“I’m not racist, but…” You KNOW that phrase was said somewhere in the course of this story. This is a tale that can only come from Trumplandia, where literally every character is a bad guy, and there are no good guys.
It’s always weird when a political party eats their own, so to speak. But that seems to be the case with Carl Baxter from Florida. Baxter is the ultimate poster boy for Donald Trump: He is not just a die-hard fan of the former president who emulates Trump down to his hand gestures.
No, he’s the picture perfect voter for Trump because he’s everything that Donald’s impoverished, loudmouth, backwards supporters are, only all rolled up into an African-American.
With good reason, Trump doesn’t have a lot of Black supporters. Carl is in a lonely field.
But like many Trumpers, he needs to take work where he can get it — you never know when the next recession will hit. So in June of 2023, Baxter took a job canvassing for a SUPER GIANT MEGAPAC FUNDED BY BILLIONAIRES small grassroots organization you might know as “Americans For Prosperity.”
AFP was founded by Charles and David Koch, the only sons left of Fred Koch who were still with Koch Industries (the second-biggest privately-owned corporation in America) after all the siblings fought it out in court over their stake in the oil production powerhouse.
David Koch died just a few years ago, but his brother Charles has carried on their legacy of being really evil guys with twirly moustaches and sneering laughs who rub their hands together in anticipation of tying a virginal, innocent America to the train tracks to await her fate.
Here’s where the story gets a little weird. You already hate these guys (or I’m not very good at my job), but guess who else hates them. That’s right, Donald Trump.
Trump hates them, and they hate him, because all of them are greedy idiots who believe they know the best way to get what they want by extracting as much as they can from the taxpaying citizens of this country.
Trump’s hate for the Koch brothers stems purely from the fact that they are ostensibly conservatives — they hate the environment, want to keep minimum wages down, position themselves against workers’ rights, etc. — but they don’t support HIM.
Their hate for Trump comes entirely from the fact that the GOP finally has a figurehead populist enough to help enact their dastardly scheme of keeping all the money everywhere for themselves, but he’s too dumb to carry out their plan.
They wanted a more pliable candidate, both in 2016 and in 2020. In the last election, they backed Nikki Haley, which sparked Trump’s ire even more. He posted his feelings on Truth Social at the time, saying “American’s [sic] for No Prosperity, who made more money during the Trump years than at any other time, are stupid people who are backing Birdbrain as she goes down tubes. Bad timing Charles!”
Okay, so back to Carl.
Mr. Baxter likely doesn’t know any of the backstory between AFP and his idol, Donald Trump. Most Trump voters don’t. Most Trump voters don’t know a whole lot at all, in fact.
What Baxter DID know is that the job he was taking was provided by Republicans, paid nearly twice Florida’s minimum wage at the time for easy work, and gave him a chance to talk about right-wing talking points with like-minded voters.
It’s like chickens clucking about the price of seed, but that’s what Trumpers really like to do, I guess.
Cue the dramatic music, though. Because Baxter was taken aside one day by a higher-up and offered a bribe to dig up some dirt on a political enemy. Now, Baxter might not have had a problem with that, per se, since his messiah has done the same on many occasions. But AFP wanted dirt on someone who supported Trump.
Their intent was to keep Trump from getting the nomination for the 2024 race, and the politician they wanted Carl to help them ruin was a Trump supporter.
That changed Carl’s outlook on the whole situation.
At the same time, Baxter was learning that working for Republicans, even ones who oppose Donald Trump, runs you the risk of never getting paid. I mean, we already knew about Trump withholding wages, but this is CARL we’re talking about here. The OTHER bad guys were keeping HIS money, he alleged.
Carl took his concerns to his immediate supervisor, AFP Grassroots Engagement Director Roxanne Buckels.
Now, it shouldn’t be necessary to point out the race of anyone involved in the story, but there’s a key word that comes up shortly here, and the use of it hinges on the fact that Baxter is Black and his former boss Buckels is white.
Because when he complained to her, she called him a slave.
“I know you are doing the work and I can see the doors that you are hitting on my iPad on my side. At least you are working as a slave but at least you are getting paid, many slaves today do get paid, many used to never get paid. Are you a slave?”
That’s what Baxter’s lawsuit alleges Ms. Buckels said to him.
Her weird grammar aside, that’s just offsides. We’re not calling anyone a slave these days, let alone a unicorn of a Republican — a Black man. Needless to say, Baxter was taken aback by the comment and rose the issue up the ladder. That turned out to be a mistake, because he was summarily fired.
And thus a lawsuit was born.
Nobody’s commenting on much so far (ongoing litigation and all that, you know, chum), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump take up Baxter’s cause to raise even more money for himself.
In the end, however, it’s hard to figure out who to be mad at here. Obviously the person who called him a slave, but that’s just being mad because she’s a racist idiot. The whole saga is full of bad guys top to bottom.
Maybe lightning will just strike the whole bunch.