Marsha Blackburn, through her incessant racist antics and demagogic stunts, has thoroughly demonstrated she is less of a U.S. senator and more of a right-wing caricature — a cartoon character no good parent would let their child watch.
The latest embarrassing spectacle from Blackburn, who is vying to replace term-limited Bill Lee as governor, is her racist anti-Chinese TV advertisement, in which she crushes some fortune cookies at what appears to be a Chinese restaurant in Nashville. “How hard am I going to crack down on China? Well, here’s a clue,” she says in the ad.
(The Tennessean later discovered the restaurant in the ad does not serve Chinese food; it is a soda shop the Blackburn campaign decorated like a stereotypical Chinese restaurant.)
Inciting ethnic division is nothing new for Blackburn. Her last Senate campaign in 2024 was also marked by anti-China messaging, such as her TV ad dubbed “Breaking China,” in which she shatters dinner plates emblazoned with the Chinese state flag.
The senator’s jingoistic posture toward China stems from the GOP’s larger insecurity over the perceived threat China poses to America’s status as the world’s sole superpower. And it doesn’t end with opportunistic, vote-seeking campaign rhetoric that indulges people’s worst impulses.