We know that congressional hearings often deteriorate into partisan performances. But recently we saw a disturbing attempt by a Republican senator to pass off his racist ideology as fact while the actual facts didn’t come close to supporting his narrative.
On November 28, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., was questioning the Dean of Yale’s School of Public Health during a hearing on gun violence. Instead of seeking solutions, Kennedy did what so many Republican lawmakers do best: He pointed fingers.
“Why do you think that Chicago has become America’s largest outdoor shooting range?” Kennedy asked.
Louisiana was among the top 10 states with the highest firearm mortality rates in 2021.
The senator was probably expecting a cheap “gotcha” moment, but instead he ran head-on into a witness who was actually prepared with facts.
Dr. Megan Ranney quickly pointed out to Kennedy that Mississippi, Missouri and his home state of Louisiana all have higher firearm death rates than Chicago.
And she’s right. In fact, CDC data shows that Louisiana was among the top 10 states with the highest firearm mortality rates in 2021. (And nine out of those 10 states all happened to vote for Donald Trump.)
But of course Kennedy wasn’t there for facts — he was there for a soundbite.
“What about Chicago?” he pressed, determined to keep the focus on Republicans’ favorite urban boogeyman.
Ranney stressed that Chicago wasn’t her area of research, but she offered her opinion anyway:
“I think there’s easy access to firearms, combined with environmental conditions, lack of great education. There actually have been studies that when you green vacant lots and repair abandoned buildings in urban neighborhoods, you see decreases in gunshots and violence, as well as in stress and depression in the neighborhoods around them.”
True to form, instead of thanking the doctor for her opinion, which he had demanded from her, Kennedy dismissed it as “word salad.” So here’s my question to Senator Kennedy: Where’s your data? Where are you getting your numbers? Because people are dealing with the gun violence epidemic everywhere in this country, not just the cities that Republicans love to demonize. And when Kennedy and his colleagues make baseless claims like these, they’re doing much more than simply spreading bad facts. They’re also spreading the lie that crime and gun violence are happening because of Black and brown people. These racist comments are not rooted in any truth, and yet they continue to show up time and time again. Moments like these demonstrate perfectly why Donald Trump is not the only problem within the modern-day Republican Party. People walk around believing Donald Trump is the only issue. That he is the biggest danger that exists and that if only he is barred from winning the Republican nomination or winning re-election, all will be well in the world. But no, the rot runs deep — even as deep as the United States Senate, which is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. As long as there are Republicans who share racist ideas like the one that Kennedy shared, they will continue to be a blemish on Congress and the Republican Party. This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 2 episode of “Symone.”
Symone D. Sanders Townsend is an author and a co-host of "The Weeknight."
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