GOP Sen. Tim Scott says 'woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy'

• GOP Sen. Tim Scott said "woke supremacy" is as big a problem as "white supremacy."
• Republicans and right-wing media have downplayed far-right extremism since the Capitol attack.
• The FBI director recently said the number of white supremacists arrested in 2020 skyrocketed.

Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina on Monday told Fox News "woke supremacy" is as big a problem in the US as "white supremacy." His remarks came days. after the FBI director underscored the threat posed by white supremacist groups, and confirmed their involvement in the Capitol attack on January 6.

"Woke supremacy is as bad as white supremacy. We need to take that seriously," Scott told host Trey Gowdy. Scott was responding to comments from MSNBC's Joy Reid, who last week said that Scott was only present at a recent press conference to provide "the patina of diversity" for the GOP. The South Carolina Republican is the only Black GOP senator.

Republican lawmakers and the right-wing media have increasingly zeroed in on subjects like political correctness and cancel culture - often associated with the concept of "wokeness" - over the past few years. They've painted efforts to root out racist or bigoted language and images in literature, films, television, and other aspects of US culture as a dangerous form of oppression that poses a threat to healthy political discourse.

The latest manifestation of this has occurred via right-wing outrage over six Dr. Seuss books that are no longer being published because they include racist images.

Meanwhile, right-wing media has also downplayed the threat of white supremacist groups and far-right extremism.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson, for example, in late February falsely stated, "There's no evidence that white supremacists were responsible for what happened on Jan. 6. That's a lie."

In public testimony on the Capitol riot to the Senate on March 2, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers "there's no doubt" the fatal insurrection on January 6 "included individuals that we would call militia violent extremists and in some instances, individuals that were racially motivated violent extremists who advocate for, you know, the superiority of the white race."

Wray told lawmakers that "when it comes to racially motivated violent extremism" the number of investigations and arrests "has grown significantly on my watch.

"The number of arrests, for example, of racially motivated violent extremists who are what you would categorize as white supremacists, last year was almost triple the number it was in my first year as director," Wray said.

The FBI director said that January 6 was not an "isolated event" and "the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it is not going is a way any time soon."