White progressives criticizing Jasmine Crockett's Senate bid need to 'sit their a-- down,' says liberal host
Liberal commentator and podcaster Roland Martin said that White progressives criticizing Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, and her Senate bid against fellow Democrat James Talarico, "need to sit their a-- down."
During Tuesday’s episode of "At Our Table with Jamie Harrison," Harrison asked Martin who should receive the show’s "Sit Your A-- Down" award this week — an honor reserved for someone the guest believes "is wrong" and needs to "get themselves back together."
"The ‘sit your a-- down’ people are all the people who are trashing Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who can't even spell Talarico," Martin responded.
He noted that he likes Talarico and lives in Crockett’s district, but what bothers him is the people who are "trashing" Crockett while promoting Talarico and "never mentioned his name before she got into the race."
"And I'm sick of these white progressives who don't live in Texas, and I see them, I go to their bio [and] they a-- is in New York, San Francisco, Kansas, Missouri. I'm looking, I'm like, y'all don't know nothing about Texas. You know nothing about the politics of Texas. You don't know how to mobilize voters in Texas. But all of a sudden, you're a-- like you got an expert opinion. You're the expert. They need to sit their a-- down," Martin railed.
Harrison agreed with Martin, who reiterated that White progressives skeptical of Crockett’s chances in the Senate race should "sit down."
"If you want to support Talarico, fine. If you wanna support Crockett, it's fine. But there's a notion of, 'Oh, don't give her money, she can't win.' I'm sitting there going, 'But you can't even name one policy,'" Martin said. "And again, if you go to Twitter and pull up their name, you could do a search of how many times they mention somebody's name on a feed. No mentions whatsoever. I'm like, man, go sit y'all a-- down."
Pushing back on doubts about Crockett's candidacy, Martin said polls show she is "competitive" against Talarico and argued that the state's "61% minority" population gives her an additional edge.
"But 60% of the people who vote in Texas are White," he noted. "Texas' problem is [that]… people are like, 'Oh no, it's hardcore red.' When Beto lost to Governor Greg Abbott, 75% of voters 30 and under did not vote… Texas has the largest number of Black eligible voters than any state in the country. So now the question is, well, what's the turnout number?"
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Looking back on Texas' Senate candidates all the way back to the 1970s, Martin noted that there has always been a racial mix of candidates representing the Lone Star State, and that those who fail to recognize this fact are unfairly counting Crockett out.
He contended that those who are skeptical of the congresswoman's chances of winning are the same people who "who have no understanding at all of the state, its demographics and any of that."
"They couldn't tell you how performance is in West Texas, South Texas, voters in East Texas — they got no clue whatsoever. They couldn't tell you that Tarrant County is the last remaining county the Republicans control — large county — because Democrats control Harris, Dallas, Baird, Travis. They got no clue," he maintained. "So yeah, I need them to sit their a-- down."