Republican muted response to Trump’s tweets reveals party’s ingrained racism

In an unfashionable corner of Washington, with African American community activists standing behind him, House speaker Paul Ryan described Donald Trump’s view that an American-born judge was not qualified to preside over a case because of his Mexican heritage as the “textbook definition of a racist comment”.

Related: 'You can leave': Trump unrepentant over racist attack on congresswomen

It was June 2016 and Trump’s hostile takeover of the Republican party was not quite complete. Three years later, when the now US president provided another example of racism ripped from the textbook, the response was different.

Crickets.

Trump’s bigoted and false tweets telling four congresswomen of colour to “go back” to the countries they came from – three were born in the US – rather than “loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States” how to govern said as much as about the Republican party as it did his own nativist instincts.

While Democrats piled in to defend Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and introduced a House resolution, Trump’s own party was almost entirely silent.

Senator Susan Collins described his tweets as “way over the line”. Fred Upton, a congressman from Michigan, wrote that he was “appalled”. And Chip Roy, a congressman from Texas, tweeted that Trump “was wrong” but could not resist adding: “I just as strongly believe non-citizens who abuse our immigration laws should be sent home immediately, & Reps who refuse to defend America should be sent home [from Congress].”

On the other side of the equation, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina unleashed a tirade in defence of the president. He told Fox News: “We all know that AOC [Ocasio-Cortez] and this crowd are a bunch of communists. They hate Israel, they hate our own country.”

At the White House, Trump defended his position. The bulk of the party said nothing. Why?

For Kurt Bardella, a commentator and former GOP congressional aide, it’s fairly simple. They share Trump’s views.

“Republicans agree with the president’s racist tweets,” he said. “At this point, it’s the only explanation. It’s a pattern of behaviour that the president engages in overtly racist rhetoric.”

Bardella highlighted examples including Trump’s attacks on African American football players who “take a knee” during the anthem to protest racial injustice; his pardoning of Joe Arpaio, a sheriff who discriminated against Latino people in Arizona; his drawing of moral equivalence between protesters and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia; and his reported description of African nations, Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole countries”.

“On and on we see this president insulting people who aren’t white,” he said. “The Republican party says nothing and they support the president. Not one is willing to challenge him when he blows these racist dog whistles. The only conclusion is they agree with him and his racism.”

Bardella argues Trump is giving voice to sentiments long seething in the party. “The agenda of Republicans has always favoured white people and now for the first time in contemporary times they have a leader who is willing to ascribe words to that agenda.”

While Republicans fear Trump’s base, the truth is “deeper and darker”, Bardella said.

“It’s not that they’re at Trump’s mercy; they agree with him. The Republican party practices racism and white nationalism. It’s not fear; they approve of it.”

Trump’s approval rating in the party regularly tops 90%, a record except for George W Bush after 9/11. Some praise his achievements – a robust economy, packing the courts with conservatives – and others revel in his attacks on Democrats, “liberal elites”, political correctness and the mainstream media.

Internal opposition has been all but vanquished, the Axios website summarised: “Trump knows he can say whatever he likes and face no consequences from the party he has conquered.

“The few Republicans who dared to defy him either got crushed by pro-Trump candidates in primaries (Representative Mark Sanford), quit the party (Representative Justin Amash) or retired (Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker). One remaining critic, Senator Mitt Romney, mostly pushes back by issuing stern but ineffectual tweets. And Senator Ben Sasse, who used to lambaste the president, has mostly gone silent.”

Flake and former Ohio governor John Kasich criticised the president on Monday. As for Ryan, the former speaker is sniping from the sidelines. In a new book by Tim Alberta, American Carnage, he says Trump “didn’t know anything about government” and operates on “knee-jerk reactions”. The president blasted back, calling Ryan a “lame duck failure”.

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “Paul Ryan was famously enabling of Trump as speaker. Now he’s left and discovered a new career, he’s found his courage and is speaking out against the president.”

Jacobs noted that many electoral districts are “lopsided” in a way that rewards partisan politics. “Republicans are scared to death of Trump’s followers. Speaking out is, for a number of Republicans, seen as the equivalent of political suicide.”

He added: “The bigger issue is the acquiescence of Republican members of Congress allowing Trump to tarnish the party as a racist party. Trump is seizing the name brand of the Republican party and remaking it in his racist image.”

Progressives are under no illusions. Coby Owens, chief executive of Youth Caucus of America, said: “This just goes to show it’s all about the party over the people. America is supposed to be a melting pot for everyone. Trump’s ‘Make America great again’ was always more ‘Make America great’ for some people, and it’s the people that look like them.

“This has become the party of Trump and defending him at all costs. It’s sad the Republican party used to be for families and conservative values; that’s something you could disagree with but still discuss and come to an agreement. What they’re doing now has nothing to do with policy and is about empowering one section of society.”