MSNBC contributor Mara Gay said Tuesday that she was “disturbed” to see American flags being flown by Trump supporters during a visit to Long Island, New York.
The story: Gay, who is an editorial board member for The New York Times, appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday where she spoke about race. She argued that a significant portion of the people who live in American equate the U.S. with whiteness, including, supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Gay then recalled a recent visit to Long Island where she said she saw Trump supporters in pickup trucks that featured expletives against President Joe Biden, Trump flags, and American flags. The MSNBC contributor said the sight was “disturbing.”
Her remarks: “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,” Gay said told MSNBC host Mika Brezinski.
“I think that as long as they see Americanness as the same as one with Whiteness, this is going to continue,” Gay continued.
“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 explicatives [sic] against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, Gay said.
She suggested that Trump supporters were trying to get across the message: “This is my country. This is not your country. I own this,” Gay said.
She said the “real concern” is that many in the U.S. “are invested in pretending” that this stance “isn’t the threat that it is.”
“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,” Gay argued.
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