Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York shared some thoughts on white supremacy on his Twitter account today. It turns out the thing upholding white supremacy is also the thing progressive Dems want to get rid of to push their agenda through.

The filibuster is a pillar upholding white supremacy. It's time to end it.

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) January 22, 2021

As of a couple days ago, the party in power switched. It’s now Republicans who will be using the filibuster in the Senate so I don’t think it’s much of a stretch that Bowman is saying the white supremacy the filibuster is upholding is…Senate Republicans. Subtle. But he wasn’t done:

Student loan debt is a pillar upholding white supremacy. It’s time to cancel all of it.

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) January 22, 2021

The electoral college has been a progressive boogeyman since 2016 when Trump won the election. Given that Democrats won this time, I’m not sure where Bowman is going with this. In 2020 the electoral college upheld Joe Biden. Is Joe Biden white supremacy too? Maybe he should explain that one a bit more.

Student loan debt is an odd one. Unlike the Senate filibuster or the electoral college, no one is born into student loan debt. People take out these loans of their own volition. That said, there is some evidence that black Americans are more likely to debt-finance their educations and that they carry the debt for longer. So you could argue that erasing that debt benefits black Americans disproportionately.

But as several people pointed out last year, debt forgiveness is just bad policy. It’s expensive and it does very little to benefit the economy because most people pay this debt off slowly over time. In fact, the one thing that’s clear about it is that debt forgiveness is very regressive, i.e. it benefits those at the top much more than those at the bottom who are more likely to take advantage of existing means of debt forgiveness.

Of course the big question is why Bowman stopped there. You could potentially cite any number of things as pillars of white supremacy, not just these three. I wasn’t the only person who read this and wondered what else might be on his list:

Maybe you could tell us what in America in 2021 is *not* "white supremacy". It would save time.

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) January 22, 2021

Is there anything that is not a pillar of white supremacy, in your mind?

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) January 22, 2021

This thread is a good example of someone possessed by an idée fixe. https://t.co/GXH4PMMMaG

— Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) January 22, 2021

Thread. When the only tool you have….. https://t.co/5cHTvb1Hyw

— Brit Hume (@brithume) January 22, 2021

Thanks for this thread proving the point that you will just refer to anything you don’t like in this way because you think it somehow improves your argument against it. https://t.co/EnOSMUWSo2

— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 22, 2021

There’s a whole lot more of this, much of it not very favorable to Bowman, but you get the idea. Some progressives have taken to simply labeling everything racist as a way to claim a moral dimension to their argument. It’s become so easy to do that it’s not even expected you’ll make an actual argument to support what you’re saying. And, unfortunately, a lot of people just go along with this as if it’s good enough for government work. A little less woke preachiness and a little more effort to explain and try to persuade would go a long way.