The Last Race-Baiting Campaign...

[_Jason Bourne]

Bob,

You're in denial. The campaign did overtly trade on racial fear.

BS.

Ok I am done with the political posts for a while. I started a gracious thread here. Got a few responses. But I just am sick of it all.

[_ajax18]

Ok I am done with the political posts for a while. I started a gracious thread here. Got a few responses. But I just am sick of it all.

You haven't even gotten to the best part. Taxmageddon is coming in less than two months. Have you even looked at your taxes yet? No matter how upset you get Jason, it appears that the stock market was more upset than all of us put together.

[_MeDotOrg]

Yet the most irrational among us constitute the power base of the Republican party. A sure path to defeat, sure. But will that cause them to stop being who they are?

Surely the mainstream republicans will at least find the backbone to fight THAT, if it happens again. This time the mainstream republicans were not only tolerant of the race-baiting, but sometimes engaged in in themselves.

If the mainstream Republicans can't do that they are doomed to oblivion. I wonder how they will accomplish the purging of the radical right.
For the last hundred years or so the Republicans have needed the 'uninformed' voters to bolster their votes. Emotional wedge issues (religion, patriotism, racism) are what they have used to convince the 'descamisados' to vote against their own interests.

The monster they created by pandering to that (Tea Party) is now threatening to take over and virtually guarantee no more Presidential victories for the GOP.

I'm wondering if we might see a third party emerge. One made up of 'rational' Republicans and conservative Democrats.

I am a life-long Democrat, but the future of this country is not well-served by the demise of the Republican Party. An increasingly isolated, shrill, self-righteous and calcified GOP will give the Democrats more power, but in the long run it will not give the United States better government.

If a party becomes dominant for too long (like PRI in Mexico) they tend to get complacent, and corruption soon follows. On Tuesday the American people delivered a message not to the Republican's liking. But how will than message be deciphered? A lot of the Republican response so far has been a mixture of self-pity and denial.

What Bill O'Reilly called 'traditional' America and Sarah Palin used to call the 'real' America could be construed as code for White America, but the subtext goes deeper than that. It is a mental snapshot picture they have taken of our history which represents the way things should be. The problem is that reality has changed, but they are still looking at the snapshot and saying that it still represents reality.

It is a picture of America where the evolution of human thought began with the Bible and ended with the Constitution, a reality where we follow in the footsteps of great minds but blaze no new trails of our own, a reality where we have no responsibility or capability for any progress other than technology. It's reflected in the popularity of 'originalism' as a way of defining law with respect to the Constitution, the assumption that all our problems can be found in the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

To many Republicans, the United States is a noun, written in stone. Our country is a noun but it also is a verb. America is always in the act of becoming itself.

The Republicans didn't lose the election because the majority of Americans want a free lunch. They lost because the American people decided that the Democrats had a more realistic and viable plan for governance.

The United States as a nation and Republicans in particular accept evolution less than virtually all Western Countries.

Yet our chances of survival greatly increase with beneficial adaptation.

[_krose]

I don't know. Even mentioning immigration reform and entitlements was labeled racist. Making fun of the president's golf game was said to be racist. Even Tagg Romney's joke about punching was called racist.

I never heard anyone call any of those things racist. Guess I don't listen to the same people you do. I watch MSNBC a lot, and never heard anything like that.

But surely you recognize the racism in Trump's "birther" talk, and in Sununu's comment about wishing the president would "learn to be American," or when Romney talked about Obama currying favor with "his base" by handing out welfare checks (based on a lie).

[_moksha]

If the mainstream Republicans can't do that they are doomed to oblivion. I wonder how they will accomplish the purging of the radical right.

1. Interrupt the AM radio broadcasts with ads telling them its time to feed their cats.

2. Coat the aluminum foil with some sedative solution and while they are unconscious, put free tickets to Circus-Circus in their wingtips. What goes to Vegas stays in Vegas.

3. Put iron filings into denture cream, together with an epoxy bonding agent and then turn on the electro-magnet.

4. Schedule a bingo marathon for primary elections day.

[Tator]

I don't know. Even mentioning immigration reform and entitlements was labeled racist. Making fun of the president's golf game was said to be racist. Even Tagg Romney's joke about punching was called racist.

I'd hate to think what would have happened had the campaign overtly traded on racial fear.

Yep.

Sorry beastie but I think the idea that this was a race baiting campaign is based on disingenuous spins like, well, you are doing now. Challenge the president, you are a racist.

Ok, I am really sick of this s***. Your guy one. Why not just celebrate.

A for the republican party, yes it needs changing. Time will tell. But race baiting? Hardly.

Yeah, I'm sick of the crap, too. I"m sick of words being put into my mouth. I never said all republicans are racist, as Bob insinuated when he said I was painting all of you with the same brush, and I never said if you challenge the president you're a racist which you seem to accuse me of.

But go ahead and pretend that's what I said if you'd like. And go ahead and pretend there were no dog whistles and racist code words in this campaign. And if most republicans join with you in this game of make-beleve, you really aren't going to be able to fix what you can't even see.

Birtherism was "birthed" in racism. Yet instead of standing up to it like McCain did, Romney used the MAIN (idiotic) birther as a surrogate.

But hey, no, you're right. It's all in my imagination, and I'm just calling all republicans racists.

[_beastie]

I don't know. Even mentioning immigration reform and entitlements was labeled racist. Making fun of the president's golf game was said to be racist. Even Tagg Romney's joke about punching was called racist.

I never heard anyone call any of those things racist. Guess I don't listen to the same people you do. I watch MSNBC a lot, and never heard anything like that.

But surely you recognize the racism in Trump's "birther" talk, and in Sununu's comment about wishing the president would "learn to be American," or when Romney talked about Obama currying favor with "his base" by handing out welfare checks (based on a lie).

Don't forget my personal favorite, Santorum's comment about "bla" people.

[_Jason Bourne]

Yeah, I'm sick of the s***, too. I"m sick of words being put into my mouth. I never said all republicans are racist, as Bob insinuated when he said I was painting all of you with the same brush, and I never said if you challenge the president you're a racist which you seem to accuse me of.

But go ahead and pretend that's what I said if you'd like. And go ahead and pretend there were no dog whistles and racist code words in this campaign. And if most republicans join with you in this game of make-beleve, you really aren't going to be able to fix what you can't even see.

Birtherism was "birthed" in racism. Yet instead of standing up to it like McCain did, Romney used the MAIN (idiotic) birther as a surrogate.

But hey, no, you're right. It's all in my imagination, and I'm just calling all republicans racists.

I never said you painted all republicans as race baiting. Nor do I say YOU said all criticism of Obama was racist though many on the left do. The campaign Romney ran I believe was free of racism. Saying the president is handing out welfare checks is racism? I don't think so. That is what the left spins into it. People from all races receive welfare checks. If that is racist then then Obama campaign's successful painting of Romney as a rich out of touch white guy that only cares about other rich white guys was racist too. Racism works both ways beastie.

Anyway there is much about the republican party I am unhappy with. Maybe I really am a democrat now like one of my partners thinks. If so I am a blue dog type. Still both parties have extreme positions that do not appeal to me. We need a party for moderates.

[_beastie]

I never said you painted all republicans as race baiting. Nor do I say YOU said all criticism of Obama was racist though many on the left do. The campaign Romney ran I believe was free of racism. Saying the president is handing out welfare checks is racism? I don't think so. That is what the left spins into it. People from all races receive welfare checks. If that is racist then then Obama campaign's successful painting of Romney as a rich out of touch white guy that only cares about other rich white guys was racist too. Racism works both ways beastie.

Anyway there is much about the republican party I am unhappy with. Maybe I really am a democrat now like one of my partners thinks. If so I am a blue dog type. Still both parties have extreme positions that do not appeal to me. We need a party for moderates.

Jason,

Sorry for being testy this morning, but if you read your direct reply to me, perhaps you'll see why I concluded that you were accusing me of saying all repubolicans are racists.

We will have to agree to disagree on whether or not the Romney campaign was free of racism. There were three high-profile Romney surrogates who were making comments I think were clear dog whistles: Trump, Gingrich, Sununu. Maybe I can better illustrate my point by explaining what I mean by "dog whistles" in particular. I'm not trying to be condescending by sharing the definition, but I think it highlights the difficulty we're having.

Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase is only ever used as a pejorative, because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog-whistle messages are frequently themselves distasteful, for example by empathizing with racist attitudes. It is an analogy to dog whistles, which are built in such a way that their high-frequency whistle is heard by dogs, but is inaudible to humans.

The term can be distinguished from "code words" used by hospital staff or other specialist workers, in that dog-whistling is specific to the political realm, and the messaging referred to as the dog-whistle has an understandable meaning for a general audience, rather than being incomprehensible.

(examples)

Commonly-cited examples of dog-whistle politics include civil rights-era use of the phrase "forced busing," used to enable a person to imply opposition to racial integration without them needing to say so explicitly; the state of Georgia's adoption, in 1956, of a flag visually similar to the Confederate battle flag, itself understood by many to be a dog-whistle for racism; the phrase "Southern strategy," used by the Republican Party in the 1960s to describe plans to gain influence in the South by appealing to people's racism; Ronald Reagan, on the campaign trail in 1980, saying in Mississippi "I believe in states' rights" (a sentence the New Statesman later described as "perhaps the archetypal dog-whistle statement"), described as implying Reagan believed that states should be allowed, if they want, to retain racial segregation; Reagan's use of the term "welfare queens," said to be designed to rouse racial resentment among white working-class voters against minorities; a 2008 TV ad for Republican presidential candidate John McCain called "The One," which observers said dog-whistled to evangelical Christians who believed Obama might be the Antichrist; a Tea Party spokeswoman saying President Obama "doesn't love America like we do," thought to be an allusion to Obama's race and to the birth certificate controversy, and Republicans frequently emphasizing Obama's middle name for the same reason; an aide to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney saying Romney would be a better president than Obama because Romney understood the "shared Anglo-Saxon heritage" of the United States and the United Kingdom; former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, and others, calling Obama "the food stamps president" said to be a way of exploiting stereotypes among racially resentful white voters who see food stamps as unearned giveaways to minorities; Barack Obama referring to Mitt Romney in campaign ads as "not one of us," the implication being that Romney's Mormon faith makes him different than most Americans.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

The whole point of dog-whistles is to send a message to CERTAIN people, while allowing others to not "hear" the message. If you're not the targeted audience, or have not had a great deal of exposure to the target audience, the words may sound innocuous, and the reaction of others seem to be an unjustified over-reaction.

And if were just a one-off, I could accept that maybe it was just a poor choice of words and not meant to be a dog-whistle. For example, I'm not convinced that Obama was referring to Romney's religion in the above example. I always thought he was referring to his wealth. But maybe I'm wrong. If he, or his surrogates, had used other similar dog-whistles, I'd be more inclined to believe it was a deliberate dog-whistle.

But for three of Romney's most high-profile supporters to be making statements that really sound like dog-whistles, it's difficult for me to believe that's not exactly what they were.

Do you disagree that Romney was tryinng to win on the power of the white vote? He had to write off Hispanics because of veering so far to the right on immigration, and he had written off blacks because Obama is black. So he had to gin up the white vote. Get them excited about voting for him, where they seemed pretty lackluster before. And the sad reality of life is that there are still areas in the country where racism is very embedded.

So you can point me to some examples that demonstrate how MANY on the left say all criticism of Obama is racist? I watch msnbc quite a bit and read huffpo quite a bit. They're pretty much liberal bastions, but I don't recall seeing this phenomenon. But perhaps it is there and my bias has blinded me to it, so examples would help.

[_beastie]

Actually, I retract my apology for being testy this morning. I just read your post where you compared my statements on this thread to droopy's idiotic statements.

You know, you can disagree with me on whether or not Romney ran a race-baiting campaign, but to act like this accusation is the equivalent of some wild-eyed conspiracy theory is just insulting and, frankly, ridiculous.