For John, BLUF: The Democrats and their fellow travelers are playing the race and gender cards and ignoring the openness/inclusiveness of Republicans to people of color and women. Nothing to see here; just move along.
US Senator John McCain (and Senator Lindsey Graham, but not Senator Kelly Ayotte) is being accused of racism with regard to the possible nomination of US UN Ambassador Susan Rice to Secretary of State. Here is Scott Whitlock writing for News Busters writing about a segment on Mr Chris Matthews' show, Hardball. The core of the article:
Former top Newsweek journalist and current MSNBC.com editor Richard Wolffe on Monday smeared Senator John McCain as a racist.Mt Wolffe can find no other reason for Senator McCain's opposition to Amb Rice than racism. The idea that Amb Rice and her Sunday Talk Show performance over Benghazi, might invoke Jeremiah 20:7 is not considered. The idea that Senator McCain (but not Senators Graham and Ayotte) might be favoring his good friend Senator John Kerry for the job is not considered. What is going in here?
My wife asks if there is selective vision here? Are the pundits unable to see women and people of color in the Republican Party? Do such people just become "White" once they register as Republicans?
Regards — Cliff
While some Republicans pursue discriminatory poll tests that disfavor citizens of color, (and caught on video crowing about it), and make generalizations about the almost half the electorate where a majority of the voters of color are most likely found, (and caught on video crowing about it), it will be forever hard for other Republicans to defend colorblindness in other areas.
ReplyDeleteOr, put another way--until nut jobs are repudiated (refudiated?) by a party as a whole, all members will bear the burden of association. (And this goes just as much for D's as it does for R's, just in different areas).
..the guy who made those comments should probably be reminded that Sen. McCain supported the nominations of two people of color who became Secretaries of State during the last Administration.
ReplyDeletePartisan? Sure. Racist? I'm not quite sure how the math works on that.
Like I said, it's impossible to defend colorblindness as Senator McCain quite possibly enjoys while the contrary actions of his party stain him with the association.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make sense of it until you see it through the eyes of people who feel themselves and their allies of color threatened with disenfranchisement and economic serfdom by an entire party. Once that happens, anyone wearing that scarlet "R" on their namebadge is impossible to distinguish from any other.
I think I got confused there. The road to serfdom is more a "D" road than an "R" road. The other thing is that staining someone with the actions of others is not always the best guide to measuring a person. For example, I hope you don't gauge all Democrats based upon the actions of Ted, Chris and Bill. Or the late Robert Byrd, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteI know the meme is that all Republicans are sexist and racist, but I am not sure it is a correct, or even insightful, meme. And what about all those unenrolled voters who went for "W", or gave us a Republican Lower House?
Regards — Cliff
I'm not trying to defend this nonsense in the least--I'm just trying to point out that remaining (feigning?) confusion while the obvious answer, unreasonable as it may be, is staring you right in the face, is disingenuous at best, and certainly hard to understand for people as well read and intelligent as are writing and commenting here.
ReplyDeleteThe late Robert Byrd is a GREAT case in point. He was a Grand Cyclops, Grand Kleagle, and all sorts of wrong things in the KKK, but he joined up with the party of RFK and the Civil Rights heroes of the 60's, and earned himself a free pass regardless of how noisome his philosophies were.
And, further, for the record, I don't gauge all Democrats based on the actions of the worst of them, but I DO understand why Republicans refuse to accept reason from reasonable D's when the lack of reason from the rest of them indicates it's all a sham.
AGAIN--the meme does not have to be correct (surely there are non-bigoted members somewhere in any organization that large) and in fact it's almost guaranteed that it is not--for the association game to take over and pervert the whole thing.
Think about the number of people you know who hate both Arabs and Muslims (and worst of all Arab Muslims) because of 9/11. No, not all are terrorists. But huge numbers of people refuse to distinguish. It's human nature.
So stop pretending to be confused how it works, and throw the idiots from the fringes out to repair your PR image. If Tylenol could do it, surely the Republicans can. But it took actual steps to improve product safety, just as it will take actual steps to purge racists from the Republican party, for the court of public opinion to become fair again.
It's just the way it is.
Actually, I am not sure I know anybody who "hates" Arabs and Muslims, even Philippino Muslims. I think if I work on it I will come up with someone.
ReplyDeleteI know John McCain missed the whole "Social Actions" period in the military, when we had to go to school about race relations, but still, given his actions in the Senate, and his adopted daughter, I think he gets a pass.
As for the Tylenol analogy, I guess we could hermetically seal in who is and is not a Republican, but once you start looking for heretics you become a small, bitter, group. Better to be looking for converts and try to enlighten them. After all, we aren't Democrats.
Regards — Cliff
The Confederate flag still flies outside the SC statehouse, and your poster boy, John McCain, can tell us all what happens to Republicans who might dare to call such "a symbol of racism and slavery" while running for office there--they become forced to recant such "heresy" to pander for votes, and the echoes of institutional racism continue to reverberate because of it.
ReplyDeleteTo the Senator's credit, he has since apologized for his "sacrifice of principle for personal ambition", but forgive me if I don't misunderstand why Republicans continue to carry that "racist" millstone around their necks for a few more years.
My analogy with the Tylenol caps was not to discuss hermetic seals, but to suggest demonstrated steps, not just rhetoric, to address the image problem. Imagine a Republican candidate who makes a crusade against the images of racism still staining the party?
I'd think he or she could turn that negative into a positive with the rest of the country in short order.
Too bad, like Senator McCain learned, it's the party itself, that's racist and dysfunctional. (Or else why would better men and women be compelled to sacrifice that particular principle???)
But racism exists close to home as well, the busing in the 70s in Boston and 'the white flight'.
ReplyDeleteLike Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) or Nikki Haley (from, er, ah, South Carolina)?
ReplyDeleteI know, they aren't really people of color, because they are Republicans and thus just ...
Regards — Cliff
Today I would define people as 'economic racists', not social racists. And they vote very liberal, but live in very affluent non-diverse communities where even a single parents couldn't afford a two bedroom apartment. In fact they have minimum multi-family units/apartments/condos in their zoning.
ReplyDeleteWe're talking about a rhetorical question why Republicans have a hard time escaping undeserved "racist" labels, but, yes, there's a nice parallel among restricted-zoning communities and racism as well.
ReplyDeleteIn my home town, Dee Brown, star Celtics first round draft pick, was put face down on the sidewalk with a gun in his ear by the Wellesley PD on nothing more substantial than the information that a "black man" had robbed one of the local banks a few minutes earlier. There is nothing that is not racist in that story, and I still hear echoes of such today when people from elsewhere learn where I grew up.
It's all of a piece. However, I do NOT ask why people conclude people from Wellesley are racists, because I know the basis for the presumption, and as ugly as it is, it's not without foundation or reason.
And, Cliff, while we're on about Republicans of color, care to discuss the contributions of Allen West to the discussion of implicated guilt by association? I do believe he still has yet to reveal the names of the 81 Communist representatives on the Democrat caucus roster, and I'm sure he can explain why belonging to a particular team leads otherwise reasonable people to presume things about them against all evidence to the contrary...
ReplyDeleteQUOTE
ReplyDeleteModerator: What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or International Socialist?
West: It's a good question. I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It's called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
UNQUOTE
Here is the link
I am not defending Representative West but just setting the record straight. He linked those of the Progressive Caucus to the Communists and Socialists in these United States. Fair? I wouldn't have done it, but then I am of the "ignore them" school, based upon the idea that we have bigger fish to fry—and also the Law of Conservation of Enemies. Eighty-some members of the US House of Representatives is around 18%. Need to be about building coalitions.
But, they are not rip roaring followers of Capitalism. Would they try to do what the Labor Party in the UK tried post-WWII? I would think so, if they got the chance. I think the concern is if they followed the Erdogan view of Democracy. In the UK, they didn't and we (they) got Maggie Thatcher, which was a good thing.
Regards — Cliff
Right--sorry I was too lazy to look up the name of the caucus when I referred to it.
ReplyDeleteI am having a hard time trying to follow your point, though, observing that "stimulus" was a big Dubya policy point after he cratered the economy here, and the concept is roundly supported by Republicans, (aka the R porkers, as opposed to the D porkers who really are no different, are they), and the whole point of the CPC is job-creating stimulus just the same.
Or are you saying that giving prodigious piles of partisan pork to private patronage capitalists instead of public government patronage bureaucrats somehow magically has different consequences? (Have you seen the pay package for the Hostess CEO?)
Donkeyphants.