The New Ice Age of the Young Republicans - HuffPo

[WillyT]

<snip>

The election of 38-year old Audra Shay of Louisiana to the chairmanship of the Young Republican National Federation on Saturday in Indianapolis might have gone practically unnoticed, had it not been for revelations by John Avlon, writing in The Daily Beast, that Shay had tacitly endorsed a virulently racist post about U.S. President Barack Obama on her Facebook page.

In response to one of her Facebook friends, Eric S. Piker asserting

"Obama Bin Lauden is the new terrorist...Muslim is on there ...need to take this country back from all these mad coons...and illegals,"

Shay posted back,

"You tell em Eric! lol."

When two of her other friends--including Sean L. Conner, chairman of the D.C. Young Republicans--complained about the racist language on Shay's Facebook thread, Shay responded, not by unfriending the author of the "mad coon" comment, but by unfriending the two who complained.

In his two articles, Avlon reveals a disturbing pattern of similar viewpoints expressed by Shay in previous Facebook posts, larded with misspellings, and with syntax that would embarrass a marginally-educated 16-year old, including one from October 2008 where she employs a lynching motif, suggesting "Obama in a noose" as a Halloween decoration, defending it as "freedome of speech," and that "no one in Atlanta would mind."

<snip>

And...

<snip>

Ignorance and bigotry loves a vacuum, and the cultural vacuum left in the wake of Barack Obama's historical ascension to the presidency is a significant cultural gulf.

Decades from now, social historians may be able to pinpoint the exact moment, during the lead-up to the 2008 election, that the sheer weight of historical potential tipped the scale of restraint to the breaking point, shattering the fragile veneer of the post-Civil Rights-era façade of civility. That rupture, for its part, is leaking public, social and racial bile in a way that has not been acceptable since the 1960s.

In the months following Obama's win, the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported more than 200 hate-related incidents referencing race. In Madison County, Idaho, a school superintendent found it necessary to respond to a complaint from parents that children on one school bus were chanting "assassinate Obama," while in North Carolina, the Statesville Record newspaper apologized for running a leader column asking, "What's more scary, a bleak economy or a black president?" In December of 2008, Chip Saltzman mailed out a CD of "Barack the Magic Negro," the racist parody of "Puff the Magic Dragon," as a Christmas gift to his nearest and dearest.

The line between what is acceptable and what is not appears, inexplicably, to be blurring even further. In June of this year, prominent GOP activist Rusty DePass apologized for "joking" about Michelle Obama being a descendant of apes. In short order, it came to light that Sherri Goforth, an administrative assistant to Tennessee State Sen. Diane Black (R-Gallatin) had sent out a profoundly racist email, a composite of portraits of 43 U.S. presidents, with Obama's portrait a set of white cartoon pop-eyes, jumping out of a field of black in the Al Jolson "blackface" style.

<snip>

And...

<snip>

As the GOP "teabags" America, attempting to "rebrand" itself, with all the enthusiasm of a slovenly housewife in a failing marriage armed with a Jenny Craig membership and a gift certificate to Glamour Shots, no one is watching the door to the back alley.

Having long relied on the so-called Republican "base" (and still reeling from the stinging November defeat) the GOP appears to be unable--or unwilling--to put the genie of religion-based social intolerance, and racism, back in the bottle by calling it out, and distancing themselves from it in unambiguous terms once and for all.

Instead, the smell issuing from the GOP's lack of leadership and direction is attracting the subterranean element of the "base" like blowflies to a carcass by the side of the highway.

If the Republican Party is serious about "rebranding," it might begin by joining the 21st century. It's ironic that one of the only young Republican voices exhorting this change is not even an elected official, but the daughter of one--Meghan McCain, who wondered out loud how a 38-year old "Young Republican" who thought racial epithets were funny could possibly move the Party forward in the service of a generation of genuinely young Republicans who are, even as you read this, wondering what the hell is going on with their Party, and why the titular organization of its younger members is moving, not forward, but backward into a new Ice Age of political irrelevancy.

Coming as Audra Shay's election did, at the end of a week over the course of which the American public was presented with the sickening sight of a crowd of devastated black schoolchildren forced to evacuate a Philadelphia swimming pool full of white children on a blistering summer day lest they "change complexion," the question of how much lower the bar can be moved, before something breaks, is begged.

For better or for worse, the Young Republican National Federation is now headed by a 38-year old, spelling-challenged "event planner" who finds references to America's 44th (and first African American) president as a "mad coon" to be an occasion for great merriment.

<snip>

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rowe/the-new-ice-age-of-the-yo_b_230125.html

[SpiralHawk]

1. Republicons are the Hate America Party

What a pathetic pack of Latter Day Pharisees & Hypocrites.

[pdxmom]

2. It's important to see this compilation of incidences from party members

themselves...especially those that would lead the party. The racism is obvious and is tolerated by the right, and they are feeling more and more free to spout it out, because so far, there has been no pushback. And these have been overt acts...not something that can be "spun".

[callous taoboy]

3. Audra Shay distilled down to one line:

Instead, the smell issuing from the GOP's lack of leadership and direction is attracting the subterranean element of the "base" like blowflies to a carcass by the side of the highway.

[Historic NY]

4. 38yrs old, What is she on the Palin 20yr college plan? Your over the hill at 30...

I guess the repukes can't get enough people to climb out of their parent basements.

[DonCoquixote]

5. With all due respect to Canada

THIS is exactly the sort of stuff that having a First Amendment forces to be dragged into the light. If we hard more European or Canadian style speech laws, the bigots would just learn to hide things better, rather than be exposed for what they are.

[Odin2005]

6. The party of idiots.

[chatnoir]

7. This shows them as they truly are

Apparently even Megan McCain came out against her:

"Before the election, Meghan McCain urged the group not to choose hate by electing Shay: “What exactly do the Young Republicans expect to achieve by electing a 38-year-old woman who thinks racial epithets are acceptable?”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-11/young-gop-chooses-hate

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-10/the-gops-day-of-reckoning/