Author of MS Care Ban Lost His Primary Because He’s Not Racist Enough
Representative Nick Bain voted to remove the Confederate flag from the Mississippi state flag in 2020.
by Evan Urquhart
If you’ve ever doubted that in America white racial resentment can overshadow every other social issue, here’s a story from Mississippi that may make you think twice. The politician responsible for authoring Mississippi’s ban on gender-affirming care for youth, Nick Bain, has lost his Republican primary for being insufficiently far right. What, you might ask, was the weakness this hate-monger who stripped the rights of children to lifesaving healthcare? Why, he voted to remove the flag of the Confederacy from the Mississippi state flag, an unforgivable affront to the local Republican base, according to reporting in the Mississippi Free Press.
screenshot from the Mississippi Free Press
Reading between the lines, authoring the care ban bill seems to have been an attempt to burnish Bain’s reputation with the party he switched into in 2019 (Bain initially won his seat as a Democrat in 2011). Republicans may well have eaten up the care ban, but it was clearly not enough. The base requires Bain, and every Republican, to support the treasonous flag of slavery as well. Because Bain voted to remove the flag of the Confederacy from the state flag of Mississippi he garnered two Republican primary challengers from the right, Chris Wilson and Brad Mattox. Mattox, who owns a gun store, went on to defeat Bain in a runoff on August 29, with Wilson’s support. (This also means Mattox will replace Bain in the legislature because the Democrats are not fielding a candidate in the race.)
screenshot from the Mississippi Free Press
Of course, by now everyone knows that racist treason flag is popular among the Republican base. However, some white trans people might question whether anti-trans hatred motivates the base more than anti-Black racism these days. The answer, resoundingly, is that the average Republican voter always, always hates Black people the most. The humanity and dignity of Black Americans is the civil rights issue of our time, as it has been of every time, back to the founding of the country. Don’t get it twisted: The trans community are a tragic bit player in an unending main drama of racial strife that animates the politics of these United States.