Idiots In America

according to zizka, a frequent commenter on calpundit's posts, there are a shitload of brownshirt moronic fucks in this country:

[...] a couple years back 40% of Alabamans voted to keep interracial marriage illegal. (That's a pretty hard figure based on an actual election ; the national number is 20% in favor of making interracial marriage illegal, based on polling).

If those 40% are not racists, the word has no meaning. Are they Republicans, Democrats, or a mix?

Well, there's some evidence that they're Republicans. When the Civil Rights Act passed in the 60's, gradually the white South became solidly Republican. I don't think it's because they developed an admiration for Abraham Lincoln; as it happens, even today Southern Republicans hate Lincoln. (Evidence from the CCC, and also from Richmond Virginia, where many mainstream Republicans strongly resisted an attempt to erect a statue of Lincoln -- for those of you just arrived from Mars, Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party, more or less).

[...]

A healthy chunk of the core Republican constituency is racist. Deal with it.

Now Sharpton. He's made race-baiting anti-Semitic statements, one of which led to riots in which people were killed. On the other hand, he holds no political office and high office in the party. (Sharpton is black and anti-Semitic, but most blacks are not anti-Semitic; they vote for Democrats for other reasons - for example, because of the CCC Republicans. And as for Farrakhan, he's a Republican as often as not)

OK, how about the elder Gore and WV Sen Byrd. Weren't they racists once? Yeah, but they changed. That's how they could stay Democrats. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond became Republicans.

The "Democrats are the real racists" or "Democrats are just as racist as Republicans" arguments are too phony to take seriously, though of course, like many dishonest arguments, they can "work".

this relates to one of my earlier posts about the rhetorical strategies of the hard right. zizka's comment highlights one of their favorite tactics: misdirection. they have been enormously successful on capitalizing on the latent racism that permeates our culture while simultaneously covering their tracks. notice how a lot of wingers respond when you point out the specific and clear associations between hard right republican politicians and moronic brownshirt fucks who unfortunately have a lot of influence and money. they rarely respond with a denial of the association. the typical responce is usually, "Look! Over there!" 'over there' is usually a democrat demagogue who holds little power, no elected office, and frankly, is usually of little relevance to the democratic party at large.

al sharpton is one example. i denounce sharpton's anti-semitism. i acknowledge his racism. i do not agree with him, as is with most liberals who have half a brain. as Zizka points out, "[...] the Democratic strategy does not depend on courting the anti-Semitic vote. On the contrary, it depends on courting the Jewish vote as well as the black vote." the republicans, on the other hand, do specifically court the votes of bigots. the fact that the CCC counts among their members and supporters a number of holocaust deniars is also important to note because you will find no small number of links between this group of odious twats and prominent elected republican officials. you will find such illustrious scholarly works as "In Defense Of Racism" on their website.

the thing is that elected officials can't openly voice these views (unless they hold office in the deep south) without quickly losing their elected status. however, they can court the votes of bigots through association with groups like the CCC. you will not find anything on their official webpages about their connections to these groups, but they are indeed working with them and through them. in the future, i will post a list of republican office-holders who work with this and other organized groups of bigots.

footnote: zizka's comment came from the thread for this post at calpundit's blog.