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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLeonard Pitts Jr: Republicans have courted racists for years. Why are they cringing now?
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article168097357.htmlLeonard Pitts Jr
Republicans have courted racists for years. Why are they cringing now?
BY LEONARD PITTS, JR.
August 18, 2017 7:55 PM
snip//
But without question, the most repugnant contribution to this new dawn of white supremacy comes from the Republican Party. It has called to these people, invited these people, for decades. It has done so overtly, with laws and statements demonizing LGBTQ people, Muslims, and immigrants. Republicans have also employed so-called dog whistle politics, coded words, policies and imagery that preserve deniability while speaking with implicit clarity to white racial and cultural fears. From the Willie Horton ad that helped George H.W. Bush become president to the suggestive white woman ad that helped sink a black candidates Senate bid in Tennessee, from photo ID voter suppression to birther conspiracies, from Newt Gingrich condemning a food stamp president to Paul Ryans complaining about a tailspin of culture in our inner cities, the GOP has seldom missed a chance to lay out the welcome mat for white supremacists.
Maybe it was just political strategy. Maybe it was true belief. Doesnt really matter.
Its machinations have delivered to the GOP the presidency and both houses of Congress. Yet seldom has a party controlled so much and looked so bad doing it. Republicans find themselves saddled with an incompetent president elected on an implicit promise to make America white again. Under him, they are able to accomplish exactly nothing. They cringe as he suggests moral equivalence between bigots and those who protest them. As if all that were not bad enough, a newly revived hate movement now arrives, looking to cash in its chits.
You think its unfair to lay all this on the party of Lincoln? How many Hillary Clinton voters do you really think were out there rallying for racism? Indeed, whose name did those bigots chant?
Hail Trump! they cried. Hail Trump!
No, Republicans may denounce what happened in Charlottesville to their hearts content. This mess is on them. And while they may rush to condemn this ugliness, the more moral thing would be to own their role in creating the environment for it and repent thereof. There is no wiggle room here. Theyve sent invitations for years.
They cant be surprised to see guests arrive.
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article168097357.html
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Not Ruth
(3,613 posts)The GOP are Nazis
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)When you court racists for four decades, can you be surprised when your voters are racist?
It's striking how many Charlottesville neo-Nazis are College Republicans.
ProfessorGAC
(65,337 posts)My wife and i were commenting on that as well. So many bitterly driven 20 to 25 year olds. How can one get that bitter by that age?
I'm very suspicious of college republicans in general, and question their true motives. I can see a college student still being idealistic and being politically active on the other side. The idealism of youth drives that sort of social optimism.
But, being a hard line conservative when one is 19? They don't know enough about anything to form positions that rigid, so i am dubious that those positions are solely based on political science.
I graduated from college when i was 19, so i knew more at 19 than most of these buffoons, and i will readily admit i didn't know much about real life. They all believe they've got it ALL figured out. I'm convinced bigotry is a primary trigger.
Wounded Bear
(58,766 posts)If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 50, you have no brain?
ProfessorGAC
(65,337 posts)I'm no less liberal now than when i was 19. And i'm way past 50.
Wounded Bear
(58,766 posts)I think it is from some British guy.
ProfessorGAC
(65,337 posts)Good one!
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Check out the middle interview here - it's good.
https://art19.com/shows/pod-save-america/episodes/d48b0001-cd3f-451f-b4cd-ea9ce14f3d0e
Also WaPo article on young radicalization:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-road-to-hate-for-six-young-men-of-the-alt-right-charlottesville-is-only-the-beginning/2017/08/19/cd1a3624-8392-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html
Propaganda. Fox News, Limbaugh. Now Breitbart and internet crazies. If we want to fix america we have to stop the GOP propaganda.
ProfessorGAC
(65,337 posts)...read the WaPo article. I came away thinking these 6 are all emotionally unstable, immature twits.
IOW, they were radicalized because they're weak but entitled idiots.
Perhaps that is the most common thread. Incapable of introspection, ready to blame others, unaware of the uncontrollables.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Bannon confesses to going after young white men gamers in the book by Joshua Green.
To me that is the biggest recent revelation -- Bannon fanned the flames of the alt-right online on purpose, for political advantage.
ProfessorGAC
(65,337 posts)Pathetic, though.
C_U_L8R
(45,033 posts)They're hiding a smirk.
wolfie001
(2,297 posts)....or trailer parks. Fuckers
Weekend Warrior
(1,301 posts)Mr. Pitts. Those are the ones who seem to be truly uncomfortable by the manner in which they promoted their own privileged concerns over "economic anxiety" compared to how they are now being outed.
They are cringing now because their most comfortable terms, which we have always know to be code for racism, are finally being called what they are.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,452 posts)The media is shining a hot white light on them at the moment, so they have to at least appear concerned or ashamed about things. It's highly doubtful that anything will substantively change as a result of this, however.
Hayduke Bomgarte
(1,965 posts)And that's all it is. Simply the appearance of shame and concern. Smoke and mirrors.
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,452 posts)Messaging, style, appearances are how they win. They are always obsessed with figuring out to make their policies more palatable or look better than what they are, never questioning their actual substance (or lack thereof). Most of their supporters fail to do so as well.
southerncrone
(5,506 posts)They still love them deep down in their dark souls.