U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, left, speaks to the media during a news conference as South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley looks on at the South Carolina Statehouse on Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, in Columbia, S.C. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley picked U.S. Rep. Tim Scott to be the state’s next U.S. senator Monday, making him the only black Republican in Congress and the South’s first black Republican senator since Reconstruction.(AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

It is usually the left that is able to find a racist boogeyman hiding under every bed and crouching in every closet… so long as the bed and closet belong to the right people. All you have to do is mouth the correct words about intersectionality, cultural appropriation (let me note here, for the record, I am really pissed about you non-Anglo types using English. That’s my cultural heritage, leave it alone), feminism, etc. and you can say pretty much whatever you want to say and not only will nothing happen to you, you’ll find a helluva lot of support.

Let’s look at some examples.

Earlier in the week, there was a gathering of senators and congressmen along with President Trump and Vice President Pence and others to celebrate the passage of a significant GOP tax bill. This is the picture:

President Donald Trump, joined on stage by supporters and members of congress including Vice President Mike Pence, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., speaks during an event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017, to acknowledge the final passage of tax overhaul legislation by Congress. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (who, by the way, was supported by RedState before he declared his candidacy for the Senate) is front and center because he was instrumental in writing the bill and in lining up support for the bill. But some, it seems, just can’t accept that:

It's incredibly frustrating to have Tim Scott be strategically placed in direct line of these cameras, and to have him either not know he's a symbolic pawn, or, worse, agree to be one for optics after voting for this mess.

— Bärí A. Williams (@BariAWilliams) December 20, 2017

And that was the polite stuff:

Oh look, Uncle Tim Scott is strategically placed. How's the view "boy"? #MSNBC

— ☾♄☈♗ⓢ ♗ (@_Lyrics_4) December 20, 2017

Ahh, Tim Scott, the Senate Republicans equivalent to Jerome from #FamilyGuy. "Gentlemen, we got us a black man." pic.twitter.com/5uoCDRgu5J

— Lucy Who? (@LucyLocketTV) December 20, 2017

And stuff I don’t feel comfortable linking to, but, I have to point out, stuff that people were perfectly comfortable saying and stuff which was widely retweeted. Scott, a true class act, responded:

Uh probably because I helped write the bill for the past year, have multiple provisions included, got multiple Senators on board over the last week and have worked on tax reform my entire time in Congress. But if you'd rather just see my skin color, pls feel free. https://t.co/KLLNXqIZ3i

— Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) December 20, 2017

But beyond the vitriolic racism aimed at a dedicated public servant who happens to not engage in identity politics, you find this kind of thing:

Black GOP senator tears into writer who called him a "prop" at Trump's tax bill celebration https://t.co/UkpMBn5qNR pic.twitter.com/jx09sMNBO7

— The Hill (@thehill) December 21, 2017

His name is not “Black GOP Senator.”

Yesterday, this gained visibility:

https://twitter.com/Ms_Marshe/status/944636621927919616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

I don’t use the word “racist” casually, but this guy is as racist as any good ol’ boy who pulled on a hood and burned a cross. This is grotesque. As bad as the portrayal of Tim Scott was, this is unarguably worse.

(For the record, Nikki is the nickname her family gave her. Haley is her husband’s name. Sikhs are “Caucasian,” and as race is now self-identified across federal reporting requirements, she had the right to call herself black or Aleut if she so desired. I mean Elizabeth Warren in American Indian, right?)

So yes, racism is not only alive and well, it is living large in the progressive movement. This is not unexpected. It is only natural that a political movement that is so tied to racial and ethnic identity that they would feel right at home at the Wannsee Conference would lash out at anyone operating outsides the allowed bounds of behavior for racial and ethnic groups. Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are trailblazers and these attacks are going to continue.