It’s Not Racist to Not Want To Lose an Election

A familiar Democratic pathology appears when the party faces a pivotal race in Texas

For a while there, it seemed like virtually everything was racist.

National parks, the term “Master Bedroom,” even your pet dog might be racist.

It would be convenient to blame this fixation on the fringes of American society — Tumblr pages and X Studies professors at liberal arts colleges — but the truth is that ludicrous accusations of racism and sexism were mainstreamed by some of the most powerful people in the country.

It was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of all people, who campaigned on “intersectionality,” warning that the legion of Bernie Sanders supporters — who her clique derided as “Bernie Bros” — failed to understand that breaking up big banks wouldn’t “end racism” (what policy would end racism, what are we even talking about?).

The constant use of race and gender to deflect from political disagreements by the Democratic elite became a mainstay of the party sometime in the 2010s, but following Trump’s re-election in 2024, there was a brief window where many of us had hoped that we could return to political sanity.

Yes, there’s plenty of prejudice in American politics. But that doesn’t mean that anyone who criticizes a politician who happens to be a woman or ethnic minority is motivated by prejudice; and those politicians should not be above criticism.

What I just said is common sense to most Americans. But among Democratic primary voters — who happen to be a small subset of Americans — there is still an active debate about whether you should be willing to openly discuss a minority or female candidate for office’s flaws lest you unwittingly hand ammunition to bigots on the right.

We’re witnessing that debate play out after Texas Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett threw her hat into the ring, joining the party’s Senate primary in that state ahead of the 2026 race.

Crockett decided to open her bid in a characteristically Crockett way. The video featured Crockett standing there as audio of Trump insulting her is played. Not once does the video talk about any public policy issue or even the state where she is running: Texas.

This is characteristic for Crockett because her short tenure in Congress has largely been about self-promotion. She’s a phenom on Tiktok and Instagram, known for her clapbacks and sassy interviews. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that her phone lock screen is just a headshot of herself.

What you won’t find much of from her, however, is substance. She barely talks about her own state, and she has a razor-thin interest in actual lawmaking. The University of Virginia’s Center for Effective Lawmaking ranks her at 155 out of 220 House Democrats in terms of how legislatively effective she is.

She pairs this lack of substance with a type of grating attitude towards her political opponents that is likely to be an anchor around her neck in a general election. When Latinos shifted to the right during the 2024 election, Crockett chose not to empathize with them about issues like cost of living or chaos at the border. Instead, she said they exhibited a “slave mentality.” Acerbic comments about race have become her bread and butter, pleasing to Internet liberals but making her look quite eccentric to everyone else.

But she doesn’t seem very worried about that. In an interview with CNN the day she announced her bid, Crockett was dismissive of the need to win over Trump voters. This is in a state that voted for Trump in 2024 by 14 points.

It’s no surprise, then, that Crockett’s numbers in Texas have been consistently awful. Whether she’s up against the incumbent GOP Senator John Cornyn — or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who seeks to remove him in a primary — she will almost certainly lose the race. That doesn’t mean that state lawmaker James Talarico would win — it’s an uphill battle either way.

But losing in an absolute landslide would have devastating effects on the party downballot. Democrats across Texas are trying to build power in state and local government; putting a toxic candidate at the top of the ticket would demolish their efforts.

It’s hard to argue against any of this based on the merits of the candidate alone. Which is why you’re already seeing her supporters on social media lecture us that raising any of these points is “racist.” We’re treating her with a double standard because she’s unapologetically a black woman, right?

I’m wondering if people who are starting to put forward this argument — which I suspect will only escalate in the days to come — are even familiar with Alicia Johnson here in Georgia.

Alicia Johnson was just elected to the Public Service Commission in a landslide election that took place last month. She is the first black woman I can remember to ever win a statewide race in Georgia for a state office in Georgia (Kamala Harris won as Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020).

Unlike Crockett, Johnson barely engaged in any self-promotion. She didn’t make racial attacks a cornerstone of her identity, and she never attacked Georgia voters the same way Crockett has attacked Latinos who voted for Trump (this is a massive group in Texas).

Her message was very simple. Is your electric bill too high? Then vote for me. And Georgians did.

PSC campaign signage in Dallas, Georgia. Photo credit: Zaid Jilani.

Criticizing a bad candidate who happens to also be black is not racist. Yes, there is all kinds of racist invective that will likely come her way because politics is a bit of a cesspool right now, particularly on the GOP side. I would not be surprised if Trump shoots himself in the foot many times during this race.

But that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that Crockett is a weak candidate for this seat and will likely cost the Democratic Party dearly. And I don’t see any reason why Democrats should be afraid to say that.

Not wanting to lose an election is not racist.