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Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley, and Sen. Tim Scott stand on stage with their hands on their hearts at the Republican presidential primary debate last month (AP Photo/Morry Gash/CP)

Why are brown and Black people supporting the far right?

The Republican Party in the United States has moved farther right in recent years. And as it’s done so, you would think racialized Americans might be distancing themselves from it and its policies.

But at last week’s GOP primary presidential debates, three of the seven people on stage were candidates of colour. Racialized citizens also have been drawn to far-right politics, including key players in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol and recent racist attacks.

Which begs the question: Why are racialized people upholding white supremacist ideologies that work against them?

Daniel Martinez HoSang, a professor of Ethnicity, Race and Migration and American Studies at Yale University, has been exploring this question for a long time. He is the author with Joseph Lowndes of Producers, Parasites, Patriots, Race, and the New Right Wing Politics of Precarity. HoSang sat down with us to discuss what they call the politics of multicultural white supremacy.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., smiles during a campaign stop in Sept. AP Photo/Charles Krupa/CP

Read more in the Conversation


Read more: Dismantling 'freedom convoy' must be coupled with education on the dangers of extremism



Read more: Republicans are trying to build a multiracial right – will it work?



Read more: Canadian social rights activists are legitimizing the alt-right


Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley takes the stage at her campaign event in July in Greenville, S.C. AP Photo/Meg Kinnard/CP

Resources

Producers, Parasites, Patriots Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity by Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes

President Nixon calls on the “silent majority”

“Two-Thirds of Republicans Believe Great Replacement Theory, New Poll Shows”

“Black, Brown and extremist: Across the far-right spectrum, people of color play a more visible role” (Washington Post)

How the misuses of Martin Luther King’s legacy divide us and undermine democracy (Princeton U Press) by Hajar Yazdiha

Republican presidential candidate businessman Vivek Ramaswamy talks with Robert Nazario, left, at the Iowa State Fair, in August 2023. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall/CP

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