Can a 35-year-old man get away with the “youthful indiscretion” of supporting secession? He can if he’s a part of Rand Paul’s version of the Republican Party.
The GOP can argue that it is the party of Lincoln and of racial progressivism, but as long the list of politically active white men who say racist and racially insensitive things keeps growing beyond the old guard comprised of former Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott or Alaska Rep. Don Young to include people much closer to the millennial generation, the party risks irrelevance.
Watch Steve Kornacki break down the political history that has made it possible for someone who admits he doesn’t support the Civil Rights Act to employ a grown man with a penchant for Stars and Bars Mexican wrestling masks.
Meredith Clark
Meredith Clark is a freelance writer and editor. She was previously a senior news producer for "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj," a reporter with MSNBC.com, the digital politics and culture editor at Glamour and a senior news and politics editor at Refinery29. She has written for Vulture, Rolling Stone, Self, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, The Daily Beast and Bustle.