Model, rapper and opportunist Amber Rose got a quick reminder this week of how a sizable amount of Republican voters feel about Black people and other minorities.
Rose, who recently announced her support for Donald Trump, spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Monday night.
In her speech, Rose gushed about Trump's and his supporters' supposedly accepting attitude, claiming that "Democrats" and "the Left" have "lied" about Donald Trump's history of bigotry.
Amber Rose Speaks To The RNC: 'The Media Has Lied To Us About Donald Trump'youtu.be
Trump's bigoted comments about Black people, Mexicans, women, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, the disabled and even insults against combat veterans are well documented, as is the virulent and sometimes violent bigotry of his supporters both inside and outside Washington.
But Rose says that's all nonsense.
She told the audience:
“I’m no politician and I don’t wanna be, but I do care about the truth, and the truth is that the media has lied to us about Donald Trump."
"I know this because for a long time I believed those lies, so I’m here to set the record straight.”
She then called the allegations of bigotry against Trump and his supporters "left-wing propaganda" before going on to say:
“I realized Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re Black, white, gay or straight. It’s all love."
"And that’s when it hit me: these are my people. This is where I belong.”
Those "people," however, very clearly feel differently, and they wasted no time making sure Rose knows it in no uncertain terms.
In one tweet, prominent far-right commentator Matt Walsh lambasted the RNC for giving a "prime-time" spot to Rose, whom he referred to as a "slut...whose only claim to fame is sleeping with rappers."
@MattWalshBlog/X
In another, he excoriated the RNC for following up Trump's survival of an assassination attempt by forcing him to listen to "a porn star talk about diversity" (Rose is a prominent OnlyFans creator).
@MattWalshBlog/X
"Diversity," along with "DEI," is the new right-wing buzzphrase that stands in for "Black" so that they can have plausible deniability about their racism.
However Rose, whose mother is Black and whose father is white, has said in the past she doesn't consider herself Black, so perhaps the racist undertones of such comments are not important to her.
In any case, it wasn't just Matt Walsh having a meltdown about the inclusion of Rose. Scores of right-wingers took to Twitter to express their outrage, particularly given Rose's outspoken pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ+ views.
But of course many others have been dragging Rose for her seeming obliviousness to how Republicans actually feel about her.
Republicans may not be feeling particularly welcoming to Rose, but it's gotten her into the news cycle for the first time in years, and that's all that matters.
@sydney_sweeney/Instagram
@HawleyMO/X