Racism, Not Principles, Drive MAGA Attacks on GOP Lawmaker
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 30 Jul, 2025

Quang Nguyen, a Republican lawmaker in the Arizona House of Representatives, has recently been the subject of anti-Asian attacks from a local far-right publication.

Prescott eNews, a far-right Arizona website, is under fire for running racist AI-generated cartoons against Republican state lawmaker Quang Nguyen.  According to the non-profit Arizona Mirror, one computer-generated cartoon depicts Nguyen being questioned by police for eating dogs. 

Nguyen, a third-term State Representative for Arizona’s 1st Legislative District, is a former refugee who fled Vietnam a week before Saigon fell.  Just eight years later, he became a naturalized American citizen.  Nguyen is a proud conservative whose website states that in 2004, he and his family “escaped the liberal politics of California” and moved to Arizona.

The owner of Prescott eNews, on the other hand, is disgraced former Arizona state lawmaker David Stringer, who once held the same seat that Nguyen does now.  In 2019, Stringer was forced to resign over comments related to sex-trafficking and the discovery that he had previously been charged with several sex crimes including possession of child pornography. 

This is not the only time that the website has published a racist cartoon about Nguyen.  In one that ran on July 26th, the words “Vietnam Today. Vietnam Tomorrow. Vietnam Forever.” appear next to a cartoon character intended to be Nguyen.  The comic depicts a reporter asking “Isn’t your base mostly liberals and immigrants?” Nguyen declares “Today LD1! Tomorrow the world.”  The character’s name is misspelled “Kwong.”

Another cartoon titled “How Kwong Went Wrong” shows the representative reading from a stack of legal books and stating “This law stuff is hard.  I wish I could read better English.”

And yet another cartoon has Nguyen standing in front of a sign that reads “Asian American of the Year” and responding to a question about immigration by telling the reporter “Get over it, white lady, there are a lot more of us on the way.”  Another character off to the side asks “Should we check his papers?”

Nguyen has stated that he suspects his stance on immigration policy might be driving the publication's recent onslaught against him.  The new site’s owner appears to support ending all immigration, even measures that allowed Nguyen’s family to come here as refugees. 

One might wonder if some fringe website run by a convicted sex criminal even merits coverage. 

It’s worth noting that Nguyen’s own politics may be classified as fringe.  He is a member of the Oath Keepers, a far right organization that was heavily involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

But more importantly, this is a reminder that even those in power are not immune from the recent surge in AAPI attacks.  Per “Stop AAPI Hate,” over half of Asian Americans have experienced racism this past year.

This whole ordeal is also, frankly, an interesting snapshot into the issues facing the modern day Republican party.  

When it comes to policy, there should be plenty of areas in which AAPI voters might align with the GOP.  Asian Americans may, after all, have a propensity for more conservative values. 

Give the number of Asian Americans in the US today who faced obstacles to come to the US, the “pull yourself up by your boot-straps” rhetoric of the Republican party could very well resonate.  Rep. Nguyen himself boasts that in high school  “I was offered free lunches but chose to work as a janitor for $2.75 an hour to pay my own way.”

Nguyen’s own experience as a refugee seems to have informed his nationalist politics. In speeches, he cites his journey here “legally” and decries both communism and socialism.”  “If you think for a moment that socialism is good for you, I’m sure that every one of these people will chip in and buy you a one-way ticket to your country of choice” he told a crowd of Vietnam veterans in 2017 “...under one condition: you can not come back.”

And, yet, he still faces unrelenting attacks from members of his own party.  At that very rally, Nguyen briefly addressed a group of protestors off screen “To those guys out there by the curb: I am not White.  And I feel pretty good with my people here.”

Nguyen, like many Asians in the US, is a Catholic.  Christianity is another reason that large portions of the AAPI community may be drawn to the Republican Party.  For example, 89% of Filipino Americans are Christian and many of them Catholic. 71% of Korean Americans are Chritian as well, though more likely to be Protestant.  The democratic party’s stance on certain social issues like LGBTQ and abortion rights could be off-putting to them.

But the Republican party continues to drive minorities away with racist rhetoric.  A whopping 70% of Asian Americans currently disapprove of the job that President Trump is doing. 

In the US Senate race in Michigan in 2012, Republican candidate Pete Hoekstra ran an ad against incumbent Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow that was sharply criticized as racist against Asians.  Both Hoekstra and Stabenow are White.  The 30 second ad, which features old-fashioned Chinese music playing in the background, features an Asian woman wearing a straw hat and repeatedly referred to Stabenow as Debbie “SpendItNow.” 

The woman states “Thank you Michigan Senator Debbie SpendItNow. Debbie spend so much American money. You borrow more and more for us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good.  We take your jobs.  Thank you Debbie SpendItNow.”  Stabenow won the race by over 20 points. 

Of course, this isn’t to say that Republicans politicians are the only ones who commit racism against Asians.  While it seems to occur with a greater frequency, Democrats have been guilty as well/

2022 Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan of Ohio drew criticism for an ad that was widely panned as racist by the AAPI community.  The one-minute ad depicted Congressman Ryan addressing groups of almost exclusively White-skinned blue collar workers while talking about  US jobs being taken away by China.

“It’s us versus them” Ryan says before declaring that “we need to fight back” three times in a row.

Among the many AAPI organizations and individuals to denounce the ad included Ryan’s colleague Rep. Grace Meng, who accused the ad of “putting a target on the backs of #AAPIs.”

Today’s attacks against Nguyen could be a moment of reflection for many.  The Republican National Committee could decide whether or not it’s wiling to stick it’s neck out for member’s like Nguyen and offer a full-throated denunciation of the cartoons.  Democrats could also ask themselves what might drive someone like Nguyen to choose the GOP over them. 

And Rep. Quang Nguyen may himself want to himself do some soul-searching about the company he keeps.