We Were Never Going to Escape This Week Without a Sitting Politician Defending Slavery

The New Hampshire Union Leader reported on Wednesday on a local dimension of Racist Week, which, of course, happened on Facebook.

Things started off with former state Senate candidate Dan Hynes, who asked on Facebook: “If Trump is the most racist President in American history, what does that say about all of the other Presidents who owned slaves?”

Hynes seemed to be posing the question to obnoxiously riff on remarks from politicians like Joe Biden. But the fireworks started when state Rep. Werner Horn barged through the door, commenting on the post, according to the Union Leader: “Wait, owning slaves doesn’t make you racist.”

Hynes followed up: “I guess not. Which is surprising since everything else makes someone a racist,” to which Horn concluded that “owning slaves wasn’t a decision predicated on race but on economics. It’s a business decision.”

The newspaper called up the sitting state politician and got his thoughts on the cause of slavery in full, and well, this trainwreck happened:

“Slavery later on in the American South was not about the color of the skin of the slaves but their value as workers on the plantations,” Horn said.

“The U.S. had abolitionists since the start, people who felt slavery wasn’t moral but they weren’t enslaving black people because they were black. They were bringing in these folks because they were available.”

“What they were looking at was whether they were fit enough to do the demanding work that needed to be done. It was an economic reality.”

Glad to see the Lost Causers found a home in the North, too.

Correction, 4:06 p.m. ET: This post originally misstated the name of the New Hampshire paper. It has been updated.