Take my word for it, there’s nothing new about this racial slur (and yes, that’s exactly what it is). I’ve been hearing it in school playgrounds and polite Southern parlor discourse for as long as I can remember. You see, for these neo-Confederate patriots, the only thing worse than being a nigger is to be a nigger-lover. And as Sen Graham points out, only Commies can be nigger-lovers. If dog-whistles don’t get their attention, burning crosses certainly will.

The insult is related to, and spoken by, the same people who use “It should have been done long ago”. The latter is usually uttered when some despised group, like demonstrating students or inner city youth, political protesters or industrial strikers, is violently attacked by the authorities and suffer injuries and death; and, hopefully, indignity and disgrace. Its closely related to “They brought it on themselves” or “They had it coming”. The New Deplorables don’t just want to see their enemies defeated, or even destroyed. They love to see them publicly tortured and humiliated as well.

This is the language of racism, it is not new to America and it is certainly familiar to me. But since I was a young man I’ve heard it less and less in my part of the country and I had almost convinced myself that it was fading into history, a relic of a toxic past and a corrupt and decadent culture. It isn’t. It’s still here and its becoming more and more frequent and widespread. It is being deliberately encouraged as a means of dividing the nation and uniting and inflaming a political base too ignorant and bigoted to realize that it is their leaders and heroes who are actually the dreaded “elites” that are systematically oppressing and manipulating them. Those Mexicans stealing your jobs are not working for Muslims or blacks or reporters or Socialists or Hollywood producers or college professors. They’re being hired by entrepreneurs and managers and smarmy GOP businessmen. You know, the people you hoped your sons could become when they grew up.

But the most terrifying realization is that it is no longer hateful speech uttered anonymously or in anger, or whispered under one’s breath. It is now becoming common, accepted, shouted out unashamedly. It has become legitimized by the President of the United States and his party of fawning sycophants, embraced proudly and loudly by his ignorant and fearful followers. It is no longer just accepted, it is now expected. What used to be vile insult is now patriotic fervor. We have indeed crossed a line–on the way back!

What it REALLY means is “You have no right to criticize me because you don’t belong here, you’re not one of US, you are not legitimately a white American, no matter how long you and your family have lived in this country. We are the real Americans and you don’t qualify because you don’t look or sound like us.”

Of course its racist.