Bob Cesca: The Summer of Republican Race-Baiting

[Turborama]

Bob Cesca: Host of the Bob and Elvis Show
Posted: August 25, 2010 04:47 PM

Earlier this year, Republican Party chairman Michael Steele http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-national-committee/michael-steele-acknowledges-gop-had-southern-strategy-for-decades/">admitted that the GOP has engaged in Southern Strategy politics: employing racial, anti-minority code language and fear-mongering as a means of energizing the party's white Christian base.

This is a fact. The Southern Strategy is real, though it's no longer exclusively "southern."

There's no disputing its widespread use. Come to think of it, for Steele to "confess" to the the GOP's use of the Strategy makes it seems as though it was previously a secret. It wasn't. Fact: the Republican Party routinely tweaks white fear, paranoia, prejudice and resentment in order to win votes and score political points at the expense of demonized minority groups. They engage in stereotyping and misinformation and they rarely, if ever, use the "n-word" these days, though they might as well. After all, as the Strategy goes, blacks and minorities aren't voting Republican anyway, so... let fly.

And it works. So well, in fact, that it's still actively used on AM talk radio and on Fox News Channel as a ratings-grabber, not to mention as a recruitment tool for the various tea party groups. If you can effectively convince the majority race that they're being somehow victimized by the significantly smaller minority, you have a seriously powerful (and clearly immoral) psycho-weapon in your arsenal.

This year has to be some kind of high water mark for white antagonism against minorities, and evidence that the Republicans, along with the array of far-right apparatchiks, don't really have a serious agenda for governing to sell or, for that matter, anything of value to say. And so they do this. They continue to tap into a mother lode of white majority self-pity and inchoate rage as a form of spackle over the gaping holes in their ridiculous policy arguments.

Take a good look at the big stories of the last several months -- the stories that have been driven by the far-right machine, injected into the mainstream and subsequently debated by the rest of the country -- partly as a result of the far-right's money, loudness and tenacity, and partly because these arguments are too obnoxious and outrageous, and therefore too irresistible, to avoid. I've been hearing a lot about August being "crazy month," but the crazy topics have spanned the entire summer and beyond.

What are they?

Continues: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-summer-of-republican_b_694687.html

[Bitwit1234]

1. You see that every day in Rush

he spews racist hate. He downgrades the president. He does anything and everything he can. Seeing how far he can go with this hate and violence. No one stops him. If anybody other than the roaring mouth had said half the things he has they would be gone forever off the air. But Rush has too much money and pull with everybody including the Democrats to get banned.

[Winterblues]

3. And Rush gets to say his BS hatred, daily to our Military

What America needs is for our Military to become as politicized as possible..That's the Ticket...:shrug:

[ihavenobias]

2. Rec'd. Bob Cesca is one of the vloggers on the new Top Vlog channel.

There are other great vloggers from Huffington Post, NPR, Daily Kos, Firedoglake, Think Progress, Brave New Films, Daily Show Co-Creator Lizz Winstead and more:

http://www.youtube.com/thetopvlog|The Top Vlog>