigger role" than in European nations. "Altogether, the U.S. spent more to prevent economic catastrophe during the pandemic than most of the world did. That led to a stronger recovery, but also to greater inflation," the Times explained.
Of course, when it comes to tossing verbal red meat to the base, it's far simpler to glibly blame the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups. Huffpost noted that Masters doubled down in a video in which he implied "without evidence that Black federal employees won their jobs exclusively through affirmative action."
"If you want to see the affirmative action regime on display, just look at Biden's White House," the GOP candidate declared, "describing Vice President Kamala Harris as incompetent," Huffpost relayed.
"I've never spoken to anyone who could say with a straight face that Kamala is somehow the most qualified candidate for that job," he went on to say.
"Masters made no effort to justify his insinuations that diversity at the Federal Reserve has harmed U.S. monetary policy or that Black officials at the Fed are unqualified for their jobs," Huffpost noted.
Some Twitter users gleefully echoed Masters' snipe. However, Newsweek noted, the social media platform was far from unanimously supportive of his gratuitous comment.
"CNN Senior National Correspondent Kyung Lah shared Masters' tweet and added simply: 'Blake Masters is Arizona's Republican US Senate nominee,'" the magazine detailed.
"'Surely Arizona US Senate candidate Blake Masters meant to text this racist, misogynist, anti-LGBTQ hot take to his wife and not actually ... tweet it to the world???' wrote Shannon Watts, the founder of gun safety group Moms Demand Action," the article added.
Have a look at what some others on Twitter had to say: