Tom Tancredo, America’s Worst Congressman
America’s worst congressman, Tom Tancredo, caused quite a stir recently when he aired a television ad for his presidential campaign. The ad features a man in a hooded sweatshirt detonating a backpack bomb in a shopping mall, then cuts to scenes of carnage from terrorist attacks in Europe.
“There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs,” a voice intones. “Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil, jihadists who froth with hate, here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia. The price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill.”
“I approve this message because someone needs to say it,” Tancredo announces. You’ll get no politically correct mealy-mouthed prevaricating from Tancredo. If you’re looking for some good old-fashioned nativist fearmongering, he’s your man, or more precisely your GOP presidential candidate.
It’s worth emphasizing that Tancredo is not a racist nut exposing his paranoid delusions on some fringe Web site. He’s a racist nut who has made his paranoid delusions the centerpiece of a bona fide Republican Party presidential campaign. (Actually I don’t know if Tancredo himself is a racist, and the question holds no interest for me. Regarding immigration, he talks and acts exactly like a racist would and, when judging a politician, that’s the only thing that matters).
And, with the exception of Mike Huckabee, all the first-tier Republican candidates are competing to sound just as “tough” on immigration as the decidedly second-tier Colorado member of Congress. (Don’t be surprised if whoever wins the nomination runs ads very similar to Tancredo’s next fall.)
A couple of ironies will leap out at anyone who isn’t trembling at the thought of backpack-wielding jihadists disguised as hooded Mexican gangbangers blowing up Santa and his reindeer at the local Galleria during this busy holiday season.
The first is that by far the most successful terrorist movement in American political history was inspired by the same nativist and racist ideology that underlies Tancredo’s radical immigration views.
I refer to the history of the post-Reconstruction South, where a decades-long terrorist campaign carried out by private citizens, often with the tacit support or active participation of local government and law enforcement, managed to undo much of what was accomplished during the Civil War and the years immediately afterward.
The post-Goldwater Republican Party, of course, has drawn much of its electoral strength from the resentment and rage the modern civil rights movement engendered when it conducted its own war on terror, and rolled back the legal aparthied the Southern terrorists and their sympathizers had imposed on African-Americans for nearly a century.
The second irony is captured nicely in a quote from a 1939 Life magazine story on Joe DiMaggio, brought to my attention by Matt Yglesias: “Although he learned Italian first, Joe, now 24, speaks English without an accent and is otherwise well-adapted to most U.S. mores. Instead of olive oil or smelly bear grease he keeps his hair slick with water. He never reeks of garlic and prefers chicken chow mein to spaghetti.” The article includes a photo, captioned “Like Heavyweight Champion (Joe) Louis, DiMaggio is lazy, shy, and inarticulate.”
Tancredo, whose grandparents were Italian immigrants, doesn’t need to be reminded that, until fairly recently, Italian-Americans were considered only imperfectly “white,” and indeed were credited with the same virtues (musicality, athleticism, passion) and vices (laziness, promiscuity, criminality) attributed traditionally to black people.
Now we’ve come so far that Rudy Giuliani, a philandering blowhard with lots of corrupt friends and a taste for authoritarianism, can be the leading contender for the Republican nomination, despite his unambiguously Italian name.
That, I suppose, is a kind of progress.
© Rocky Mountain News
Racist nut philandering blowhards seem to have some kind of allure in those circles, I guess?
Ain’t we the lucky one’s…
He’s not the only US Congressperson advocating this vile fearmongering diatribe which is very scary especially for Muslims.
For more of the same from another Congressman:
U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick Representing North Carolina’s Ninth District February 26, 2007 Contact: Andy Polk(202) 225-1976
Understanding The True Nature of Terrorism
“My principle concern in this day and age of terrorism is: the general public doesn’t understand the threats we face from radical jihadists, who they are, what they want, and what we can do about the threat. Americans are not being properly informed about the nature of the jihadist threat and their plans to do us harm……”
http://www.house.gov/list/speech/nc09_myrick/TerrorismCaucusoped22607.html
Congressional Paul Revere Warns Nation About Islamofascist Threat
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1502&status=article&id=280364244485437
Saying Tancredo is the worst still doesn’t separate him from all the other political whores pimping themselves in D.C. Nor does it mention the corporate scumbags who finance the public selling of his soul.
Hoa binh
Gee, and there I believed Conyers was the absolute worst, for sitting on the impeachment bill. He is the only person on this here planet who is holding up the legal and mandatory impeachment process. ___ Silly me.
KEM I think we could come up with a long list….problem is it would be a challenge to figure out who to leave off the list aside from Kucinich and Ron Paul!
“Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil, jihadists who froth with hate, here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia.” Oh yeah? So where the hell are all the bombed American schools, shopping malls and churches? How about some effing proof?
Hardly the worst of a bad lot, run of the mill more like. On one day foreigners kill more yanks than were killed by other yanks and all the repukes are up in arms…
Chicken Little had more sense than that.
If the impeachment process begins, the house of cards Cheney has constructed WILL fall and then those guilty will be availabe for prosecution. Therefore, since the ONLY person actually preventing the impeachment process is Conyers, he is the worst American, a traitor who has defied the law of the land and has to date gotten away with it.
Fear and greed hooking the consumer has made corporate advertising and political campaigns successful for decades.
The US electorate keeps falling for it, so don’t expect anything to change.
The Republicans pander to their base and convince the swing voters that the Democrats will tax them into poverty and allow the boogeyman du jour (currently terrorists and immigrants)to kill them.
The Democrats alienate their base and try to convince the swing voters that they are low octane Republicans.
Which strategy do you think wins more elections?
andersdl - great post, and so well put!
terrorist means you
You meaning whom exactly?
The sad part is that to most Republican voters, this kind of excrement is very effective. Educational level or amount of available serious information does not seem to affect the degree of paranoia that Republican voters have. They live lives of fear because apparently they like it.
oh for the good old days
KEM: IMHO your anger is misdirected. Nancy is THE problem. She took impeachment off the table, and other Dimms don’t seem to have the power to put it back on.
I would add that there are some other pretty good congress critters. Mine is Peter DeFazio, and he votes my wishes on almost everything except impeachment. He even writes me back within a day or two after I make a bunch of noise about one thing or another. I see the problem as being mostly in the Senate. These folks are almost all out of touch. Of course they do seem to be touching a lot of money from corps.
Got to agree with Rebel Farmer: Pelosi is the worst congressman (sic). Under her leadership the House has handed Bush everything he and Cheney wanted. War, money for war, authority to tap phones, run secret prisons, hold folk without any Constitutional protections. She has led the Democrats in their collusion with the Republicans. Far worse a crime than Tancredo’s nuttiness.
What difference does it make that the Repelicans and NeoCons jump on their brooms and fly about in all directions? The U.N. says the world ends in 120 months.
curmudgeon99at 12:58:
Did you also wonder what this kind of article was doing on Investors Business Daily?
Congressional Paul Revere Warns Nation About Islamofascist Threat
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1502&status=article&id=280364244485437
One would expect to find such questions and story line to be found on the CBN “news” site. Not Investors Business Daily.
I was shocked as I perceived how the questions were being phrased and the premise “framed” for the Congressman. Was any one else reading the article and also wondering WHOAAA! What’s Goin On Here???
Thanks for the links.
I’m going to take a wild guess here, but I’m thinking that the real reason why Tancredo, along with so many other conservative politicos, are so adamant about keeping immigrants out of the US is that most of the people who want to come here aren’t really rich white guys. You know, hispanics and Asians and blacks and other ethnic folk, most of them poor.
And if the really rich white guys keep letting all those non-rich non-white guys into the country it won’t be all that long before white people have become a minority in the US. And when that happens it’s going to be real difficult for one of those really rich white guys to get elected dogcatcher, much less President or whatever.
Maybe people immigrating from foreign countries will one day save our Constitution. We just need more of them. And we need them to vote.
“Now we’ve come so far that Rudy Giuliani, a philandering blowhard with lots of corrupt friends and a taste for authoritarianism, can be the leading contender for the Republican nomination, despite his unambiguously Italian name.”
Well, birds of a feather…..
The truly disgusting thing isn’t that a moronic, arrogant and bigoted politician like Tancredo peddles such trash, but that so many voters buy it. He is doing it because it works.
The title was interesting enough that before opening the piece I made a list in my mind. Who could it be? Tommy “the Terror” Tancredo was certainly near the top of the list.
His current ads are NOTHING compared to what we’ll be seeing from the GOP come September of 2008.
The GOP has many more Tom Tancredos than do the Democrats.
“He’s a racist nut… Actually I don’t know if Tancredo himself is a racist, and the question holds no interest for me….”
Real object journalism there. If you’re going to say that someone is a “racist nut” then back it up. Tancredo, like many Americans wants our existing immigration laws to be enforced. As with any criticism of Islam as a religion, almost every one on the left calls this ‘racism’.
I’ve got no use for Tancredo and his ilk. He is using terrorism fears to turn a fairly benign population shift into an act of war. All the border security in the world would be useless against the next Timothy McVeigh. And the 9-11 hijackers were all here legally. We don’t do everything we should, but we shouldn’t do everything we could to guard against terrorism, because some things we could do are just immoral. Thank goodness Tancredo’s campaign is buried in the low single digits.
Immigration is a serious and complex issue, and it is disgusting how Republicans work on fear and ignorance, instead of promoting a mature,factual discussion. They will grab onto anything negative to hang onto power–and when they have that power, they use it to enrich themselves.
The media is almost as bad, sensationalizing an issue in a play for ratings instead of just supplying the truth. Wolf Blitzer is a sorry excuse for a debate moderator, as is Tim Russert, because they both ask “gotcha” questions and discourage real debate on real issues.
I wish someone would have the courage to address the immigration issue as a human problem, caused by economic change, that requires a sensible, practical, and–yes– compassionate approach. Call it amnesty, I don’t care; it sounds a lot better than a century of rioting and repression.
Ahab:
There are schools of thought in research and journalism that believe that objectivity is impossible. As such, it is best to reveal one’s bias giving the reader an opportunity to take that into account when choosing to believe.
It wasn’t objective, but it wasn’t shoddy journalism either.
Second, please re-read the passage. And read between the lines:
“There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs,” a voice intones. “Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil, jihadists who froth with hate, here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia. The price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill.”
So, yes there are 20 million aliens who come to “take our jobs”.
And, all those brown people look alike. Mexicans look like “Muslims” (read: Arabs)? And Arabs ‘know’ that they look like Mexicans (or know that Americans think they do) and use that as a means to sneak into the country. (Wouldn’t it be easier to say you’re Saudi?)
My point, being, that the ad isn’t proof that Tancredo is a “racist nut” but it does show his rational cultural belief that it is important to appear to be “nutty.” The author is right to identify the racism in the ad for a presidential candidate and because he only has proof of his rational cultural belief (at best), his calling Tancredo a racist nut is (ironically) a rational belief.
…After all, Tancredo approved the racist message “because it needed to be said.”
One good thing about the election circus: It allows us to pretend, at least for a little while, that we don’t live in a plutocratic state and that our votes really do matter.
The Republican Party is no longer anti-immigration. In the current corporate friendly environment, most Republicans are happy to allow the influx of cheap labor. Unfortunately, as a result of this cheap labor, we are seeing every remaining green space being turned into strip malls, we have deplorable working conditions at deplorable businesses such as pork plants, etc. etc. It is the average American citizen who is calling for immigration reform, the Presidential hopefuls are just posturing (with the exception of Ron Paul who is sincere.)
What is wrong with enforcing rules about immigration? It is not reasonable to think that the United States should accept every single resident of Mexico.
With the Earth’s burgeoning population, a decent standard of living for the majority of its inhabitants becomes impossible. We can talk about feeding the hungry, improving living standards and providing jobs for the world, but all of these things tax the planet even more. The only way to decrease human suffering is to control the birth rate.
Cheap labor allows us to buy more junk, buy bigger houses, throw enormous quantities of food away and basically destroy the planet ever more rapidly.
Those are my reaasons for wanting enforcement of immigration laws, not rascism.
Hi Rebel Farmer, how ya doin?
Hate to diagree, but it don’t matter what Pelosi said. Conyers has the bill and he alone can put it on the table or sit on it. He’s sitting and Cindy Sheehan damn near begged him to do his duty and he had her arrested. Now there is no question Pelosi can pressure Conyers. But he should have the guts and honesty to do his legal duty. Pelosi could not stop him, she could only threaten him. She probably has.
I believe jstevens has hit the nail on the head. Mexico’s non-intervention in family planning, together with its capitalist ruling class controlling the economy in collusion with American multinational corporations, has allowed poverty to explode in the country. The illegal crossers are looking for a viable place to live. Because Mexico is no longer such a place for a vast number of its people.
And if the US allows open borders, one survey suggests 50 million Mexicans will move here. Then, to be fair, we should open borders to all other residents of the planet. The US boat, listing already, would sink. Population planning is at the heart of a viable and compassionate world. All people deserve a decent, peaceful, and happy life with The Four Freedoms of FDR as the cornerstone of international policy. But now, as in Mexico, we are fighting for scraps, and competing against each other. It’s just like Caesar Chavez predicted, when he stood against opening the borders or bracero programs. He knew these things would kill his Union, as corporate masters plan to kill every Union. Because a single person alone has no chance of negotiating with a corporation or any large institution. Thus, an individual has to take what is thrown to them.
Someone said you can always pay half the poor to kill the other half. And that is the way it is going to be if overpopulation is not addressed. Maybe it is that way already. Capitalism too must be modified, as this philosophy distorts wealth and good governance with its emphasis on greed and selfishness (capitalism in a nutshell: buy low and fuck that guy, and sell high and fuck that guy too).
After all, Mexico is a capitalist country, and is a picture of what the US will be if we continue on the Republican corporatist path.
The result of unfettered capitalism (see Milton Friedman) is a growing divide between rich and poor (supply and demand = people as fungible goods = the more people the less each is worth.) I give you NAFTA as case one. It has UTTERLY FAILED in its claims to help Mexicans and Americans, and in its claims to prevent the migration we have now seen, yet because it has enriched the corporate class, few politicians tell the truth and say it should be chucked overboard with all the other Friedman neofascist-economic junk. And the betrayal of the people by Bill Clinton, following the marching orders of the right-wing DLC moles, can not be forgotten. Hillary Clinton should reject NAFTA and its ilk or be rejected.
So a compassionate response to the illegal crossers should be to understand the problem, and come up with solutions with Mexico that involve family planning, green cards for those already here since the Republican government failed and let them in (on purpose), direct aid to Mexico in the billions, the elimination of NAFTA, and leaning on Mexico to turn to govenment employment of its millions of out-of-work. After all, if Mexico had ten million gardeners gardening the nation, it would look like paradise. There is much to do in Mexico, but not if the ruling class keeps all the resources. Just like here.
dcbeltway:
I agree, it would be a long list indeed, but I’ve gotta agree with KEM on this one: Conyers is a jackass for abrogating his duty. Tancredo is just a jackass for being such a blowhard dunghead. And while I’d have wished Campos had used the term “congressperson” to recognize that Pelosi and Clinton were at least in the running, Conyers has done (or failed to do) much more in the quest to become the worst of the worst.
The fear mongering has worked well for Bush for the last 7 years, so why not? That’s one of the standard Republican treats these days. All the ‘fringe lunatics’ are terrified some Islamic terrorist is going to jump out of the shadows to grab them carry them in the night to do their evil deeds against this country. I think all fringe lunatics have the same set of fear genes in their bodies. They all need an arsenal of guns to protect themselves from the outside world too. Most of them are ready to fight a war all by themselves. But, if you stop to think about it. In essence they are saying that George W Bush has done literally nothing to protect the US from another terrorist attack. The borders are still wide open and any Islamic terrorist on the planet can walk across any day of the week. So, they are essentially saying that Republican’s have done a terrible job protecting this country from foreign invaders. Something most of us dumb liberals have known for 7 years now. Bush is all mouth and no action to back up his words! So really they are only telling on themselves with ads like this one! The public needs to educate itself to tune out ads like this one. Use your common sense when you go to the polls instead of relying on 10 second sound bite designed to steal your vote! It hasn’t been number 1# priority for the Republican’s to secure our borders. In fact protecting this country has been at the bottom of their list! It’s more important to invade harmless country’s who are no threat to us. To build nations on foreign soil and screw the US! We can learn to take care of ourselves as far as these nuts are concerned.
jstevens,
Your argument makes so much sense, it’s the first time I hear someone speak about immigration law enforcement without a racist tone in between lines.
With this said I totally believe that population must be controlled, but I also believe that right now it is possible to improve the living conditions of the billions that live in extreme poverty, if the money used for campaigns, war, weapons, etc was instead directed to relief and build sustainable communities.
And also if those of us in the affluent countries consumed with a conscience.
Anyway, good posting.
FV Horn,
Just one thing, birth control access is FREE in Mexico, the government sponsors it and it is available even in rural communities. On the rest you are totally right.
Oh and by the way, Mexico does look like a paradise (well, most of the country is really beautiful, and does not need much gardening because of the great climate, everything grows there)
It’s the Islamo-fascist gay abortionists that I’m worried about …
Sounds like we should see about attacking Mexico, is sounds like a great place. It will solve the illegal problems. We just take it and make it our 51 thru 60th states, all of the Mexicans are instant Americans. Then our border is Panama, hell keep going and take that back too. We built the canal. ___ They do have oil don’t they?
“There are schools of thought in research and journalism that believe that objectivity is impossible.”
Really Paul? I never would have thought….
“It wasn’t objective, but it wasn’t shoddy journalism either.”
I never said it was shoddy journalism now did I? It’s nice that we can agree on one thing. I tend to prefer objective journalism…or at least journalists that put some effort into it.
“Second, please re-read the passage. And read between the lines.”
Thanks Paul but I think I got it the first time. No amount of spinning is going to remove the fact that you are irresponsible with the term ‘racist’. The trouble with throwing around a word like that is that eventually the term starts to lose it’s true meaning.
Like many on the left, ‘racist’ is a handy political epithet for almost any one you disagree with so long as you can allude to differences in the color of people’s skin. It’s all about racism isn’t it Paul?
“And, all those brown people look alike. Mexicans look like “Muslims” (read: Arabs)? And Arabs ‘know’ that they look like Mexicans (or know that Americans think they do) and use that as a means to sneak into the country. (Wouldn’t it be easier to say you’re Saudi?)”
Where in Tancredo’s message does he actually state that Mexicans look like Arabs because they both have brown skin? It is you that have stated this and it is you that believes it. Tancredo is warning us about the connection between Mexican drug cartels and their would be customers, Islamic Terrorists.
Have a look at this recently uncovered plot in Arizona.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071126/NATION/111260034/1001
Race doesn’t have anything to do with it. But I guess if you’re the type of person obsessed with skin color it might be different.
Thanks,
Ahab
At least Tom is an American first, as opposed to an Israeli firster, like the other Tom from California.
After that, I guess it’s a tossup as to who is the biggest racist.