Tuesday troll alert: Boy, I sure hope Todd Kincannon is single!

I can sort of see why this dude wouldn’t get the invite to the GOP retreat at the totes awesome plantation in Virginia back in January.

I mean, perhaps some folks in the GOP were thinking about what it would mean to empower someone like that who displays such sensitivity, really in touch with the zeitgeist. Or perhaps they thought after losing the 2012 elections, and recognizing the pluralistic reality of the American electorate, that this dude, the ‘honey badger of American Politics,’ (Kincannon’s actual Twitter bio) might be off message. This guy is so not helping in the effort to re-brand the Grand Old Party. While we can see this tweet as the troll bait it really is, yet again, you gotta wonder how the GOP and the entirety of the conservative movement can ‘rebrand’ itself when such vitriol and racial animus is privileged to move among their ranks?

Is it any wonder that when Colin Powell said, ‘There’s also a dark — a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party” in a MTP interview a few weeks back:

South Carolina still flies the Confederate Flag over its state legislative house and it’s pretty impossible to ignore the symbolism behind that. So is it really a strange surprise that the ‘honey badger of American politics’ pivoted back to an old meme, the black/white crime paradigm?

Kincannon, when attacked, assumes the fun house mirror defense that he’s being satirical and not racist. Dude…we’re so much smarter than that. It’s old. It’s a last gasp and nod to a perceived dominion of white men in the always pluralistic America. Kincannon seems to be part of the dog whistle politic cabal, rewriting and selling a crime narrative for a dead kid (a dead black kid) with no criminal record. And it’s insulting to the smart American electorate who can see ugly, not conservatism under fire–and certainly an insult to conservatives, who believe they can persuade voters of every group to embrace their positions without triggering racial bias.

The GOP has adopted a angry white southerner narrative for votes to the exclusion of black, latino, LBGT, Asian American votes for so long that it seems impossible for them to imagine any alternative outside the old southern strategy; a world where, you know, where everyone has equal protection under the law.

I should also note ‘honey badger’ overshares a bit much. Eew.

Trayvon Martin would have been 18 years old today. Darius Simmons was 13 years old when his 76 year old neighbor shot him last summer in Milwaukee. Jordan Davis was 17 years old when he was gunned down for playing loud music at gas station in Florida.

Let’s not be distracted from the serious work policy and advocacy prevention work here: the gerrymandering of districts in GOP controlled legislatures that disenfranchise communities of color and LBGT folks. The rigging of votes to shift electoral outcomes in the national election may mean more restrictions to non-existant options for women seeking reproductive health options and gun legislation that can protect all communities, and marriage equality.

(h/t Wonkette)

SYREETA MCFADDEN is a Brooklyn based writer, photographer and adjunct professor of English. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Religion Dispatches and Storyscape Journal. She is the managing editor of the online literary magazine, Union Station, and a co-curator of Poets in Unexpected Places. You can follow her on Twitter @reetamac.

Syreeta McFadden is a contributing opinion writer for The Guardian US and an editor of Union Station Magazine.

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