A Simple Fix If Republicans Don’t Want to be Called Racist

GOP candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith who defends her statement she's attend a public lynching.

Some of my Republican friends - two spring immediately to mind - whine that they don't want to be called or considered to be racists, yet through the actions they silently condone  and some of the racially offense materials they mindlessly post on social media they all but prove their critics' point.  It's quite simple, as long as these Republicans continue to vote for Trump and other GOP candidates who use racism to instill fear and racial animosity, they deserve to be labeled for what they share complicity. And sadly, it's a short step from racism to antisemitism and homophobia.  Former Republican Jennifer Rubin has an on point column in the Washington Post that looks at the racism Republicans continue to support through their votes.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), facing a runoff race against Democratic former congressman Mike Espy, has had multiple embarrassing videos released recently. In one leaked video, she said that if someone “invited me to a public hanging I’d be in the front row.” In another, she declared that “there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So I think that’s a great idea.”

CNN conservative commentator Amanda Carpenter responded to the first comment this way: “There’s no explanation for it. It’s a racist thing to say. I’m not from the South, but I’m pretty sure joking around about going to a public lynching is not something people say.” She continued, “What she needs to do is tour the new lynching museum that’s down South where they show the horrific things that people went through in her backyard.”

When a former Trump campaign adviser tried defending Hyde-Smith by claiming this was all part of “the outrage culture,” Carpenter countered, “It’s wrong when someone says something so provocative that you blame the people who are offended.” She bluntly declared, “If Republicans want to quit being accused of being racist, they have to stop saying racist things.”

That kind of straight talk and zero tolerance for racism is exceedingly rare among GOP elected officials, candidates and their helpmates in the right-wing media. The usual response is that he or she didn’t mean it, or “What about … ?”

The explanation for why Republicans talk this way and other Republicans don’t object should be obvious: In the Trump era, where white grievance is the prime motivator for turning out the base and resentment of “elites” is what binds voters to President Trump, GOP politicians are loath to repudiate racist rhetoric. Instead they try to harness not only the winks, nods and overt statements of solidarity with the alt-right (including fondness for Confederate statues and emblems) but also the reaction this generates from those whom their base scorns — the media, urban elites and civil rights groups.

Trump spent the last weeks of the campaign hysterically warning about a non-emergency, the progress of a caravan of refugees a thousand miles from our border. Once the election was over, the matter was dropped. Well, to crib from Carpenter, if Republicans want to quit being accused of being “anti-immigrant,” they have to stop saying anti-immigrant things (e.g. calling them “animals,” talking about an infestation, making up a crime wave purportedly caused by immigrants).

Indeed, this formulation should serve as a guidepost for Republicans:

If Republicans want to quit being accused of science denial, they have to stop denying science.

If Republicans want to quit being accused of hypocrisy, they have to stop being hypocrites about the debt (bad only for Democrats), executive power (bad only for Democrats) and corporate cronyism (bad only for Democrats).

If Republicans want to quit being accused of misogyny, they have to stop suggesting that women invent allegations of sexual assault, don’t want to work hard enough to be on the Judiciary Committee and aren’t intelligent. 

If Republicans want to quit being accused of being doormats for dictators, they have to stop defending Trump when he refuses to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, to name just a few.

In short, Republicans bring criticism on themselves when they talk and act in ways that are factually wrong and morally indefensible. It’s a big reason that voters who care about facts and public morality won’t vote for them.

Growing up, my mother always lectured us kids that we would be labeled by the company that we kept and that, therefore, choosing one's friends and the causes one supported were important .  Nowadays, Republicans tolerate, if not openly support, racist and immoral individuals - Trump being the prime example.  Indeed, I increasingly believe that nowadays it is impossible for a decent and truly moral person to vote Republican. 

The Booming White Grievance Industry

In the lead up to the 2014 mid-term elections the GOP base is showing its ugly face in the wake of justifiable unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and the usual suspects are eagerly fanning the flames of white grievance among those who my New Orleans belle grandmother would have derisively labeled as "white trash."  Everyone from Fox News to the KKK and numerous GOP candidates and elected officials are having a near orgasm whipping up the frenzy of hate and resentment.  A piece in Salon looks at the ugly phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

Not surprisingly, a thriving franchise of the nation’s booming white grievance industry has opened up in Ferguson, Missouri, over the last week.  It’s worth examining closely. As usual, it consists of two parts lies, one part paranoia, but at its heart it’s a big grift.

The weekend featured multiple protests supporting Darren Wilson, the missing Ferguson police officer who shot an unarmed Mike Brown on Aug. 9. His superiors apparently withheld Wilson’s name long enough for him to delete all social media accounts and skip town, but his supporters are declaring Wilson, not Brown, the victim here. A GoFundMe site raising funds for Wilson’s defense – though he’s not been charged with anything – garnered not only $250,000 in donations, but so many ugly racist rants GoFundMe administrators had to disable comments for the site. (They’ll have no trouble taking a cut of the racists’ money, of course.) Wilson’s supporters say they’ve raised $374,000 online and at local events, “to support his family,” one woman told MSNBC.

Why, besides racism, are Wilson’s supporters so convinced of his innocence? Well, any good grift will involve a hoax or two, to gin up the sense of outrage. First there was “Josie,” a purported friend of Wilson’s who called in to a radio show helmed by gun-loving wingnut Dana Loesch to tell Wilson’s side of the story. “Josie” insisted that Brown attacked Wilson, grabbed his gun, and the terrified cop shot only in self-defense. The problem? The details were almost identical to those shared on a fake Facebook page set up to look like Wilson’s own. But before the tale could be debunked, not only Fox but CNN had reported on “Josie’s” tale with some credulity.

Then we saw right-wing blogger Jim Hoft, named “the dumbest man on the Internet” by Media Matters, peddling a phony X-ray or CT scan purporting to show that Wilson suffered a fractured eye socket scuffling with Brown. Unfortunately, a little sleuthing revealed the image in question came from a facility at the University of Iowa and had nothing to do with the Ferguson case. Oops. Of course Fox ran with the story, but ABC News also reported that Wilson had suffered a “serious facial injury,” claiming its own local source.

Of course Ferguson’s white grievance industry is getting major help from Fox News, the grievance industry’s biggest grifters. . . . .  Fox has peddled every allegation of wrongdoing by Mike Brown from the beginning of the story.

It’s worth noting the way the phony information and paranoia peddled by well-known, oft-discredited right-wing media activists like Hoft and Loesch makes its way into the mainstream media ecosphere, again and again.

All that media support fanned the flames of white paranoia that manifested in the pro-Wilson activities back in Ferguson and St. Louis. You could see the trademark combination of innocence, fear and near-hysteria that powers the white grievance industry.  . . . most Wilson supporters refused to tell journalists their names, claiming they fear retribution at the hands of Brown’s defenders.

That paranoia about retribution is shared by the backers of Wilson’s GoFundMe project. It’s organized by Shield of Hope, a “charitable organization” that lists Ferguson Police Department public relations officer Timothy Zoll and Missouri state Rep. Jeffrey Roorda as directors. Roorda became nationally known for a 2009 bill that tried to keep the name of police officers involved in shootings private, because “releasing a name could put someone in grave jeopardy,” he explained.

The phenomenon - and those who are making money from it - is disgusting.  Although I've seen no corroborating statistics so far, somehow I suspect that many of these aggressive whites count themselves as "godly Christians" and pat themselves on the back each Sunday as the sit in pews in front of pulpits dispensing hate and fear.