The main problem with the Republican Party, as I see it, is it
doesn’t have enough actual Republicans in it. The party is infested
by reactionaries and xenophobes and truly ignorant, hateful
individuals whose rhetoric colors the entire party as fascist. If
more people in the Republican Party were willing to stand up and
denounce the hate speech the GOP could rebound as a reasonable
alternative to Democrat liberalism.
Ignorance
As A Political Strategy
As with most Aaron Sorkin productions, HBO’s The Newsroom is
likely smarter than its audience. Unlike his network cult favorite,
The West Wing, The Newsroom doesn’t need to land 20 million
viewers in order to stay on the air; a million or three will do
nicely. Even so, Sorkin (and others) should be embarrassed to put
out nine episodes and call that a “season.” This clip, from The
Newsroom’s first season, has Jeff Daniel’s cable news anchor
Will McAvoy brand the Tea Party as “The American Taliban,” as he
goes on to explain that the extreme right actually are not
Republicans at all.
These men and women rarely speak to Black America because they know
we’re not listening. We are not listening because theirs is
demonstrably the party of intolerance and hate; so much so that,
increasingly, mainstream Republicans are embarrassed by their own
lunatic fringe, many of them becoming registered independents. This
is a problem because, as the sane people are either cowed into
submission or pushed out of the Republican Party, there are
increasingly fewer people willing to stand up to the Tea Party
crowd. Perfectly rational, well-educated political figures now
routinely embarrass themselves trying to spin lunatic fringe
rhetoric like the hysteria over Jade Helm 15, a presumed U.S.
military occupation of Texas. Of Texas. Rather than calling
this notion insane, we’ve got GOP candidates getting whiplash trying
to spin their responses in a way that will least offend the
mouth-breathing lunatics who believe such a thing.
And that, as I see it, is the real problem—not just for the GOP but
for America. America needs at least two parties; at least two
rational governing philosophies. We haven’t had that in a long time.
We’ve had the Obama Administration and people who believe we’re
planning to invade Texas. I believe the president had profited
immensely by not having had to run against a credible rival in two
elections. John
McCain destroyed his own brand by pandering to the far right and
then by naming
Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Mitt Romney was
simply a liar; so desperate to win at any cost that he literally
took whatever position that would appease whatever group he was
speaking to at the time, changing positions often in the same day.
How could I possibly vote for Romney? I had absolutely no idea
whatsoever what the man stood for.
So, you’d think the GOP would have figured it out by now. Jeb Bush
seemed to throw down the gauntlet by declaring he would not pander
to the right, even if it cost him the nomination. But he’s stacking
so much cheese in his war chest that he’s afraid to actually
announce—which would severely curtail his fundraising activities.
Ironically, Romney now polls higher than any of the GOP field. If
Romney would stand up and give a mea culpa for past sins, and run
*as* Mitt Romney (as opposed to whoever the heck that was in 2012),
he’d likely give Hillary a run for her money.
But I honestly don’t think Hillary could lose unless she set fire to
a flag or bitch-slapped the Pope. Pay absolutely no attention to all
the partisan whore mongering going on: women will come out in
overwhelming numbers for Clinton. I suspect virtually every female
voter will either vote for Hillary or want to vote for Hillary. Not
because Clinton would make such a good president, but because it is
simply time. Actually, it’s way, way past time. I don’t know if
America needs Hillary Clinton, but I believe America needs this
moment: the first female U.S. president—and Clinton is the only
person qualified to stand in this shadow of history.
The Newsroom: Telling it like it is.
The Solution: More Black Republicans
So, what’s the GOP to do? Party Chairman Reince Priebus laid out a
sound strategy after their 2012 presidential loss. Whatever happened
to that? Right-wing extremists continue to freely use intolerant dog
whistles to flatly blame blacks and other minorities for the
nation’s woes while baldly employing racism as a political weapon to
further divide the nation, and supposedly “mainstream” GOP
candidates pander to these people and refuse to call them on their
behavior. As a result, many blacks see the GOP as the party of hate,
while missing the point that these men and women aren’t really
Republicans. In fact, they despise Republicans just as they despise
government in general and factually despise the American people.
They are not politicians so much as zealots and ideologues.
Ironically, this embarrassment of pandering to ignorance and hatred
could be stopped if there were more black Republicans; if more
people in the Republican Party were willing to stand up and denounce
the hate speech—including Dr. Ben Carson routinely assignating
himself with the most ridiculous and putrid anti-Obama hate speech
(including Nazi references)—the GOP could rebound as a reasonable
alternative to Democrat liberalism. The main problem with the
Republican Party, as I see it, is it doesn’t have enough actual
Republicans in it. The party is infested by reactionaries and
xenophobes and truly ignorant, hateful individuals whose rhetoric
colors the entire party as fascist. I imagine many if not most Black
Americans have no idea what Republican values are; all they can hear
is the hate. For that matter, most of us couldn’t articulate what
Democratic values are; we just know the Republicans hate us and
refuse to even try to engage us in any meaningful way. That doesn’t
mean we’re all democrats, even if the overwhelming majority of us
will be voting for Democratic candidates. We are not necessarily
voting *for* someone was we are repudiating the hatred being shown
us by a national institution.
I don’t see the GOP increasing their numbers because I don’t see the
GOP finding the will to stand against the Koch Brothers (who fund
virtually all of the lunatic fringe and who, de facto, own the
Republican party) or the Statue of Liberty Foam Hat crowd shouting
“Niger Nigger!” under their breath. As an American institution, the
GOP is now a national embarrassment if not a national disgrace,
mainly because of good men and good women who chose to do nothing
rather than stand up and condemn their party’s hate tactics. If even
some small fraction of Black America swung to the Republican Party,
the GOP would be forced to stop its hateful promotion of racism as a
political tool. As of now, however, they know they have nothing to
lose: blacks are a write-off for them, and none of their political
stars will take an ethical stand against them.
The likely end result is that, absent some dirty tricks, the GOP
will continue to lose the White House while continuing to own
Congress because the liberals and the kids are too lazy to show up
for the midterms. This is, of course, a recipe for gridlock, which
is virtually all we’ve had since Obama’s election.
A Ridiculous Choice
I do pray for Mrs. Clinton, not because I’m a Democrat (I’m not) or even a huge fan of the former Secretary of State. I pray for her because, with my eyes wide open and absent any political bias, she is provably best qualified and best equipped to lead. Were Joe Biden in the race, I’d still be hopeful for Secretary Clinton because, despite his superior credentials, I don’t believe Biden can win. Should she become the Democratic nominee, 2016 will become a historic moment. Millions of conservative women will shout out epitaphs and claim to despise her, but I suspect some large percentage of them will nonetheless seize this moment, regardless of ideology; which makes the GOP’s choice to continue to run their sad, hateful playbook all the more pathetic.
Christopher J. Priest
7 June 2015
editor@praisenet.org
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