Earlier this year, Republican Party chairman Michael Steele 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 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....Whether or not these issues are substantive is entirely irrelevant. The ends justify the means. Winning more power is the goal. Demagoguery, racial politics and specious arguments are fair game as long as they work. As long as the enemy is defeated. This doesn't necessarily mean that every Republican is a racist (or, with regards to the specious arguments, an idiot). But what else do we call the deliberate inciting of racial bigotry and resentment for the sake of attaining power? It's unethical, immoral and obscene. It's race-baiting and it's a major component of the Republican strategic arsenal.
Dead on. Read the whole thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment