Candidate's inflammatory language, like invoking lynching, is increasingly normalized within the Republican party.
Black audiences view this as a familiar pattern of dehumanization, deflection, and doubling down.
Candidate's behavior is not seen as a glitch, but rather the system working as designed to empower bigotry.
Source: banusevim / Getty
Oh, look, another day, another Republican candidate saying the quiet part out loud and then acting shocked that people heard it. Groundbreaking.
According to reporting fromThe Mirror, Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has built a campaign that seems less about governing and more about seeing just how far blatant racism can go before anyone in his party taps the brakes. Spoiler alert, apparently, there are no brakes. The outlet highlights Fishback’s pattern of inflammatory rhetoric, including repeated attacks on his Black opponent, Byron Donalds, at one point even referring to him as a “slave,” because nothing says “serious political discourse” like recycling plantation-era language in 2026.
But Fishback didn’t stop at dog whistles. No, no, no, he went full bullhorn. A viral incident captured him telling a Black man he “should be lynched” during a confrontation. Yes, lynched. He was invoking one of the most violent and terroristic tools of America’s racist past; this after being questioned about his own controversies regarding alleged sex crimes against minors.
Meanwhile, First Coast Newsdetails how that same energy followed Fishback to a University of North Florida town hall, where hundreds gathered, presumably for political discussion, but instead got a live demonstration of what happens when extremism meets a microphone. The event became less about policy and more about the now-familiar spectacle: outrage, confrontation, and rhetoric that feels less like campaigning and more like trolling with a voter registration form.
“He comes to our events, he gets in my face, he spits at our security guard, he yells racial epithets and it’s not on video, and I respond accordingly. So no, I don’t regret what I said,” Fishback said.
“My view is simple. The word police, the tone police, those days are over,” Fishback said. “I can assure you I’m going to be a governor for every Floridian in our state.”
While headlines frame this as shocking or unprecedented, many are watching it unfold with a kind of exhausted familiarity. Because when a candidate can invoke lynching on camera and still remain politically relevant, it doesn’t exactly feel like a glitch in the system.
It feels like the system is working exactly as designed.
