Can we stop pretending now?
Can we stop pretending that the Republican Party has become a haven for racists? Can we stop pretending that the today’s Republican Party represents more than two ideas, greed and racism?
If you have been paying attention, you have seen the racists, the just plain ignorant and in the case of this latest hoax, the truly malicious aspects of those who identify as Republicans….
…. come out of the woodwork as their Real America is, in their little closed minds, threatened. This IS the Republican base. Though I hasten to add that not all Republicans share these views and traits.
But it is time to stop pretending that these people don’t exist, and that they don’t have a huge influence on the Republican Party and American politics in general.
It is time to ask the question that there is no real answer to. How do we get racism and ignorance out of American politics. How do we at least diminish the influence that racism and ignorance have on vitally important national issues. How do we eliminate the horrific effects on our nation and the world such as the election of George Bush, Michelle Bachmann et al, that are the consequence of the Republican Party embracing and encouraging…and with Sarah Palin as the prime example….celebrating this mindset. How do we overcome the fact that one of our two political parties only has power because of this kind of racism and ignorance?
There is no real answer because here is no democratic legal or procedural remedy. Ignorant racists have as much legal right to participate in the political process as anyone. The only answer, the only remedy is a social one, to make this sort of racism and ignorance socially unacceptable. We as a society had been making progress on this front until The Republicans fairly openly embraced this previously Silent Minority in the last decade or so and began Gingrich’s Republican Revolution. In order to gain political power, these people were courted and encouraged through dog whistles and coded racist themes, and thus they became what we refer to today as The Republican Base.
Sure, a political party has no real control over who joins it, but they do have a degree of control over what it emphasizes. It has the ability to repudiate, to discourage, to NOT emphasize and pander to its worst elements, instead of recruiting and encouraging them…just to win elections. That is, along with so much else we have seen from today’s Republican Party, just shameful. Yes, ignorant racists have the right to participate in the electoral process. But for major political figures to tolerate, to encourage, to celebrate and exploit them is wrong. It is the politics of fear, the politics of hate. We simply must find a way to keep the politics of hate out our national discourse and decision making if we truly want to …progress.
They are out of the woodwork now, exposed for what they are. The latest hoax shows just how despicable and dangerous they are. And yet again, there is no remedy other than a social one. Other than shunning and repudiating this kind of thinking as a society can we overcome the influence of ignorance, racism and hate that breeds the kind stupidity that is so apparent in the Bush Administration and which ultimately results in the complete mess that we find ourselves in today.
The Republican party has brought them out of the woodwork for all of the world to see, the kitchen light has been turned on. We can not eliminate them, all we can do is, through our scorn and disgust and repudiation of their mindset, send them scuttling back undercover, where they can do the least amount of damage possible. And hopefully while they are there, educate educate educate them and their children out of the world of darkness and ignorance in which they live.
I find it distasteful to even have to say this, it is a form after all of voter suppression, it is undemocratic, un-egalitarian, it is in itself a form of bias. It smacks of the very thing I am railing against! Yet we have seen the results, and we cannot afford as a society to let those results repeat themselves in the future. We must as a society reject racism, and reject the ignorance that leads to it.
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which teaches civics
which is integrated
and which we don’t have now.
but what comes to my mind is what ties so much of this together:
US exceptionalism = racism
One of the most auspicious signs in Arkansas is at the west end of the bridge between Memphis, TN and West Memphis, AR. It said,
Speed Limit
60 mph
No Tolerance
And they were true to their word. No tolerance…for anyone or anything different from themselves. It was preached in their churches that toleration was the tool of Satan.
The same people who are “coming out of the woodwork” as racists have been spouting their hatred of gay people, vocally in public, for decades.
… to be the designated “Refuge” state for the End Days, perhaps we could encourage all the raving maniacs to move there and join the Alaskan Seccessionist Party, bid them a hasty farewell, and have the UN ban Alaska from obtaining Nucular weapons. You betcha!
in this racist country to keep Barack Obama from becoming our next president. Assuming nothing terrible happens, and it’s all just a bunch of wailing and gnashing of teeth, I say let ’em choke on it. A little schadenfreude can taste pretty sweet. 😀
this young woman needs help. big time.
But, it was the media and some blogs that were racist by accepting this story as true rather than the usual reporting of “allegations”. Then, media would build on these “facts” by implications that were racist as well.
This was the primary racism of this story and this is something that we can fix by letting the media know that such sham “reporting” is simply not acceptable.
as their last resort, they show the whole world how bankrupt their ideology is.
And they know it…. no matter how much they deny it, they know it. Now.
They’ve tolerated politicians–including their current Presidential Candidate–telling racist jokes. They’ve encouraged hate-speech radio, by routinely appearing on the hate speech programs, by welcoming hate talkers into the White House and by socializing with these disgusting bigots. They’ve given public speeches using “code” words for racist words, with a wink and a nod to their listeners. They’ve repeatedly refused to acknowledge or repudiate members of their party who’ve used racist terms while representing the party.
The republicans have made public racisim an acceptable behavior. The media has helped them by being in deep denial, and refusing to call them on their overt racism.
In such an environment, racism has flourished. It is sickening, disheartening, and disgusting. And it must stop. Leaders must not be allowed to tolerate and encourage the type of bigotry that led to the extermination of 6 million people in WWII. We must call them out–if it looks like racism, if it sounds like racisim–it IS racism. And, no, it’s not okay.