You could pretty much tell already that this was the official Republican party line, but now the Tampa Bay Times has confirmed it with a document sent out by the House Republicans, instructing their surrogates to blame everything on the left. And whatever you do, don’t talk about white supremacism.

Congressional Republicans recently circulated talking points on gun violence that falsely described the El Paso massacre and other mass shootings as “violence from the left.”

A document obtained by the Tampa Bay Times and sent by House Republicans provides a framework for how to respond to anticipated questions like, “Why won’t you pass legislation to close the ‘gun show loophole’ in federal law?” and “Why shouldn’t we ban high-capacity magazines?” The answers are boilerplate Republican arguments against tougher gun restrictions.

But it also included this question: “Do you believe white nationalism is driving more mass shootings recently?” The suggested response is to steer the conversation away from white nationalism to an argument that implies both sides are to blame.

I sometimes wonder if Republicans understand how revealing it is when they dodge the issue of racism and white supremacism. They don’t want to talk about it? They can’t talk about it, because it’s about them and on some level they know it very well.