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The Polarization Card
In his 1969 book, political analyst Kevin Phillips envisioned Richard Nixon's Southern strategy becoming an "Emerging Republican Majority.'' A New York Times review said, "Full racial polarization is an essential ingredient of Phillips' political pragmatism. He wants to seek a black Democratic party, particularly in the South, because this will drive into the Republican party precisely the kind of anti-Negro whites who will help constitute the emerging majority.''
While a distressing amount of what Phillips foretold came to pass for many years, the poison of polarization finally faded enough to see the election of Barack Obama. Today the Republicans are the shrinking minority, who, with no strategy to improve the country, have only the polarization card to play.
The most noteworthy evidence of late is, of course, the "You lie!'' from South Carolina's Joe Wilson as Obama delivered his national address to Congress on health care. It was a double-barreled blast. One was a shout out for white Americans who somewhere in their psyche cannot respect a black president. The other, since it came as Obama said undocumented people would not be covered under his health care proposals, was a political bullet aimed at immigrants south of our borders, who mostly happen to be brown.
Having no strategy always compounds the mistakes. Minutes after Wilson forever became part of joint session lore and Obama closed with Senator Ted Kennedy's appeal to the better part of our historical character, the Republicans trotted out Representative Charles Boustany of Louisiana to deliver their party response. They did so thinking that Boustany, a heart surgeon, would lend the gravitas against "government-run'' health insurance to make Obama's proposals seem all the more grave.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called Boustany the "perfect guy to give our response.'' You do not have to wonder why, when Louisiana was one of the most polarized states in the presidential election. Eighty-four percent of white voters voted for Republican John McCain, despite the disastrous economy and two wars handed them by McCain's standard-bearer, President Bush. Boustany has also been one of those "birthers,'' floating with his scalpel in right-wing wacko space, harping that Obama is not an American citizen. Boustany has said, "I think there are questions. We'll have to see.''
Even without race as an issue, Boustany was as imperfect a choice the Republicans could have made to demonstrate they know how to fix health care. The United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association, and the Partnership for Prevention ranked Louisiana dead last in 2008 among the 50 states for the overall health of its people, hugely because of its high percentages of people without health insurance, preventable hospitalization, infant mortality, cancer deaths, cardiovascular deaths, and overall premature deaths. The Trust for America's Health had similar findings in its 2008 rankings. The infant mortality rate in Louisiana, according to the United Health Foundation report, is more than triple that of Slovenia and the Czech Republic.
A week before that, Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer threw out the red meat of Red Scares to the talk shows by saying that Obama's planned back-to-school address would spread "socialist ideology'' to schoolchildren. This is the same state where Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin worked up the crowd into such a lather about Obama that a supporter shouted "Kill him.'' Palin said about Obama, "I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America.''
The danger in this is obvious. It is one thing to disagree with the president. It is another to disrespect the office and delegitimize his citizenship. America still has too many gun-toting crazies for the Republicans to yell "You lie!'' in a crowded theater. Despite all of the actual falsehoods that got us into Iraq and cost us thousands of lives of American soldiers, President Bush did not endure in his entire eight years what Obama is undergoing in his first eight months. Too many Republicans are still trying to drive anti-Negro whites into the fold. The question is whether America can fold this chapter of politics for good.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
JILL: Thought-provoking post. And the details on Obama in London... makes one wonder if the age of kings ever died in America? All the $ lost on bells and whistles while so many sleep hungry under bridges. Brings to mind the Church of the Middle Ages, its art decked in 18-k gold, while the poor were left outside to beg for crumbs. I really believe a force of universal sentience keeps track, and those who put all this pagentry before decency will eventually come to face what such misplaced values feel like. It's a tragedy in slow motion that so much is wasted on what's so unnecessary, while what's needed to alleviate hunger and suffering is bypassed by the parade of the privileged.
"...pageantry before decency..."
Very well put.
Sioux Rose
SIR NIGEL: Thank you for the compliment.
"America is still the sole superpower and the president must have the ability to handle any crisis, anywhere, any time."
If that isn't Bush admin hubris, I don't know what is.
Speaking of race, in today's article on Alternet, I pointed out that race is not the issue but that class is and it turned out to be a war. Check it out:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/142630
Pfiffle.
Racism is alive and prosperous, if one cannot call such a thing "well."
The analysis here misses the dynamic between the parties, though. 0 & Pelosi & Co. have worn through the great goodwill that 8 years of Republican abuse had granted them.
0 has worn through most of the goodwill that 400-some years of racism has naturally granted him as a person partially of African descent.
The Dems came in on reform and have failed to provide it, approach it, or attempt it. They have failed even to make a good show in failure.
They lack all the usual excuses: they have a president, a majority in Congress, 60 senators.
By all the standard Democratic party-line arguments, this should be a time of great reform. We should see pullouts from Iraq, Adfghanistan, and most US bases abroad. We should see money to green jobs and to education. And we should see single payer national universal health care.
This is why people vote Democrat. Sadly, all this is purest fantasy.
Politicians betray constituencies regularly, but I cannot think of a single administration that has betrayed its constituency at once so drastically and so obviously.
They rule by confusion. What appears to be progressive can in fact be regressive. The majority of poor people in the United States happen to be "white." But they must all be slackers, of course. And we can accuse them of racism as we pit them against poor Blacks.
Jill, it is interesting to see the quote that you got from a White House official quoted in the Guardian saying that "America is still the sole superpower and the president must have the ability to handle any crisis, anywhere, anytime."
So, this official is calling the "sole superpower" the government that could not win a war in Afghanistan after eight years and counting? And that other war too? So Obama is going to "handle" these crises successfully? That remains to be seen in a progressive milieu. Not criticising your post.
Derrick Z. Jackson just had to fill up his column, so he conveniently used another race story as if we didn't know. The fact is, Obama is a liar and a shill for the status quo; his race and the "race story" is just a convenient distraction from the disasterous job he's doing.
You would think that if the Dems wanted to stay in power that they would have done something to curb the power of the "Right Wing Echo Chamber". Without Fox News et al, there would be no "astro-turf" populism (which is getting close to the Nazi Brown Shirts). 20 years ago poeple like Glenn Beck wouldn't have had a job in the MSM. Lies did not used to be protected speech. But since the Dems aren't doing anything about the Right Wing Echo Chamber, should we conclude that they and the Republicans are really on the same team?
It doesn't matter what you do or do not do in the black-white game.
The US is finished, right along with its half-white president.
We Native Americans will soon try to put Turtle Island back together again.
What hasn't really been picked up on is the fact the the R-Nuts regularly use the 'you lie' assumption to support their hollow opposition.
Example: Dick 'FreedomWorks' Armey said on "The News Hour" that he would support a 'public option' if it were voluntary, but he BELIEVED that 'the government' was LYING to hide the real agenda - forced, choice-less, really terrible health care for all.
There's tons of other examples with the same basic theme - when facts are presented, or not yet available, simply claim the other is lying and, instead of proving it, turn it around and demand the other prove he isn't.
From "Karl Rove Hate Politics For Dummies," Chapter 9, "War Hero Kerry Is A Pussy and Traitor."
And all these years, I thought the progressives would shut down the chapter on race and get back to class. The issue is not race at all. The issue is about class and whose side you're on, the people's or the corporations'. Today, in a similar article on Alternet, I discussed this. Check out my posts and the huge debates that followed:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/142630
The teabaggers are not composed of the poorest Americans - African Americans and Latinos, who still make up the majority of Americans living in poverty - they are poor and middle class white people who don't like black people - plain and simple. I agree that class is something we often overlook, but why you would want to ignore the racial overtones of this whole debate is beyond me.
t. I'm not convinced that all the tea baggers "don't like black people". I suspect that SOME are racists, for sure, but I'd suggest that a majority of them are just afraid of big government and view the Democratic party as a pre-socialist party, or worse pre-communist party.
Follow the money. Corporations are trying to polarize society, but whatever means necessary, in order to gain more and more control. Having our first mixed race president provides one avenue for this, but most of the sheeple out there are following what they 'believe' to be a "conservative agenda to limit the size of government". What these people don't stop to realize, is that with corporations in charge of 'social services' the profit motive will drive costs UP, not down. The government can be effective in certain areas even with all it's waste. A 'wasteful' person can be reformed, I don't know about the greedy person.
the far right fringe element of the republican party are naysaying saboteurs. the are the ultimate defeatists. they have no plan at all. their only chart is the old chart of [stay the course ].
I see that the Republican Party is still moving the negros to the back of the Titanic.