If there’s one thing Democrats hate, it’s a black Republican. Just ask Congressman Byron Donalds.

Donalds, a second-term Florida Republican and a rising star within the party, received the high honor last Wednesday of being nominated by Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy for speaker of the House. And he got 20 votes.

“We do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather the content of their character,” Roy said in his nominating speech. “Byron Donalds is a good man, raised by a single mom, moved past adversity, became a Christian man at the age of 21, and has devoted his life to advancing the cause for his family and this country. And he has done it admirably. But there’s an important reason for nominating Byron, and that is this country needs a change. This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town, that is badly broken.”

Then Roy said this: “Here we are, and for the first time in history there have been two black Americans placed into the nomination for speaker of the House,” a reference to Donalds and Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who was also nominated to the post.

It was a stirring moment, one that briefly unified the entire Republican caucus. But it was too much for the Democrats, who can’t tolerate the notion of anything other than a monolithic black electorate; who can’t believe that a black person can espouse principles such as individual liberty, limited government, fiscal responsibility, and Rule of Law.

Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, a Defund Democrat who represents murder-ridden St. Louis but is wealthy enough to have her own security service, merely said what the rest of her colleagues were thinking: “FWIW, Byron Donalds is not a historic candidate for Speaker. He is a prop. Despite being Black, he supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy. His name being in the mix is not progress — it’s pathetic.”

Got that? According to Bush, if you leave the Democrat plantation, you support white supremacy.

Talk about pathetic.

Not surprisingly, another black female surrogate of progressive white hatred, MSNBC host Joy Reid — who somehow got a free pass for her homophobic blog posts — called the congressman’s speaker nomination a “full troll” that he “was willing to go along with.”

Indeed, this is what we’ve come to expect from leftist media types. As The Washington Free Beacon reports: “When the GOP’s Mayra Flores in July flipped a historically blue South Texas House district, the New York Times labeled her a ‘far-right Latina,’ citing Flores’s affinity for strong borders, religiosity, and family values. In November 2020, meanwhile, Reid used a racial slur against black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, calling him ‘Uncle Clarence.’ … Reid has also referred to black Republican senator Tim Scott (S.C.) as a ‘prop’ who allows his white colleagues to ‘dog-walk him.’”

Donalds, a native of Brooklyn who now represents Florida’s 19th District, has a compelling story for which Democrats don’t have an answer. He was raised by a loving single mom and was arrested as a young man on a marijuana distribution charge that was later dismissed. He then committed to turning his life around, graduating from Florida State University in 2002 and working as a financial adviser before then-Florida Governor and current U.S. Senator Rick Scott appointed him to the board of trustees at a state college. He and his wife, Erika, who’s an accountant, businesswoman, and school-choice advocate, have three sons and have been married since 2003.

As for Bush’s crude comments, Donalds brushed them off. “FWIW, nobody asked Cori Bush her opinion on the matter,” he said. “Before you judge my agenda, let’s have a debate over the policies and the outcomes. Until then, don’t be a crab in a barrel!”

As we’ve noted before, there’s no greater threat to the Democrats’ tenuous hold on political power than conservative blacks. Conservative whites? No big deal. After all, Democrats gave up on the white vote years ago. But when a Clarence Thomas or a Tim Scott or a Byron Donalds speaks his mind, look out. Then the mask slips and the thinly veiled racist ugliness comes out.

Byron Donalds had better get used to it. Because if there’s one thing Democrats can’t tolerate, it’s a free-thinking black man.

But Democrats, too, had better get used to it. Because the new 118th Congress features five black Republican lawmakers — the party’s largest contingent since shortly after the Civil War. In addition to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Donalds is joined in the House by fellow second-term Congressman Burgess Owens of Utah and two newly elected congressmen who were roommates at West Point: John James of Michigan and Wesley Hunt of Texas.

Here’s hoping they attract plenty of attention.