Videos of reporters’ interactions with protesters at Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies have been oddly amusing. In many cases, participants struggle to articulate why they’re there. Counting on reporters to accept their trite non-answers, they turn notably hostile when challenged.
In the clip below, for example, a reporter asks a woman what brought her to the rally. She responds, “I think protest is important.”
Pressed further, she tells him she doesn’t agree with many of the decisions being made.
The reporter asks, “Is there any decision [from Trump] in particular you disagree with?”
Following an uncomfortable pause, she draws a blank. She becomes defensive and says, “I don’t even think it’s appropriate for me to be speaking to you.”
In the next clip, a mother and daughter offer up such vacuous nonsense that it’s almost painful to watch.
But it was the exchange below that had everybody talking. A reporter speaking to an elderly white liberal woman at a rally notes the lack of diversity in the crowd.
The woman responds, “It is not for black people, for people of color, to get out on the street. They’re at risk when they do that. If anybody’s gonna get arrested here, it’s gonna be a black person. It is not safe for them and they don’t need to participate. We need to walk in their name.”
Clearly amazed by her response, he asks her if she thinks voter ID is racist.
She tells him, “It’s 100% a tactic to control the population and prevent people from voting so that the only votes that — so that the gerrymandering can work, so that white voters can vote in white Christian males.”
Asked if she’s been voting blue her whole life, she replied, “I voted blue in the womb.”
“If you had to vote for a Republican, J.D. Vance or Rubio, which would you pick, if you had to?”
“I would slit my throat,” she says.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Were those not some of the most racist remarks you’ve ever heard?
This woman’s comments were a textbook example of what George W. Bush called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” By arguing that black Americans shouldn’t protest because they might be arrested, the elderly liberal woman reveals an assumption that they are less capable of navigating risk, asserting their rights, or engaging in the same forms of dissent as others. Posed as caution, it is in fact a patronizing limitation.
It’s the same principle used by Democrats in debates over voter ID laws. How many times have we heard Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rail against voter ID requirements because minority citizens may not be able to obtain one?
It’s a control mechanism, and it’s ultimately one of the most demeaning forms of racism. Democrats’ repeated use of this tactic may be one reason why some minority voters are drifting away from the party.
Understandably, this woman’s remarks triggered outrage on social media.
If these clips reveal anything, it’s that a movement built on slogans but lacking substance quickly collapses under even mild scrutiny. And when its defenders resort to condescension disguised as compassion, it doesn’t just undermine their message — it exposes the very prejudice they claim to oppose.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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