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| No really, it makes sense! |
It's an awesome boxing match, and Republicans are leading with a strong right hand, with chin possibly exposed to someone's uppercut.
This week we watched the back and forth between the NAACP and various Tea Party spokespeople and elements. The NAACP made a rather reasonable, if targeted, request that Tea Party activists make a greater show of distancing themselves from outright racists. The purpose of this request was not so much to get racists expelled from the Tea Party movement, but to highlight the fact that there are a whole bunch of racists in the organization, and using vaguely articulated concerns about the economy to hide their general dislike for the black President.
An umbrella group called the National Tea Party Federation took to the Sunday political talk shows to announce that they had indeed
expelled one particularly racial Tea Party group. The spokesman for the Federation was black, and on the same CBS show Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP suggested that they would like to see other spokespeople (meaning non-black ones) take to the pulpit to denounce racist elements.
Meanwhile a slew of articles have appeared in various publications documenting the back and forth, and asking whether there is some type of race card being played by the NAACP. The framing of some articles suggests that it is merely a battle of semantics, with two equally aggrieved parties making their cases. I read one article which spotlighted the billboard of Obama centered between Hitler and Stalin, and any number of commentors to the piece failed to see any racism in the depiction. To them the billboard and the likening of Obama to mass murdering socialist variants (on the left and right) was merely a policy critique.
"It's not racist that Tea Party members have problems with his economic polices or his stances on the issues," goes the general refrain. And further, it's playing the race card when you suggest that the motivation for the outrage has racial bias as its fuel and fire.
Actually from the very beginning Obama has been smart. He has avoided talking about racial issues, or defining issues or attacks as being based on racial notions. He touches the issue when he is forced to by others, but has generally not gone there. He has avoided, even, associating too closely with blacks who he feels might cause an increased focus on racial issues or even his blackness. He has made every effort to be as non-threatening as possible. And he has instructed his surrogates to stay in line as well, even when they are functionally lying... as we see with
Joe Biden's quick assertion that the Tea Party is not racially motivated.
And why might we say that in general, the Tea Party movement is in fact racially motivated, though with some good underlying themes?
In policy and deed, Obama has passed any number of pieces of legislation that in fact annoyed his liberal base. Healthcare passed, but with modifications and suggestions from Republicans who failed to support it. Financial reform passed, but with modifications and adjustments from Republicans who failed to support it. Stimulus passed, and again, with modifications and adjustments from Republicans who failed to support it. His two Supreme Court nominees were not some ode to blackness. He picked two qualified women when he very well could have just opted for two qualified blacks. He didn't. A little something for everyone.
In fact if you look at the entire cannon of Obama action, it is remarkably mainstream and not too far from various positions and stances taken by previous presidents and other nations. There was stimulus under Bush, but the Tea Party didn't exist then. Apparently nothing to be concerned about. There were deficits under Bush, but, apparently nothing to get concerned about. There were deficit increasing actions like tax cuts and two wars under Bush, but apparently nobody was too concerned. There were rising health care costs and stagnating incomes and low job creation. But nobody protesting now, and in so organized a fashion, was out protesting then.
But now, under Obama, all the drunkards have come to the cross, and found Jesus in the form of spirit-filled anger over our economic situation and other injustices. They have found fit to liken President Obama to Hitler, and pay for billboards to do so. They have found fit to suggest insurrection and overthrowing the government, and imagine themselves patriots in the process.
Look closely at their complaints and you see dichotomy rolled up in hypocrisy wrapped in nonsense. One good example of this is in the political contest going on in Nevada, where Democrat Harry Reid is getting tarred on the airwaves. Huffington Post points out some of the nonsense:
More important than the misleading message, however, is the audacity of the messengers. Americans Crossroads is a conservative outfit run by a host of fierce critics of the Democratic stimulus program. Gillespie, the former RNC Chair and Bush hand, has criticized the stimulus package as ineffectual and misguided. Karl Rove, another American Crossroads chief and Bush confidant, actually insisted that the stimulus bill hurt the economy. Now, it appears, they see virtue in the recovery package. Were it not for the ineptitude of Harry Reid, the group argues, Nevada would be reaping more of the benefits.
Of course, the more fundamental message being advanced by American Crossroads is that Reid is simply incompetent. How, after all, could a Majority Leader not bring home the bacon to his needy constituents? But that too is misleading. As The Atlantic's Derek Thompson explains: "Republicans have spent the last three months blocking a Sen. Reid-endorsed extension to unemployment insurance that would particularly help Nevada, since federal UI contributions are tied to state unemployment rate. They're blocking Democrats' jobless aid in Washington and blaming Sen. Reid for not spending more on joblessness in Reno."
(
Huffington Post)
So if your complaints are off base, where you are blaming the government for a bad economy and not just "fixing it," while simultaneously blaming the President for bringing in socialism, and if you are pillorying the President for taking actions that others have done in the past dating back to people like Hamilton, and if you are comparing the President to a mass murderer and then implying that people who voted for him are thus bad Americans... then you probably don't realize that you are in fact a situational racist.
The whole process has been to try portray Obama as something outside of the norm. You could actually break down his policies and actions and see otherwise. We still bomb terrorists with drones. We upped our troops in Afghanistan (contrary to the desires of his most fervent supporters). We passed laws--labeled socialist--that are firmly in line with other government largess efforts, whether the mortgage deduction, social security, Medicare, public schools, and so on.
You often hear the Tea Partites saying "But I paid into Social Security" but the fact of the matter is that nobody paid in enough, it's insolvent, and if you really cared about the budget, you would be against that and tax cuts as well.
Nor has any president been subjected to document demands for birth certificates, and the Tea Party in polling has yet to abandon the belief that the President is somehow not an American. Bush didn't go through that, and you can take that all the way back to Washington.
When you hold to certain untruths when facts indicate otherwise, then you need to check your motivation. But, you know, racists never do, do they? I am not fat, I am just big boned. Ha ha.
