A Tennessee politician is facing a storm of backlash after erecting a “Make America White Again” billboard in Polk County.
Third-party congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd District, Rick Tyler tells WTVC that he erected the sign to provoke thought and to get people thinking about pre-1960s America when whites were a “super-majority.”
He wants the “Leave It to Beaver,” “Ozzie and Harriet” America of old. Tyler tells reporters that the America he grew up in was “a better America where there was far less violent time, you could leave your doors unlocked, and you didn’t have carjackings or home invasions.”
A reporter presses the politician about his racism. Without hesitation, Tyler defends his beliefs saying that his preference for white people is called ethnocentrism. Even though many have aligned his beliefs with that of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s, the Tennessee politician calls Trump a “sellout” and a “marquee headliner” for the nation’s biggest reality TV show.
After complaints from local residents, the billboard was taken down last night. Here is one of those complaints:
“This disgusting bunch of bigotry was erected about 20 minutes from our house. The person listed, Mr. Rick Tyler, is a local business owner. Please, if you are the decent and loving people I know you to be, boycott this business,” Amy Hines Woody, a Delano, Tennessee resident wrote on Facebook.
This is what the billboard looks like:
