NYT, MSNBC's Mara Gay: We Have to 'Separate Americanness, America, From Whiteness'

NYT/MSNBC’s @MaraGay: In Long Island last weekend, I saw “dozens of American flags,” which was “just disturbing” pic.twitter.com/RhGdqqJope

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 8, 2021

MARA GAY: The reality is here that we have a large percentage of the American population -- I don't know how big it is, but we have tens of millions of Trump voters who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others. I think as long as they see Americanness as the same as one with whiteness, this is going to continue. We have to figure out how to get every American a place at the table in this democracy, but how to separate Americanness, America, from whiteness. Until we can confront that and talk about that, this is really going to continue.

I was on Long Island this weekend, visiting a really dear friend and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with expletives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, which essentially the message was clear, this is my country. This is not your country. I own this.

And so until we're ready to have that conversation, this is going to continue. What really is concerning to me as well is, it's not just Democrats in Congress. I think there's a large percentage of Americans, even some of my colleagues in journalism, who are invested in some way in pretending that this isn't the threat that it is. That is the real concern. Because, you know, the Trump voters who are not going to get onboard with democracy, they're a minority. You can marginalize them, long-term. But if we don't take the threat seriously, then I think we're all in really bad shape.