The Ron Paul newsletter fiasco, as nauseating as it is, is but an outward symptom of a metastasizing cancer of race-baiting-for-profit that fuels the GOP and Tea Party.
The case is made rather well by a piece by Edward Wyckoff Williams published today and referencing a recent Reason Magazine piece. From the piece (I apologize for the lengthy quote, but it really is required reading):
Reason magazine explored the newsletters, and questioned if the racialized content would invalidate Paul’s candidacy. In the analysis, they reveal something far more sinister at work in the American political apparatus; namely, that race-baiting tactics have been used for power and profit since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and the White Redemption Movement of 1870 took hold.
Paul is a symptom of a greater metastasizing disease and the Republican Party has been skillful to hide the far-right, powerful elements in their ranks that fuel racial hatred, animus and divisive rhetoric, for the sole purpose of winning at the ballot box.
In the past few years, since Barack Obama was elected it has been easy for conservatives to run away from accusations that the Tea Party had a racial agenda, and that coded attacks on the President were simply a manifestation of social unrest tied to the present economic malaise.
A deeper look shows that not only has the GOP, like Ron Paul, benefited from the orchestrated civil divisiveness, but that it is a central component to their campaign strategies.
Much like the efforts to disenfranchise left-leaning minority voters, currently underway in State legislatures nationwide, another main GOP strategy has been to manipulate poor whites, stirring latent racist attitudes, and convincing them that Black and Brown people were the source of the nation’s problems.
A central tenet of Paul’s newsletters was promoting an image of uncivilized, urban blacks, who chose crime and welfare over hard work and education. Likewise, the newsletters fueled anti-immigrant sentiment by presenting the standard image of illegals stealing jobs, and using health care services paid for by the American taxpayer.
It is long past time we confront the ugly undercurrent of racism and bigotry that animates both the GOP/Tea Party and far too much of American culture. Sadly, as this piece points out, this nauseating hatred is immensely profitable (the Ron Paul newsletters did, after all, make money). It seems to me that we must all remind ourselves that politics is a lagging, rather than leading, indicator — these tactics are politically effective because they resonate with a very large segment of the American electorate.
Those of us who thought that racism and bigotry were eradicated with the apparent success of the civil rights movement need to wake up and smell the coffee.
In an editorial this morning, the Globe misses the point of Newt Gringrich’s attack on Cooper v. Aaron.
The Globe correctly observes “By citing this as the centerpiece of his argument, Gingrich has awakened a sleeping-dog grievance from the civil rights era.” The Globe’s conclusion is that Mr. Gingrich’s purpose is to attack the Judiciary.
I suggest that the real purpose is to awaken and animate the racism and bigotry “from the civil rights era”. Mr. Gingrich pushes the same buttons the KKK and most other hate-groups have pushed in modern times — religion (his own brand and interpretation, of course), the specter of “international organizations” (watch out for those atheist commies), and the Judiciary — all culminating in a conspiracy of “secular leftists” to “curtail our liberties and force their beliefs on us” (page 78, bottom).
While Mr. Gingrich rattles his sword at the Judiciary, his real message is clear as day, and as nauseating as a lynch mob at night. School desegregation was wrong. The judiciary was wrong to enforce it.
Racist bigots throughout America have no problem connecting the dots as these various right-wing wannabe’s fall over each other pandering to them in thinly-veiled code-phrases.
Neither should we.