Stacey Abrams: ‘Racism’ Runs Through the Republican Party That Elected Tom Cotton

Monday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams reacted to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) writing that the Founding Fathers thought slavery was “a necessary evil.”

Abrams said, “There is no such thing as a necessary evil. Evil is evil, and slavery is one of the ultimate evils. And I think having this conversation on the day when John Lewis lays in state is a critical moment of reckoning.”

She continued, “If Tom Cotton is sincere in his desire to understand history then he should be celebrating the 1619 Project. He should be celebrating The Voting Rights Act renewal. He should be celebrating Black Lives Matter because the continuity of evil in our country has led us to this moment. We can only extinguish evil by acknowledging that it exists and doing everything in our power to defeat it, not to celebrate it, not to excuse it, and certainly not to use it as a polemic way to justify the racism that runs through the party that is lifting up Tom Cotton and his language as something that’s legitimate as part of the argument about what our children should learn about this country.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN