Politics

MAGA activist warns about voters with ‘Hispanic-sounding’ names

Published

1 year ago

November 11, 2024

MAGA activist warns about voters with ‘Hispanic-sounding’ names

A video obtained by CBS News and published this week offers a clear window into the bigotry motivating the MAGA movement’s voter suppression efforts.

The video shows North Carolina conservative activist James Womack directing members of his “election protection” group to be on the lookout for voters with “Hispanic-sounding last names,” claiming their voter registrations could be “suspicious.”

Womack’s organization of activist volunteers is part of a coalition of groups challenging people’s voter eligibility called the Election Integrity Network, which is headed by election-denying attorney Cleta Mitchell.

In the video, which CBS says was provided by a progressive watchdog group and independently verified by the outlet, Womack discusses how to identify “suspicious” voters:

If you’ve got folks that you, that were registered and they’re missing information and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election and they’ve got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter. … It doesn’t mean they’re illegal. It just means they’re suspicious.

Womack told CBS he believes the voter lists are “corrupt” and said “citizens have a right to that information and they analyze that information to identify potential illegal or improperly registered people.” He said the group takes multiple factors into consideration when flagging suspicious voters.

The “Hispanic-sounding last name certainly is not exclusive,” Womack told CBS, adding that “mispronunciations” and misspellings of “Arab” names could also be suspicious.

Womack said his group doesn’t target people based on race. But there’s literally no reason other than xenophobia to think someone having a “Hispanic-sounding” surname or mispronounced “Arab” name (whatever that means) should heighten suspicion that they’re an illegally registered voter.

This is the natural result of Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress and conservative media figures promoting bigoted conspiracy theories alleging Democrats are deliberately welcoming migrants into the country to have them vote illegally. It cannot be overstated that this is a lie that aligns the GOP with the racist screeds of several mass shooters.

The Womack video offers yet another example of today’s conservative movement relying on Jim Crow-style tactics to hoist its candidates into office this election cycle.

And lest you believe this kind of targeting can’t have an impact, Republicans are seeking to purge thousands of voters from voter rolls (though their efforts are largely failing, as my colleague Lisa Rubin wrote for the MaddowBlog this week). And we’ve already seen examples of these challenges disproportionately sweeping up eligible voters of color. On the campaign trail, Trump has started routinely raving about wanting to revive the United States of the 1890s, and even the 1790s. He longs for an era before nonwhite people were afforded equal access to participate in our political system. And his supporters are trying their hardest to give it to him, one racist voter suppression scheme at a time.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

Politics

2028 Dem veteran? Uncle Sam wants you.

Published

11 hours ago

March 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

In the 15 days since President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Iran, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is approaching nearly a dozen media appearances, offering his often visceral reaction to the conflict.

Gallego, a 46-year-old combat veteran who deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2005, has emerged as a blunt, clear voice for the Democratic Party on foreign policy, speaking as someone whose own generation experienced the forever wars.

There he was on BLN’s “The Source with Kaitlin Collins” saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio was doing “CYA” and noting that the “MAGA base is pissed.” There he was sitting down with the AP speaking “as someone who lives with PTSD,” adding “it’s not been an easy week.” And there he was on Derek Thompson’s podcast, speaking about “going town to town searching for insurgents” 21 years ago, “but there was no clear direction of what victory looked like, what the end goal was, what was going to be the after-action report on Iraq.”

Gallego isn’t alone. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Navy captain who flew combat missions during Operation Desert Storm in 1990, has also racked up a run of high-profile media appearances, as has former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who served in Afghanistan in the Army’s 82nd Airborne, went on local radio this week to link Americans’ affordability woes to the war.

In a year after many Democrats pined for a metaphorical fighter, the party is now having a conversation with itself about whether it needs a literal fighter — a veteran who can speak with credibility on issues of war and national security.

In an interview with Blue Light News, Gallego spoke of “dodging bullets, IEDs, RPGs, clearing towns and then coming back to the same towns with insurgents” and of “losing friends and still not understanding what the end goal was the whole time.”

“It leaves a mark on you, and you start seeing it happening again, you know, you don’t really think about the politics,” Gallego said. “You think about the people who are going to be potentially dying. And that’s why I think I was not hesitant to speak my mind on that.”

Later this month in San Antonio, Texas, Gallego will join VoteVets Action for its third town hall featuring potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, promising “fresh voices to the national conversation — those who have worn the uniform and served alongside us, who connect with everyday Americans others can’t,” according to a promotional video. (They’ve also done town halls with Buttigieg and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin.)

“On foreign policy, the Dems need a candidate who is seen as strong/tough — not in rhetoric or bravado political platitudes but who conveys a sense of judgement and resolve with which voters connect instinctively,” said Doug Wilson, the former assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Obama administration and co-lead of Buttigieg’s 2020 foreign policy team.

The “Iran war underscores the need” for such a candidate, Wilson added.

Whomever the Democrats select as their nominee could potentially face a Situation Room-steeped ticket deep with national security credentials, including a Marine Iraq war veteran in Vice President JD Vance or Rubio, with his secretary of State experience.

Depending on how the many conflicts the U.S. is engaged in at the moment resolve, that experience could cut against them.

But right now, Democrats who can match those bona fides have some currency others without them can’t.

“That’s obviously going to be helpful to them,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. “It’s gonna be a big part of what they’re talking about for the next little while. But you know, how long does it last? We just don’t know, right? In my professional lifetime, foreign policy stuff and national security has mattered in a presidential race once — in 2004. That’s it. Otherwise, it comes up, but it’s not driving the conversation.”

Some potential Democratic candidates without such credentials have still managed to break through amid the Iran news cycle. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has said the White House has treated aspects of the war “as a video game,” in a clip gaining traction on X. “When American service members killed in action are returning to the United States in flagged-draped coffins, and even more Americans have lost limbs or suffered terrible brain injuries or are fighting for their lives, this White House treats war like a game, and it’s a disgrace,” Ossoff said.

When asked whether military service is an essential for the party’s eventual nominee, Gallego acknowledged there is a benefit for someone who can “speak with that type of credibility.”

“I’m not the type of person that’s like, ‘you have to be a veteran — Iraq War veteran,’” Gallego said. “This is a democracy. We’re still one, and there’s a lot of people that can bring valuable experience and knowledge. But you know, someone that actually has a nuanced understanding of foreign policy; that doesn’t go to the total knee-jerk reactionism that sometimes we see where we go to the point of, you know, isolationism; or the other way, where we go to full neocon. There needs to be a very balanced way to how we approach the world.”

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