
Republican congressional candidate Paul Nehlen's response to the denouncement was just as repugnant as his hateful tweet.

Congressional candidate and prominent Trump supporter Paul Nehlen (R-WI) sparked international outrage with a racist attack on actress Meghan Markle.

And Nehlen's response to the backlash was to double down on bigotry.

Nehlen  who was personally thanked by Trump for supporting his vicious attacks on the Gold Star family of the late Captain Humayun Khan  is running to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan.


On Friday, Nehlen posted a disgusting tweet featuring a photo of Britain's Prince Harry and wife-to-be Meghan Markle, with Markle's face replaced by a photographic re-creation of Cheddar Man, an ancient skeleton that was recently revealed to have had dark skin.

The text of Nehlen's tweet said, "Honey, does this tie make my face look pale?"

Markle, whose mother is African American, will become the first black member of the British royal family when she weds Prince Harry.

Nehlen's tweet sparked an international backlash, with headlines in the British press proclaiming Nehlen a "sick creep" and his tweet "racist"  an accusation that Nehlen isn't exactly running from.

On Saturday morning, Nehlen tweeted a link to one of those articles, and explained that while his tweet was a "joke," he was dead serious about defending white heritage and "homelands."

"Publishing an article *disappearing whites* or *dispossessing whites* of their homelands is wrong; made worse when claiming science to prove whites never existed," Nehlen wrote. "I made a joke of it. It's not a laughing matter, so I chose to laugh about it."

Nehlen's vile attack demonstrates the bleak choices that Republican voters in Wisconsin, and across the country, face in November. Nehlen is an overt racist who has been thanked for his support by the overtly racist head of their party, while Ryan has openly acknowledged Trump's racism, yet quietly goes along with it.

But voters of decency in either party will also have huge numbers of Democratic candidates to choose from, and show with their votes that they reject the racism of the Nehlens and Trumps of this world.