Joan Walsh: GOP’s rodeo of racism blows up

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/12/gop%E2%80%99s_rodeo_of_racism_blows_up/

GOP’s rodeo of racism blows up
Anti-Obama ugliness resurges as birther-in-chief Donald Trump joins top Republicans in Iowa. Coincidence?
By Joan Walsh



It’s been quite a week for anti-Obama racism. At the Missouri State Fair Sunday, rodeo fans cheered to see a “clown” in an Obama mask get run down by a bull. On Friday in Florida the president faced a gaggle of protesters on the way to address a disabled veterans’ group; one carried a sign reading “Kenyan Go Home.” Three days earlier, Arizonans protested Obama’s visit by singing “Bye Bye Black Sheep.” One man mocked him by calling him “47 percent Negro;” another held a sign that read, “Impeach the Half-White Muslim!”

snip//

With Republicans like Boehner and Iowa’s Family Leader embracing Trump as a loyal and treasured party figure, and mainstream media figures like Karl treating him like a legitimate newsmaker, it’s clear that the party, and some of the media, learned nothing from its 2012 drubbing. Reince Priebus’ infamous “autopsy” has itself gone wherever it is that fraudulent ideas go to die. Calling for more “inclusion,” the report didn’t outline policy change but rather better communication strategies to avoid repelling young voters, women, African-Americans and Latinos. “Our policies are sound, but I think in many ways the way we communicate can be a real problem,” Priebus said in March.

But now they’ve given up even on changing the way they communicate.

It’s not just Trump; one candidate after another in Iowa demonized Obama, and/or his electoral coalition. Rep. Steve King, he of the “calves the size of cantaloupes” remark, told the audience to ignore guidelines on what churches can do politically and “go ahead and defy the IRS.” King is said to be mulling his own 2016 presidential run; we can only dream. Sen. Ted Cruz got big ovations for advocating the repeal of not just Obamacare but the IRS.

snip//

Meanwhile, John Boehner golfs with birther-in-chief Trump, while he headlines ABC’s respected Sunday news show. The GOP seems content to live on the fumes of Obama-hatred. It’s not a strategy for a post-Obama politics, but they seem to reckon there are enough rodeo clowns out there to get them through 2014.

[tanyev]

1. "The GOP seems content to live on the fumes of Obama hatred."

I think they've been huffing it and got addicted. That would explain a lot.

[Skittles]

2. it is indeed a kind of addiction

I believe they simply cannot accept the that fact that Obama beat a couple of rich white guys

[Bandit]

3. And the FACT that he is doing a better job than any Republican President in recent memory

It goes against everything they have been brought up to believe. That Whites are the Superior Race...

[Skittles]

10. correct

[cui bono]

26. Yeah, you'd think they'd love him as POTUS considering he's implementing and expanding

their policies. Best Republican president ever!

It's all a game anyway. TPTB actually love him because as a member of the Dem party he's been able to do and suggest things that would have created a huge uproar had a Republican done it. So they get their cake and eat it too. The public actions you see in the media are all a game to lead the people right where practically everyone in national politics wants them, fighting amongst each other, living in fear and under surveillance, so they can be controlled.

It's the oldest trick in the book and people of both parties are falling for it by following politics as if it were a team sport.

[DearAbby]

17. It's a form of insanity

“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” - Atticus Finch - To Kill a Mockingbird.

The loss of empathy, the loss of compassion, the loss of treating others as you yourself would wish to be treated. The loss of being. The loss.

[sheshe2]

19. That is the perfect quote

from Atticus Finch.

Oh how I love that book!

Thanks DearAbby~

[Rex]

4. They have nothing else left, the GOP continuously tries and destroy the country

and then we come along and try to fix all the damage they do. It is a wonder anyone would vote for them, since they are the root of all misery in this nation. An insufferable group of intolerable, racist hate mongers.

[Peacetrain]

5. It is just palpatable in some areas..

I do not know what moves them anymore, other than hate.

[kairos12]

6. Racist slobbering is a near Pavlovian response to anything Obama by Rethugs

[spanone]

7. President Obama has ripped the scab off the american facade of racial equality

[Number23]

9. Absolutely right.

[calimary]

22. I think that's exactly it. I suspect on Election Night 2008, most of the country patted itself

Last edited Wed Aug 14, 2013, 02:20 PM - Edit history (1)

on the back and flattered itself and congratulated itself that it was "over" that silly racism thing - that those silly "lefties" still make such a damn big deal about. I mean - look what we just did, they said. We have a black President now. Yay us! Get a load of us, willya? Ain't we big and broadminded now? Everybody cheer - we've come a long way, baby.


NOT.

I think when many of them woke up the next morning, as one can do with a hangover following a big bad bender the night before, the cold hard truth started to sink in. Uh - wait a minute. Whothehell is THAT? If it didn't happen on the morning after Election Night, it sure as hell sank in by Inauguration Day, when all the outward signs reinforced the truth. There went the white folks, the bushes - helicoptering out of town, NO LONGER in power. That couple staying behind, waving them off - whothehell is that? And why don't they look like me? WHAT???? WTF do you mean THEY are in charge now??? THOSE people? OMG! NO! IT CAN'T BE!!!! SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE!!!

I think that's how it went down in the minds of too many knuckle-draggers in America. Just that simple. They woke up from the celebratory bender of the nation as most of us were almost deliriously happy finally to be RID of fucking bush/cheney, and to have a DEMOCRAT replace him, and one who had opposed the war, and a community organizer at that! And yeah, a black guy and his black wife. The white couple next to the two of them were the SECOND-IN-COMMAND. NOT Number One. NOT at the top of the ziggurat. This time, the white couple were the "Second Couple," and the black guy and black lady with them were NOT there with them to take their coats and nod deferentially and then quietly make themselves scarce back in the kitchen and butler's pantry. You know, in their "proper place."

I think that corner of America woke up on one of those Mornings After and gagged. Acid reflux like nobody's business. The cold hard truth hit them like a speeding freight train, and they realized they just couldn't deal with this. It was JUST. SO. WRONG!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! And then, as any spoiled snot-nosed three-year-old brat-child would do, they threw a temper tantrum, and started acting out. Those here and elsewhere who've noticed it's getting worse, and louder, and meaner, and more vicious and vitriolic than ever - maybe more offensive and horrible and shameful than anyone here can even remember, are just documenting it, really. At least that's how it looks, to me. None of their tantrums have worked so far in getting rid of that "other" who doesn't know his proper place, so they do what screaming brats do everywhere when their shitty behavior isn't checked. They turn up the volume. They get louder, they stomp their widdle feet harder and slam their bedroom doors harder, they misbehave more - and more viciously and with MORE meanness. And it grows and expands the longer the situation they don't like continues unabated. It'll keep up until they get their way - and NOTHING so far has worked for getting their way. NOTHING they do makes it - or rather him - go away. They were sure they had him beat in 2012. And they cheated and gamed the system and stacked the deck as best they could to deny him votes in as many ways as they could think of. And nothing worked.

That's why you're seeing the increase in nastiness, dirty tricks, attempted cheating, more insults, more lack of decorum, more desperation, more and louder pouting and whining and name-calling, more hostile and mean-spirited and even threatening language, more stunts, more amping it up. Now, for example, some of the more reckless are talking impeachment again - they gonna haul that crap back out now? Is this their limited-intellect, knee-jerk default strategy for the last two years of the Obama administration like they resorted to during the last two years of the Clinton administration. Oh, look. The two-termer is three-quarters done. He's a Dem. The clock says end of third quarter means it's time to start impeaching the President. Back then, too, they were out of options. They'd spent tens of millions of dollars (which was astounding back then), thrown everything and several kitchen sinks - and bathroom sinks and toilets and matching bathtubs at BOTH Clintons (even Chelsea was targeted by some, and she was a young girl back then) and nothing got them removed from the White House. The persecution never ended. And that's a good word for it. Persecution. It's what they're doing to President Obama, too. Except they're making it racial. And not in a good way. Which is taking the "adding insult to injury" strategy to a nauseating and shameful extreme!

I think we're seeing a group of people acting out against evolutionary circumstances, and an inevitable moment of great change, when their world as they knew it was suddenly up-ended. They want white-dominant America. And the time for that is passing. Things change. People change. Things evolve. Populations shift. Generations flourish, then age, and then pass - replaced by others coming up after them who aren't their clones. Communities and influences and trends change. Things Change. That's just how it is. And we have people in this country who are afraid of change. They bleat and cry about wanting their America back. They want things the way they used to be (what they think used to be - you always remember what you want to remember). And that's just not the way it is. So instead of accepting change and rolling with it, they fight and resist and yell and scream and throw tantrums. Like the spoiled adult-size three-year-olds they seem in actuality to be. They want it to be okay to be racist - to feel that way about someone not like you - to feel a superiority complex of some weird sort. It just isn't that way and these folks don't want to accept that truth. Hence the bubble they've built by entities like limbaugh and Pox Noise to insulate themselves from the real world.

The same type told us, after Selection 2000, to Get Over It. Well, they should, too.

[babylonsister]

24. Calimary...

Great explanation!

[spanone]

25. ^^^yes^^^

[Number23]

8. K&R!

[SleeplessinSoCal]

11. The frustration of constantly losing elections is turned inward.

And what's inside is not a pretty or healthy thing. The Grand Old Party is long gone. Their decision to boycott governing adds to their insanity. The Rodeo of racism is their national pastime now. Even NASCAR has left them in the dust.

[mstinamotorcity2]

12. Will 2014 cure

Romnesia???? Maybe with the Affordable Care Act they can get some treatment. If not, Vote, Vote, Vote.

[santamargarita]

13. This was nothing but a KKK meeting.

Everything is a sport to these shitbags and they always lose. Now if we could just get them to go away - FOREVER!!!

[Jamaal510]

14. I wonder

if they're going to show this level of animus towards the next Democratic administration?

[Boomerproud]

15. They will do everything in their power to delegitimize whomever the Democratic POTUS is.

That is in their DNA.

[Blue Idaho]

16. Hating Obama is not a viable long term strategy.

Unfortunately the Republican Party has chased anyone with any real brains out of the party. Today their best and brightest "stars" are folks like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Paul Ryan - not exactly a Mensa meeting. John Bayner is busy holding up a bar stool somewhere and Mitch McConnell is being measured for his brown shirt and jack boots to avoid an embarrassing upset back home.

In my wildest dreams I hope the next election is a complete disaster for the these card carrying members of new John Burch Society. I keep thinking of something similar to an old saying during the Vietnam War era...

"They had to destroy the party in order to save it."

More power to 'em.

[4bucksagallon]

18. I'm shocked we haven't seen this racism here on DU...........

Oh wait we have.

[sheshe2]

20. K&R!

Thanks for posting Joan Walsh's piece!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. Curious to see what kind of turnout they have.

[freshwest]

23. K&R