During my years on the Republican City Committee for Virginia Beach, there were never open calls to racism and what can only be described as fascism. True, in retrospect, Richard Nixon had set the outline when he devised the "Southern Strategy" to appeal to southern whites who opposed desegregation, but there was always a veneer to hide the rancor and open hatred not to mention opposition from moderate Republicans. All of this began to change when the evangelical and fundamentalist Christians began their take over of the GOP base. Often lead by Southern Baptist leaders - a denomination founded on the principle of retaining slavery - these insurgents had no qualms about embracing racist attitudes and a white supremacist agenda. The take over is now complete as events in Chralottesville over the weekend. Virginians in particular need to be aware of what the GOP now stands for. GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie made a mealy mouthed condemnation of the violence in Charlottesville, yet he will be courting and making promises to the very far right forces on display on Friday and Saturday. A vote for any Virginia Republican - or national candidate - is a vote for this poisonous agenda. A piece in Esquire makes this point. Here are excerpts:
Back in February, before the prion disease that has afflicted conservative politics for four decades reached its current, virulent stage, and when people still thought that the president* had some sort of pivot left in him, his original Muslim ban sent people into the streets to protest. In Nashville, some protesters were walking through an intersection in the marked crosswalk when a car piled into them, carrying a couple of them down the street until the local police finally flagged it down. This was generally thought to be a bad thing. A Republican state legislator came up with an original solution. Inhumane, and almost incomprehensible in an evolved primate, but unquestionably original, via KDVR:
State Rep. Rep. Matthew Hill has filed a bill that says if a driver hits a protester who is blocking traffic in a public right-of-way, then that driver would be immune to civic liability if the demonstrator is hit and hurt, as long as it wasn't intentional. "If you want to protest, fine, I am for peaceful protesting, not lawless rioters," Hill said. "We don't want anyone to be hurt, but people should not knowingly put themselves in harm's way when you've got moms and dads trying to get their kids to school."
This bizarre public safety policy naturally caught on, because one thing this country does not lack is a universe of state legislators afflicted with the disease. In May, down in the newly insane state of North Carolina, a similar bill passed the state House of Representatives.
Somehow, this made sense to Republican legislators and to the modern conservative mind. (The tactic also was endorsed by prominent conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds, who teaches law at the University of Tennessee.) Essentially, the statutes would create a protected class of vigilante motorists empowered to curtail free assembly with 4,000 pounds of mobile iron. This became an acceptable solution almost exclusively among Republican politicians.
So when anybody, especially the president*, talks about what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, from the Citronella Putsch on Friday night, to the violence on Saturday morning, to the graphic fulfillment of the philosophy behind these lunatic laws on Saturday afternoon, tells you that what happened in Virginia has anything to do with "polarization," or that it is a problem equally shared by Both Sides, that person is trying preemptively to pick history's pockets.
Every Republican who ever spoke to, or was honored by, the Council of Conservative Citizens and/or the League of the South owns this bloodshed.
Every Republican administration that ever went out of its way to hire Pat Buchanan, and every TV executive who ever cut him a check, and every Republican who voted for him in 1992, and everyone who ever has pretended his views differed substantially from the ones in the streets this weekend, owns this bloodshed.
Every Republican president—actually, there's only one—who began a campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to talk about states rights, and who sent his attorney general into court to fight for tax exemptions for segregated academies, owns this bloodshed.
Every Republican politician who followed the late Lee Atwater into the woods in search of poisoned treasure owns this bloodshed.
Every conservative journalist who saw this happening and who encouraged it, or ignored it, or pretended that it wasn't happening, owns this bloodshed.
Last November, we saw the culmination of four decades of the Republican Party trying to have it both ways, profiting from the darkest forces in American culture while maintaining a respectable cosmetic distance. On Saturday, we saw the culmination of the election that produced. At least, I'm praying this is the culmination. But I'm not sure about anything anymore. Every Trump rally came with an implied promise of some kind of violence. Sometimes, the promise was fulfilled. Sometimes it wasn't. But it was the dark energy behind that whole campaign. For all the relentless chin-stroking about the economically anxious and forgotten white working class, and for all the prayerful coverage of Donald Trump's "populist" appeal, there was no question what was driving events on the Republican side. Anyone who was at the Inauguration saw this coming. The address summoned up the desolate, witch-thickened wasteland he'd been handed. He had a memorable phrase for it.
American Carnage.
It came, finally—American Carnage, that is—on the streets and sidewalks of Thomas Jefferson's college town.
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