“Tortured Arguments And Code Words”: Is Karl Rove Really A Hardcore Racist — Or Is He Just Lazy?
Occasionally I’ve heard black people mention that they respect a racist who owns up to his prejudice forthrightly more than a hypocrite who uses tortured arguments and code words. Like many of President Obama’s right-wing critics, Karl Rove still falls into that latter dishonorable category.
But Rove was scarcely subtle in his latest attempt to agitate the drooling bigots in the Fox News audience. (Not every Fox viewer is a white racist, of course, but every white racist with cable watches Fox. As Karl knows.) Last night on Fox, he barked that the president has “a lazy attitude toward the job that he’s got.”
The Republican boss is himself evidently too lazy to come up with a different line of innuendo — possibly involving watermelon, fried chicken, welfare, or basketball. Wait! He actually did use the basketball meme to slam Obama in a Wall Street Journal column in 2008 – and then added, in case any readers missed the point: “He is often lazy.”
Well, Obama was energetic enough to kick the butt of Karl Rove’s preferred candidate in that election and again in 2012, but that hasn’t discouraged Rove, Hannity, Palin, Beck, or a million other wingnuts from repeatedly using that same slur. (Doesn’t that mean they’re all lazy?)
If we have to measure the industriousness of presidents – and it’s a stupid exercise, but they insist – then let’s examine two of their favorites. It is established fact that George W. Bush took more than three times as many vacation days as President Obama, probably more than any president since that other great GOP success, Herbert Hoover. Rove ought to know, since old “Turd Blossom” was largely responsible for foisting the Dubya disaster on his country.
And let’s not forget the late Ronald Reagan, who spent plenty of recreational time at his California ranch — and made sure to take a nap without fail every day. The sainted Ronnie once explained that the White House job wasn’t really too taxing on him because…
[He] had a great routine: he walked to the office before nine and was home in the residence by 5 or 5:30. He ate dinner and often watched a movie with his wife, then went to bed. “I have three guys who mostly run things for me.”
But then Reagan was a white man, which apparently means he’s always working hard, even when he’s napping.
By: Joe Conason, Editor in Chief, The National Memo, October 2, 2014
“Why Bigotry Persists”: The Neanderthals Among Us Are Getting Better At Camouflaging Their Prejudices
Soon after Barack Obama’s electoral victory in 2008, conservatives began depicting the event as a triumph of cosmopolitan and secular intellectuals, people of color, liberal pieties, and “socialist” hopes. Grassroots organizing accompanied an agenda of legislative sabotage led by the Republican congressional hierarchy. Media demagogues stoked the flames of resentment. President Obama was mockingly called “The One” and excoriated as an Arab, an imam, even the Antichrist. Posters identified him with Hitler, placed his head on the body of a chimpanzee, implied that he was a crack addict, portrayed him with a bone through his nose, and showed the White House lawn lined with rows of watermelons. Six years later, the fury has hardly subsided: Thousands of young people check on racist websites like Stormfront every month, anti-Semitism is again becoming fashionable, Islamophobia is rampant, and conservative politicians are suing President Obama in the courts for his supposed abuse of power while their more radical supporters are labeling him a traitor.
Most of these people don’t see themselves as bigots. They long to reinstate the “real” America perhaps best depicted in old television shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. This completely imaginary America was orderly and prosperous. Women were happily in the kitchen; gays were in the closet; and blacks knew their place. But this world (inexplicably!) came under attack from just these (ungrateful!) groups thereby creating resentment especially among white males on the political right. They feel persecuted and wish to roll back time. Their counterattack is based on advocating policies that would hinder same-sex marriage, champion the insertion of “Christian” values into public life, deny funds for women’s health and abortion clinics, cut government policies targeting the inner cities, protect a new prison network inhabited largely by people of color, eliminate limits on campaign spending, and increase voting restrictions that would effectively disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged citizens.
Neanderthals still exist along with blatant examples of old-style prejudice and hatred. But the bigot is adapting to a new world. The bigot now employs camouflage in translating his prejudices into reality. To forestall criticism, he now makes use of supposedly “color-blind” economic and anti-crime policies, liberal notions of tolerance, individualism, the entrepreneurial spirit, local government, historical traditions, patriotism, and fears of nonexistent voter fraud to maintain the integrity of the electoral process. The bigot today is often unaware either that he has prejudices or that he is indulging them.
Unfortunately, popular understandings of the bigot remain anchored in an earlier time. His critics tend to highlight the personal rather than the political, crude language and sensational acts rather than mundane legislation and complicated policy decisions. Many are unwilling to admit that bigotry has entered the mainstream. It is more comforting to associate bigotry with certain attitudes supposedly on the fringes of public life. Words wound but policies wound even more. Everyday citizens grow incensed when some commentator lets slip a racist or politically incorrect phrase. But they are far more tolerant when faced with policies that blatantly disadvantage or attack the bigot’s traditional targets whose inferiority is still identified with fixed and immutable traits: gays, immigrants, people of color, and women.
Reactionary movements and conservative parties have provided a congenial home for true believers, provincial chauvinists, and elitists of an aristocratic or populist bent. Not exclusively: Liberals and socialists—though usually with a guilty conscience—have also occasionally endorsed imperialism, nationalism, racism, and the politics of bigotry. But while the connection between right-wing politics and bigotry does not hold true in every instance, it is true most of the time. It is certainly true today. Ideologues of the Tea Party provide legitimacy and refuge for advocates of intolerance while the GOP provides legitimacy and refuge for the Tea Party.
Not every bigot is a conservative and not every conservative is a bigot. Yet they converge in supporting an agenda that aims to constrict intellectual debate, social pluralism, economic equality, and democratic participation. Either the bigot or the conservative can insist that his efforts to shrink the welfare state are motivated solely by a concern with maximizing individual responsibility; either can claim that his opposition to gay rights is simply a defense of traditional values; and either can argue that increasing the barriers to voting is required to guarantee fair elections. Whatever they subjectively believe, however, their agenda objectively disadvantages gays, immigrants, women, and people of color.
Reasonable people can disagree about this or that policy as it applies to any of these groups. Any policy, progressive or not, can be criticized in good faith. But ethical suspicions arise when an entire agenda is directed against the ensemble of what President Reagan derisively termed “special interests.” No conservative political organization today has majority support from women, the gay community, or people of color. There must be a reason. It cannot simply be that the conservative “message” has not been heard; that members of these groups are overwhelmingly parasitical and awaiting their overly generous government “handouts;” or that so-called special interests are incapable of appreciating what is in their interest. A more plausible explanation, I think, is that those who are still targets of prejudice and discrimination have little reason to trust conservatism’s political advocates.
Is the conservative a bigot? It depends. Is the particular conservative intent upon defending traditions simply because they exist, supporting community values even if they are discriminatory; and treating political participation as a privilege rather than a right? Critics of the bigot should begin placing a bit less emphasis on what he says or feels than what he actually does. That conservative can always rationalize his actions—platitudes come cheap. But then perhaps, one day, he will find himself looking in the mirror and (who knows?) the bigot might just be staring back.
By: Stephen Eric Bronner, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University; The Daily Beast, September 28, 2014
“In The Hopes Of Appearing Normal”: New GOP Ad Campaign; ‘Republicans Have Feelings’
Vinny Minchillo, a Republican campaign strategist based in Texas, isn’t the most famous GOP consultant in the country, but he did claim to have “reinvented political advertising” while working for Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign in 2012.
But that was two years ago. In 2014, as Danny Vinik discovered, Minchillo is spearheading an entirely different kind of campaign. It’s called “Republicans Are People, Too.”
RepublicansArePeopleToo.com … aims to combat the partisan rancor directed at the GOP. In short: to humanize Republicans demonized by the left as women-hating, nature-destroying Fox News addicts. A 97-second video on the site informs viewers that Republicans do things that you may not associate with conservatives. […]
Minchillo is now an executive at Glass House Strategy, a public affairs company that specializes in political campaigns – although, despite the upcoming midterms, Minchillo is not advising any campaigns at the moment. That, he says, makes it the perfect time to start a grassroots campaign to change the Republican Party’s image.
The whole video is posted below, and you’ll just have to see it to believe it. The message did not go so far as to say, “Republicans are capable of functioning as well-adjusted human beings,” but that seemed to be the general direction of the message.
Indeed, for those who can’t watch clips online, here’s the entire on-screen text: “Did you know? Republicans drive Priuses. Republicans recycle. Republicans listen to Spotify. Republicans put together Ikea furniture. Republicans are white. Republicans are black. Republicans are Hispanic. Republicans are Asian. Republicans read the New York Times in public. Republicans use Macs. Republicans are grandmas, daughters, Moms. Republicans are left handed. Republicans are doctors, welders, teachers. Republicans donate to charity. Republicans enjoy gourmet cooking. Republicans shop at Trader Joe’s. Republicans like dogs and cats, probably dogs a little more than cats. Republicans have tattoos and beards. Republicans have feelings. Republicans are people who care. Republicans are people, too.”
It’s almost as if we’re seeing a promotional video put together by a group most Americans find repulsive, so its members put something together for YouTube in the hopes of appearing normal.
Indeed, let’s make this plain: if you’re a member of a political party, and you find it necessary to remind the public that your party is capable of human emotion and routine human behavior, then your party may have a very serious problem.
It’s not that Minchillo’s ad is wrong, of course. Obviously, Republicans are human beings living normal American lives. The problem is the overly defensive nature of the argument – if you have to remind the public that Republicans “are people” and “have emotions,” then you’re implicitly suggesting that Republicans’ basic humanity is, at least for some, in doubt.
Jon Chait joked, “It’s just always suspicious when somebody strenuously denies an accusation that has not been made.”
This video http://youtu.be/Iff7mNsGK50 no doubt intended to convey the opposite message, but “Republicans Are People, Too” underscores a branding issue for which there is no easy solution.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 25, 2014
“Barack The Dog”: Reflections Of A GOP Strain Of Persistently Contemptuous Attitudes Towards Women
If you haven’t seen the new Americans For Shared [sic!] Prosperity ad targeting unmarried women, you might want to check it out and then take a long shower:
Yes, the President of the United States is depicted as one of those sleazy dudes some women meet on internet dating services who turn out to be abusers who routinely lie, cheat, steal and spy. The ad doesn’t suggest Barack the Bad Boyfriend is prone to physical violence, but otherwise the whole rap is highly suggestive of the excuses often made by women who stay in abusive relationships, notes The Wire‘s Arit John:
At one point the woman uses phrasing domestic abuse survivors use to describe why they stayed with their partners. “But I stuck with him, because he promised he’d be better,” the woman says. “He’s great at promises.” This is reminiscent of the recent #WhyIStayed hashtag on Twitter in the wake of the Ray Rice domestic violence video. Women explained that they stuck with their abusers in part because he or she promised they’d stop, promised they’d change, or promised they’d never do it again.
John clearly thinks the ad is deliberately exploiting the recent publicity over domestic abuse by NFL players.
It’s not, however, entirely new. As MSNBC’s Anna Brand shows, the theme of Barack Obama as a bad boyfriend was used in the series of ads Republicans and pro-Republican groups aimed at 2008 Obama voters in 2012.
Similar words were uttered in a 2012 ad called “Boyfriend” launched by conservative group Independent Women’s Voice.
“I wanted to believe him, I trusted him,” one woman says to her friend sitting beside her on a couch. “Listen, we all did,” the friends responds.
“Why do I always fall for guys like this?” the first woman laments.
In a 30-second ad by the Republican National Committee in 2012 entitled “The Breakup,” a woman “breaks up” with a cardboard cutout of President Obama sitting across from her at a white tablecloth restaurant. “You’re just not the person I thought you were. It’s not me, it’s you,” she says over cocktail music followed by a prompt to “tell us why you’re breaking up with Obama.”
This pitch obviously didn’t work in 2012. Why are Republicans (at least some of them) going back to it now? One might be tempted to think it reflects a strain of persistently contemptuous attitudes towards women, those incorrigibly “emotional” critters for whom snaring Mr. Right while avoiding Mr. Wrong is the center of their existence and the most powerful metaphor imaginable.
I’d say this “argument” also may reflect some frustration on the part of conservative men who just don’t “get” the Democratic voting predilections of women, and thus have to mark it up to seduction. Back in the 90s, some wag (don’t remember exactly who it was) attributed some of the conservative male fury at Bill Clinton to astonishment that a dog like the Big Dog could get so many women to “sleep with or vote for him.” It’s almost as though Republican men aren’t quite adequate themselves, you know? The “‘Dating Profile” ad does look like it was conceived in a man cave with the assistance of a twelve-pack of beer.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 24, 2014
“Feed The Base’s Worst Fears”: When In Doubt, Run Against The Kenyan Muslim Socialist
Yesterday, Senator Pat Roberts — who has emerged as one of the most closely watched incumbents in the country, now that independent Greg Orman’s challenge to him could dictate who controls the Senate — raised a lot of eyebrows when he said this:
“We have to change course because our country is heading for national socialism. That’s not right. It’s changing our culture. It’s changing what we’re all about.”
National socialism? Philip Rucker, in a great piece on the Kansas race, asks Senator Roberts what he meant, and gets this:
When a reporter asked whether he truly thinks the president is a socialist, Roberts replied, “I believe that the direction he is heading the country is more like a European socialistic state, yes. You can’t tell me anything that he has not tried to nationalize.”
Interestingly, the Orman campaign is criticizing Roberts’ rhetoric. In a statement, the campaign said:
“This is exactly the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that dominates the partisan debate in Washington and that Kansans are tired of. Washington is broken because politicians like Senator Roberts are too busy using scare tactics and calling each other names instead of getting things done. Kansans know we’ve got to do things differently, and that’s why they’re supporting businessman Greg Orman’s independent campaign for Senate.”
This is noteworthy, given that you’d think calling Obama a socialist could not possibly be problematic in any way in deep red Kansas.
By the way, the claim that Obama is moving the country towards socialism has long been echoed by many leading Republicans. It’s a way to feed the base’s worst fears about Obama while not quite coming out and calling him a socialist, which sounds crazy. In accusing Obama of wanting to “nationalize,” well, the entire private sector, Senator Roberts has dispensed with such restraint.
This gets to something interesting about this race. Roberts and his allies in the national GOP, panicked about the Orman challenge and its implications for Senate control, are quickly gearing up an All-About-Obummer campaign. Roberts is up with an ad ripping Orman for donating to Obama and national Democrats, and for saying repeal of Obamacare is unrealistic. A GOP Super PAC is airing a similarly themed spot. (Republicans are also tarring Orman as a shady businessman, but tying him to Obama and national Democrats will figure heavily.)
But, judging by the Orman statement above, his camp is gambling that this approach won’t work and could even end up reinforcing the frame for the race they prefer. The premise of the Orman campaign is that voters are sick of both parties and of Washington, allowing them to cast any efforts to tie him to Obama and national Democrats as more of the same old partisan food fighting, all designed to distract from Roberts’ failure to produce concrete achievements despite all his time in the Capitol.
The backdrop for all of this is the abject failure of the experiment in conservative governance undertaken by Kansas governor Sam Brownback, which has alienated many moderate Republicans. But it seems unlikely that Orman will directly engage on that front. I’d expect him to seek to capitalize on the generalized unpopularity of the GOP that has resulted, to campaign against both parties — and against Roberts’ lack of accomplishments — in making the case for trying something new in the form of an independent businessman.
Even Republicans are worried about this prospect, as one Republican rather colorfully put it to Rucker:
“He’s basically furniture in the Senate, and the people in Kansas know that,” said national GOP strategist John Weaver, a former McCain adviser. “You could give the average Kansan 24 hours to come up with something Pat Roberts has done in the Senate, and after 24 hours, even the crickets would be standing there befuddled.”
Well, okay, that does sound pretty problematic, but there’s still a way out: Run against the Kenyan Muslim Socialist!
By: Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, The Washington Post, September 24, 2014
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