It’s The Racism, Stupid

It is.

It’s the racism.

It’s the sexism.

It’s the homophobia.

It’s the fear of the other. It’s bigotry and bias in a dozen forms and whatever label you want to slap on it. 

Let’s just stop pretending that it’s anything else.

You know, I’d have more respect for these people, not a lot more respect but perhaps some anyway, if they’d just come right out and say it. Get it out in the light where we can look at it. Instead they pretend to righteous indignation – what? How dare you call me a racist! How dare you call me a sexist! Or a bigot! Or a homophobe. Why, I’m insulted, I’m offended that you would say such a thing. In fact, you’re the bigot because you won’t tolerate my bigotry! Yes, yes, that’s it. Bigot? I know you are, but what am I? 

And then we have to listen to their nonsense, their fear and hatred and endless bile, and we’re all supposed to act like we’re so damned stupid that we don’t all really know what we’re talking about here.

And what we’re talking about is the bigotry.

When you dig down to the bottom of it, when you cut away all the euphemistic hedging and code words, when you look at what these people are really saying, well, it’s bigotry pure and simple. It’s racism and sexism and hate and fear. You can pretty it up however you like, you can deny it all you want, you can throw in a little Jesus and the tired bit about patriotism, yes you can pretend otherwise, but that’s exactly what it is.  And don’t try to tell me that it’s not.  I’m white. I’m male. I’m straight. I hear what other white straight males say when there are only white straight males in the room and I know it when I step in it.

So let’s just cut the bullshit, shall we?

Take a look at the comments under any Yahoo! News article. Any article.  Take a look at the comments under nearly any Wall Street Journal article on politics or the economy.  Take a look at the comments on any TEA Party forum. Any forum. Look at what any conservative pundit says every single day. Any conservative pundit. Look at the statements by outspoken conservative politicians and party leaders, every single day. Go on, look.

These are all verbatim quotes from the above sites. You can find plenty more for yourself with exactly zero effort.

- The citizens who share the belief that the Constitution, Bill of Rights and our Declaration of Independence should remain as the foundation of this nation, are outnumbered today.

- he got elected because of minorities voting for him in extraordinary numbers. He had the worst economic record of any incumbent president and due to the racial bias in his favor and the character assassination of Romney, as well as the media blackout of Benghazi, he slithered like a snake into another term. Short lived perhaps - he's being busted by for his before, during and after screw ups that led to deaths of an ambassador and three others

- Romney won among the core of America, the ones who pay the taxes and drive the economic engine.

- You are the ones who call us white trash and trailer trash.... You don't like anything that is right !! As opposed to wrong. Homophobia? That implies I am afraid of homos, I ma not!! Class warfare started with Obama and him being against the rich although he is rich too. There are way too many people in this country on assistance. But there are no jobs, we can't keep doing that .Keep the illegals out, Seal our borders and no more anchor babies, wherever or whenever their parents got here. I don't care, the country has had enough!!!So have the American people!!!.

- I had a hard time looking at and listening to Obama for just four years. He doesn't look like America. Jindal would be even worse... Ugly people!!! I don't want no Indian in the White house. That black man has been bad enough!!! Clinton won't go away, he thinks like Obama, doesn't matter what you do, He thinks he's a rockstar!! NOT!!! WE will take America back!!! It is our country!!!

- Obama didn't win, the unions, the lazy, the illegal aliens and the commies and socialists won. You don't know it yet but AMERICANS lost.

That’s right. Americans. 

And who are Americans? Well let’s see, they’re not in a union, they’re not lazy (Lazy, we know what that means, don’t we? No Protestant work ethic for those people. Wink wink), they’re not Latino or Asian or gay or any of those people. You know, those people. You know the ones. They’re scheming to take away our country. Ours. Us real Americans.  You can tell an American, because he looks like an American, right?  And Americans aren’t elected by minorities, now are they?

If it wasn't for the 47% on welfare, barry sure as hell wouldn’t have won. You can see we are become a 3rd world country. Wait for the muslim brotherhood to take over.

Oh no, not the Muslim Brotherhood! Not that!

Welfare.  The forty-seven percent. Gee, where have we heard those dog whistles before?

How many times have you seen this meme since the election?

The population of the US is around three hundred and twelve million.  So, one hundred and fifty million, that’s about how many people forty-seven percent of the American population is, give or take.  Seventy-two percent of America is white, that leaves about ninety million people of color, of which about seventy million are defined as “black” or African American. Now  according to the US Department of Health and Human services, the Commerce Department, and the CATO institute’s own figures, a little over four million Americans actually live on welfare as of 2012.  Four million. Not one hundred and fifty million. Four million. About sixty million receive some kind of assistance, some kind of help, but they’re not living on it.  Four million, that’s the number of people on welfare. That’s about one percent of the total population (1.2% percent if you want to get precise). 

One percent and some change. Not forty-seven percent. One percent.

Of which, about two million are actually white.

Want to do the math yourself?

No?

Okay, what all this means is that of the non-white population, ninety-nine percent aren’t living on welfare. 

But what’s the statement here? Half the population is on welfare. And who are the folks on welfare? What color does popular perception paint their skin? About half of them are white, but that’s not really the color you think of when somebody mentions “welfare,” is it? Most of the white people on welfare live in the poor rural South and are hardline conservatives, but that’s not really the location or the party that comes to mind when people say “welfare,” is it? 

Be honest, what do you think of when you hear “welfare?” 

What you should be hearing is a dog whistle.

And while we’re at it, what color is the Third World?

What are we really afraid of here? Go on, you can say it – but then again you really don’t have to, do you?

Forty-seven percent, it’s complete bullshit, just another manufactured bogeyman.  But there it is, ingrained in the public mind and no amount of math will ever dislodge it. 

Why?

Because that’s what a different forty-seven percent of the population wants to believe.

We’ll come back to this meme in a bit.

Oh, hell, let’s come back to it right now.

This is too good to pass up. So here’s a quick “Caption This Post” of our favorite moocher with a big ol’ bufforilla ass…

That’s the lead-in to a fun little contest on the Angry White Dude blog.  Who was the mad little white dude talking about? “Moochelle” Obama, of course. Isn’t that clever? Moochelle.  You can thank Rush Limbaugh for that one. There’s a whole internet meme that makes Moochelle demotivational posters.  Moochelle, do a search on that name, see what you get. Because, apparently, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, someone who has worked her entire life, first as a lawyer, then as the highly successful executive director of a large non-profit, then an Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago and then Vice President of Community and Student Affairs, not to mention a member of the board of TreeHouse Foods, and whose salary placed her well into the upper 1% of American income and who pays more in taxes than most Americans gross in a year and has long before she ever became First Lady, is a “mooch.” 

She’s also a “Silver back gorilla” and has a “big ol’ bufforilla ass.”

Gorilla. 

Again, you want to do the math or shall I?

No matter that by any definition Michelle Obama is an educated eloquent successful accomplished professional  – who, I might add, put her own career on hold and took a subservient role to her husband’s goals, a position hard line conservatives think is the proper place for a woman – as an African American, well, she’s still just a gorilla, a monkey, a mooch. One of the “Forty Seven Percent” sponging off real Americans. 

You know, it’s funny, the same people who call the First Lady a mooch are the same people who bitch about how lazy other folks are, who mock others for their weight and tell them to get off their asses and exercise – and yet when Michelle Obama busts her own ass day in and day out to eat right and exercise and set a decent example for our overweight youth, she’s a still a mooch and gorilla. 

You know what the single largest search on my website is?

“Michelle Obama posture.” 

Gorilla. Bufforilla. Go on, tell me it’s not racism. Show me the same comments about Barbara Bush’s tush. Nancy Reagan’s work ethic. Or Pat Nixon’s posture. Go on. I’ll wait.

Google Sasha and Malia and see what you find.  Don’t eat anything first, unless you like being sick.

Then go right on and tell me it’s not racism. Go ahead, make me laugh.

Tea Party Nation blogger Judson Phillips came up with an idea: he wants conservatives, i.e. Real Americans, in the Electoral College to go on strike. That’s right. Do what they’ve been doing in Congress for the last four years, obstruct. 

See, the idea is to prevent validation of the election results, both the popular vote that conservatives are so big on and the Electoral College vote, both of which they lost decisively.  Phillips’ idea is that if he can get enough conservatives to hold up the final electoral vote validation, then the Electoral College deadlocks.

Then the House of Representatives gets to decide who the next president will be by Fiat.

And the House is controlled by Republicans.

Isn’t that beautiful?

The Tea Party, the folks who claim to love democracy and The Republic oh so very much, who lay claim to being patriots and the only real Americans, who are overwhelmingly white to a degree that makes any other race utterly insignificant in their make-up, want to override that self-same democracy and install their own President directly. 

Why?

Royce Latham, one of Phillips’ readers explains:

Sexual perversions and drug use of the Obamas…forged birth certificate…voter fraud of biblical proportions. Why are we talking secession instead of removing the New York Times and supporting citizens' Grand Jury indictments [sic] against this unbelievable treason, felonies and usurpations raining down on us on a daily basis?

Sexual perversions? Jesus Haploid Christ, I’ll bet money that Royce has Birth of a Nation on Blu-Ray.

And then there’s all the rest of it, like a song you just can’t get out of your head, birth certificate, voter fraud, treason, usurper, oh woeho, do wop do wop, raining down on me.

Everybody, sing along, you know the words.

Again, don’t think it’s really racism?

Think I’m exaggerating?

Take a look at the comments regarding this idea on the President Mitt Romney 2012 Facebook page.  Also, take a look at how many “Americans” really, really like the idea of aborting democracy and just taking over when they don’t get their way.  Facebook commenters come with pictures, note the demographics. 

Hey, I’m just saying that if there’s that much white sauce in the fondue, you’re probably going to find a stack of crackers nearby, that’s all.

Look at this. Really look at it.  Those angry pinch-faced TEA party loons aren’t claiming voter fraud, not really. Hell even Allen West has finally conceded. They’re not calling for new elections, not really. They admit, finally, that Mitt Romney lost and that Obama won.  In fact, the entire idea of locking up the Electoral College tacitly acknowledges the validity of the election, that a majority of voters wanted Barack Obama to have another four years.  So they’ve hit upon an idea to bypass democracy and the Republic, disenfranchise those voters, and install their own genuine Old White Guy.

Honestly, the only way you get to this point, is if you see half the country, and especially people of color, as not real Americans. 

Note: the deadlock idea is about as valid as creationism by the way. Doesn’t work. The electoral college was designed to keep soreheads from taking over America not help them.

Funny thing, when these people claim to love the Constitution, they literally mean the Constitution as originally written – the one that left three quarters of the population, women, blacks, and the poor, as non-enfranchised chattel.

And that’s the world they want to return to.

Which makes this last week all the more ironic.

A while back, Rick Santorum told conservatives they were stupid, and they cheered him.

Last Monday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told Republicans to "stop being the stupid party."

Jindal admonished the GOP to make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive message. 

It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments -- enough of that. It's not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can't be tolerated within our party. We've also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.

I’m not exactly sure how you insult the intelligence of voters who think “bufforilla” is an acceptable label for anybody, let alone the First Lady, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

"If we want people to like us, we have to like them first," Jindal said on Fox News Sunday. What a concept, eh? It warms my heart to know that Bobby Jindal likes me, and just in time for Christmas too! Why it’s like a Doctor Seuss story – and Bobby’s heart grew two sizes that day!

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney apparently didn’t get the memo, he’s going around telling these same conservatives that the only reason Barack Obama won is because he gives free stuff to lazy minorities who don’t work and aren’t real Americans. Boy, that’ll get ‘em to like you.

Mitt’s not only still losing this election, he seems hell bent on losing the next one too.

In the weeks since the election, Republicans have come to the conclusion that “The White Vote” isn’t the automatic win it used to be.   The GOP has come to the sudden and unpleasant realization that by the next election cycle – or the one after that at the latest – the United States will be using the word “minority” to describe an entirely different demographic. 

The glum and frightened look on conservative faces isn’t that they lost per se, rather it’s the same look an alcoholic gets when he realizes there’s only a swallow left in the bottle.  

If they want to have any say in how this country is run in the future, they’re going to have to change the Republican party to reflect a representative cross-section of America. 

It’s really that simple.

Because, see, it’s the bigotry, Stupid.

It’s not just the Dick Mourdocks and the Todd Akins and the Michele Bachmanns, it’s not just the Rush Limbaughs and the Glenn Becks and the Ann Coulters, it’s not just Bill O’Reilly and RedState and Tea Party Nation – it’s the whole damned constituency.

It’s the overall racism and sexism and misogyny and religious extremism.

I’ll tell you exactly what it is, it’s the people who can look at an accomplished well spoken wealthy black woman, the First Lady, and see only a welfare dependent moocher, a monkey, a gorilla, a nigger.

It’s the racism, Stupid.

It’s the racism and all the rest of it. It’s the sexism. It’s the homophobia. It’s the gibbering fear and the paranoia.

It’s the goddamned bigotry.

It’s the bigotry and it’s in everything.

Utah Republican Governor Gary Herbert warned conservatives that the country was going "center-left" on issues like gay marriage.  When he was asked what Republicans could do to survive the shift without violating their principles, he said:

If you must discuss it, stand by your beliefs, but please, for the good of the party, try not to sound like a jerk.

For the good of the party.

Not for the good of the nation.  Not for the good of the people you’re trying to attract.  For the good of the party. 

What Herbert doesn’t seem to understand is that those beliefs make you a jerk, no matter how nice you phrase it. When your position is that of denying others their piece of the American dream because you just plain don’t like them, you are a jerk. It’s really just that damned simple.

You. Are. A. Bigot.

At the same Las Vegas meeting, former Reagan adviser Bill Bennett told the gathering:

You can articulate your opposition for example to same-sex marriage, but you can do it in a dignified way, in the right language, in a forceful way that shows you're not a bigot or intolerant.

You know, you can only make the facepalm so many times before you end up with a headache.

Again, what Bennett just doesn’t seem to get is this: no matter how “dignified,” no matter the “language,” you’re still an intolerant bigot.

You. Are. A. Bigot.

Not one of these conservative leaders stood in front of their party and said, “Enough! We can no longer tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, the hate and the fear in our ranks. We must change. We must honestly acknowledge that America has changed and we must change with it. We must discard the past and move forward and become the party for all Americans. We must lead. We must stop referring to our fellows as communists and Nazis and Bufforillos. We must become a movement that is truly worthy of the title The Party of Lincoln!”

Oh, sure, maybe it sounded a little like that, but that’s not really what they said, is it?

No, not really.

Of course not.  No GOP leader could say that, because, well, then he’d sound like a liberal, wouldn’t he?

Instead, they’ve decided to fake it.

Because, when it comes right down to it, well, it’s the bigotry isn’t it?

We’ll just pretty it up. Put some lipstick and new dress on it – because, hey, the lazy welfare dependent Forty-Seven percent is too damned stupid to notice anyway.  They’re just gorillas after all, monkeys, right? Poor and stupid and easily duped. Hell, they don’t even speak English, most of them.  If Obama can fake them out, heck, how hard can it be. Right?

We haven’t heard “separate but equal yet,” but then we really don’t have to, do we?

What’s the Jean Giraudoux quote? 

The secret to success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

Republicans are going to have to do more than fake it. 

They’re actually going to have to change. 

They’re going to have to do something about it for real.  They’re going to have to stop being the last refuge for racism, sexism, homophobia, religious extremism, and all the rest of it. 

And if they don’t?

Well then in less than a decade they are going to find out exactly what it’s like to be a minority in America.