US Senator John Cornyn slammed on social media following racist rant about coronavirus

The coronavirus has since become a global concern ever since it broke out during the latter part of 2019, spreading to other countries and effectively disrupting the way people live their lives and do some damage to countries’ economies. However, Texas Senator John Cornyn thinks that China is to blame for the virus in a public rant that was deemed racist by the public on social media.

Politicalflare reports that while speaking to the press, Cornyn weighed in on the coronavirus crisis. However, the Senator resorted to a rant that pinned the blame on China and involved other remarks that are deemed racist. “China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats & snakes & dogs & things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that’s why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, MERS, the Swine Flu,” said Cornyn. The video of Cornyn’s response was shared by The Hill on Twitter.

The coronavirus originated in Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China. Since the outbreak that spread to every corner of the nation that is home to 1.3 billion people, travel bans were placed by surrounding countries who have experienced their share of cases as well as an increase in cases.

Netizens on social media did not take to this very well and called out the Senator for his racist remarks. Political satirist Jeremy Newberger commented, “Did @JohnCornyn just roll out a Chinese people eat dogs line? This bigotry virus is spreading fast and deep!” while songwriter Peter Zizzo said, “This is so disgusting, dangerous, ignorant, and reckless. Imagine being a Chinese American now.” Another commenter also pointed out that Cornyn’s remarks were both racist and inaccurate.

The Texas Democratic Party has also called out Cornyn on his comments, echoing the sentiments of the previously mentioned commenters and noting that Asian Americans have fallen victim to hate crimes surrounding the pandemic and promised to vote out the Senator during the November elections. “John Cornyn’s comments are disgusting, dangerous, and racist. Asian Americans have already been the victims of hate crimes because of Trump and the Republican Party’s racism. We will vote Cornyn out in November,” the party tweeted.