How Trump Made the Hateful Fringe Mainstream

Over the years as I have traveled overseas it has often been interesting to get a foreign perspective on American politics and politicians.   The comments have run from admiration for Barack Obama more recently to comments that "America deserves better" while in Canada back in the 2008 prior that year's presidential election.  Back in the Reagan years when I traveled extensively as in-house counsel for an oil company, it was a mixed bag.   When not traveling, foreign publications are the next best window into foreign thinking on the madness that is American politics, especially in 2016. A piece in The Economist, a well respected British publication, shows the dismay that many of America's allies and members of the international business community feel towards Donald Trump and his frightening supporters.  Here are article highlights:

FIRST, an apology, or rather a regret: The Economist would prefer not to advertise the rantings of racists and cranks. Unfortunately, and somewhat astonishingly, the Alt-Right—the misleading name for a ragtag but consistently repulsive movement that hitherto has flourished only on the internet—has insinuated itself, unignorably, into American politics. That grim achievement points to the reverse sway now held by the margins, of both ideology and the media, over the mainstream. It also reflects the indiscriminate cynicism of Donald Trump’s campaign.

Much of the Alt-Right’s output will seem indecipherably weird to those unfamiliar with the darker penumbras of popular culture. It has its own iconography and vernacular, derived from message boards, video games and pornography. Its signature insult is “cuckservative”, directed at Republicans supposedly emasculated by liberalism and money.

One of the Alt-Right’s pastimes is to intimidate adversaries with photoshopped pictures of concentration camps; a popular Alt-Right podcast is called “The Daily Shoah”. To their defenders, such outrages are either justified by their shock value or valiantly transgressive pranks. Jokes about ovens, lampshades and gas chambers: what larks!

Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, an extremist website, dismisses these antics as “youthful rebellion”. (Mr Taylor is also involved with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which Dylann Roof cited as an inspiration for his racist massacre in Charleston last year.) But the substance behind the sulphur can seem difficult to pin down. The term Alt-Right, reputedly coined in 2008 by Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute, a bogus think-tank, encompasses views from libertarianism to paleoconservatism . . .

Yet from the quack ideologues to the out-and-proud neo-Nazis, some Alt-Right tenets are clear and constant. It repudiates feminism with misogynistic gusto. It embraces isolationism and protectionism. Above all, it champions white nationalism, or a neo-segregationist “race realism”, giving apocalyptic warning of an impending “white genocide”. Which, of course, is really just old-fashioned white supremacism in skimpy camouflage.

That is why the term Alt (short for “alternative”) Right is misleading. Mr Taylor—whom Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a watchdog, describes as the movement’s “intellectual leader”—says it represents an alternative to “egalitarian orthodoxy and to neutered ‘conservatives’.”

[I]t is the latest iteration in an old, poisonous strain of American thought, albeit with new enemies, such as Muslims, enlisted alongside the old ones. “Fifty years ago these people were burning crosses,” says Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League. . . . Online, they have achieved sufficient density to warrant wider attention. There, too, they and Mr Trump found each other.

The association precedes Mr Trump’s hiring as his campaign manager of Stephen Bannon, former boss of Breitbart News, a reactionary news website that Mr Bannon reportedly described as “the platform for the Alt-Right”, and which has covered the movement favourably. Already Mr Trump had echoed the Alt-Right’s views on Muslims, immigration, trade and, indeed, Vladimir Putin, whom Alt-Righters ludicrously admire for his supposed pursuit of Russia’s national interest. Pressed about these shared prejudices (and tweets), Mr Trump has denied knowing what the Alt-Right is, even that it exists—unable, as usual, to disavow any support, however cretinous, or to apply a moral filter to his alliances or tactics.

Mr Trump’s rise and the Alt-Right were both cultivated by the kamikaze anti-elitism of the Tea Party, rampant conspiracy theories and demographic shifts that disconcert some white Americans.

Unquestionably, however, Mr Trump has bestowed on this excrescence a scarcely dreamed-of prominence. As Hillary Clinton recently lamented, no previous major-party nominee has given America’s paranoid fringe a “national megaphone”. Many on the Alt-Right loved that speech: “it was great,” says Mr Griffin. “She positioned us as the real opposition.” Because of Mr Trump, the Alt-Right thinks it is on the verge of entering American politics as an equal-terms participant. “He is a bulldozer who is destroying our traditional enemy,” says Mr Griffin. Mr Trump may not be Alt-Right himself, but “he doesn’t have to be to advance our cause.”

Suffice it to say than many in America's longest ally other than France, are appalled by Mr. Trump, as should sane, decent Americans.

Today's GOP: America’s Largest Hate Group

Look at any hate group and you will typically find the group claiming to be engaged in a good and positive activity.  The KKK claims to be protecting white civilization and deterring violence by blacks, even though it is the KKK that engages in the violence.  "Christian" hate groups such as Family Research Council and American family Association claim to be protection "Biblical values" and tradition, yet they disseminate lies and untruths incessantly and seek to engender hatred towards gays and others.  Now, the Republican Party has morphed into a hate group that is racist, homophobic and anti-non-Christians.  A piece in Salon looks at the transformation of the GOP into the nation's largest hate group.  Here are excerpts:

It is, however, clear that leading Republicans have engaged in extraordinarily racist and xenophobic rhetoric that incites and legitimates vigilante violence. On Saturday, Trump fans allegedly attacked a Black Lives Matter protester at a Birmingham rally. “Maybe he should have been roughed up,” Trump said.

It’s not that brazen racism is new to the Republican Party. In 1964, Sen. Strom Thurmond — who ran for president on the segregationist Dixiecrat ticket in 1948 — became a Republican in protest of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s passage. That year, he worked hard across the then-solidly-Democratic South to support the Republican candidacy of libertarian and militarist Barry Goldwater, a Civil Rights Act opponent.

In 1968, Richard Nixon ran a television ad stoking fear of black riot and student anti-war protests, unsubtly declaring that freedom from street violence at home was in reality the “first civil right.”

It was in 1990, that Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, as the New York Times recounts, “unveiled a nakedly racial campaign advertisement in which a pair of hands belonging to a white job-seeker crumpled a rejection slip as an announcer explained that the job had been given to an unqualified member of a minority.” And it was in 2002 that incoming Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott strongly suggested that America would have been better had de jure segregation been kept in place.

The Trump candidacy has combined fears over terrorism, crime and a coming white minority into a spectacular fever dream of dangerous refugees and a criminal threat posed by black people and Hispanic immigrants. That danger, in the right-wing view, is abetted by liberals who criticize police so harshly they are afraid to do their jobs, invite menacing foreigners to live amongst us, and restrain our military because of excessive concern for civilian casualties.

Trump, Carson and neo-McCarthyite Ted Cruz make some very conservative people seem centrist by comparison. These so-called moderate conservatives, after all, claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan, a one-time right-wing challenger to the Republican establishment. Today, mainstream Republican Jeb Bush has suggested that we should prioritize Christian refugees, and Chris Christie has stated that many Black Lives Matter activists “advocate for the murder of police officers.”

White supremacist activists, as Evan Osnos reported in the New Yorker, have cheered Trump because he is mainstreaming the sort of xenophobia that is particularly amenable to the current American brand of white supremacy. 

The explosion of brazen racism on the right is not only dangerous but distracting. Extremist politics, and the reaction to it, crowds out discussion of structural problems like poverty and mass incarceration. Every minute spent reading about Trump’s idiocy is time not taken reflecting upon the fact that 22-percent children lived below the poverty line in 2013, according to USA Today, a situation more than twice as likely to befall children who are black, Hispanic and Native American. 

Today's "Religious Liberty" Claims Mirror Those of Segregationists

It seems the Christofascists and their allies have little desire to cease pushing their specious "religious liberty" claims through which they seek to exempt themselves from compliance with non-discrimination laws and even having to serve those they don't like even if they are governmental officials.  This tactic is actually nothing new and in the 1968 decision of the Supreme Court in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, the Court rejected the claims of a barbecue chain that claimed that it could refuse to serve black people (in violation of an anti-discrimination statute) because the owner’s “religious beliefs compel him to oppose any integration of the races whatever.”  The Court, in fact, allowed the plaintiffs to recover attorneys fees against the restaurant chain.  A piece in the Washionton Post looks at the Christofascist demand for special rights under the deceptive claim of "religious liberty."  Here are highlights:

Don’t like same-sex marriage, contraception, HIV testing or even child labor laws? Never you worry: Just say that a higher power has exempted you, even if your exemption means trampling on other people’s rights. 

Texas’s attorney general recently encouraged public officials to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses if doing so violated their religious convictions. Other state politicians and companies have also recently tried to cite religious belief as an excuse for refusing to serve gay men and lesbians or to treat them equally under the law, even in states where sexual orientation is a legally protected class.

“Religious liberty” has been invoked to circumvent other laws, too.

“Religious liberty” torchbearers speak as if there is a rich tradition of accommodating any citizen who says that a law burdens her faith, regardless of the societal fallout. But the actual history of religious accommodation looks different.

[R]eligious exemptions to laws have been granted only within very prescribed bounds — including the principle that you’re entitled to religious accommodations only if they don’t burden or harm others, or otherwise create havoc in the legal system.  

[I]n 1985 the court also struck down a different state law requiring employers to honor whatever holy day their workers chose. Why would the court say that workers’ holy days deserved deference in one case and not another? The government has to allow you to practice whatever religion you choose — and observe whatever holy day you wish — but it will not protect your right to excessively burden other citizens (here, employers and co-workers who must accommodate your schedule) in the name of that religious belief.

The court has used similar logic when considering whether faith can exempt people from civil rights and public accommodations law. Bob Jones University lost its tax-exempt status because it refused to admit students engaged in or advocating interracial relationships. The school had claimed that it should be exempted from anti-discrimination law because its leaders “genuinely believe[d] that the Bible forbids interracial dating and marriage.” 

In the case perhaps most directly comparable to the latest arguments made about religious liberty and gay customers, 1968’s Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, the Supreme Court affirmed the principle that a barbecue chain could not refuse to serve black people, in violation of an anti-discrimination statute, simply because the owner’s “religious beliefs compel him to oppose any integration of the races whatever.”

Constitutional and statutory protections of religious liberty give Americans the right to worship whomever they choose, however they like, on whatever day they like. But there are well-established limits to weaponizing those beliefs against your fellow man.

Fundamentalist religions and those who use religion to harm others and deprive them of their rights are a plague on the world.  They and their claims need to be rejected and tirelessly opposed.

Colorado NAACP Office Bombed

Lost in the coverage of the Paris massacre and the search for the lost AirAsia flight is the bombing of a NAACP office in Boulder, Colorado.  Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured, but the act shows the same kind of hate and contempt for others that underlie the Paris attack.  With white supremacists increasingly welcomed with open arms in today's Republican Party, one has to wonder if the person(s) behind the bombing felt emboldened.  Moreover, I cannot help but wonder if the perpetrator(s) claim to be "godly Christian(s)" like so many of the segregationists of the past.  Think Progress has details on the bombing.  Here are highlights:

In what appears to be an attack on a well-known civil rights organization, an “improvised explosive device” detonated on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Colorado Springs, Colorado NAACP, according to a statement by the FBI. No one was killed or injured in the explosion, and there was “only minimal surface charring to the exterior wall of the building,” which also includes a hair salon. 

The explosion could have been much worse, however, as the explosive device was placed next to a gasoline can in an apparent attempt to increase the force of the explosion. The gasoline did not ignite.

The FBI statement adds that a “potential person of interest in this investigation is a Caucasian male, approximately 40 years of age, and balding. He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate.”

Although the apparent bomber’s motives are not yet known, bombings were a common terrorist tactic during the Jim Crow era.

According to The Gazette, the chapter remains undeterred:

[Henry] Allen [president of the chapter] said he is hesitant to call the explosion a hate crime without further information from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies investigating but said the organization "will not be deterred."

Tpo NC Republican Seeks to Make it Legal for Judicial Officials to Refuse to Marry Gays

As I have noted numerous times, the Christofascists believe that they are above the laws that apply to all other citizens.  In short, they deem themselves entitled to special rights even as they disingenuously try to claim that it is LGBT Americans who want to be above the law.  Equally disturbing is the willingness of Republican elected officials to prostitute themselves to the Christofascists and introduce legislation that would grant Christofascists the special rights denied to others.  A case in point?  North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger Sr. (pictured above) who seeks to allow Christofscists to ignore their obligations as employees of the courts to marry all citizens with legally valid licenses.  Never mind that (i) the protections of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution only involve the freedom to practice one's religion in the house of worship of their choice and the freedom from having to financially support an established state religion, and (ii) the behavior of the Christofascist magistrates is no different that that of magistrates who in the past refused to marry interracial couples after the ruling in Loving v. Virginia.   The News and Observer has details.  Here are highlights:

A top North Carolina Republican said Tuesday that he will back a bill protecting state officials who refuse to issue marriage licenses or perform weddings for same-sex couples.

Senate Leader Phil Berger Sr. said he will introduce legislation in response to a magistrate in his home county who decided to resign instead of agreeing to marry gays, citing his personal religious views.

The state court system has said any magistrates who refuse to heed the recent federal court ruling striking down the state's same-sex marriage ban are violating their oaths and could face dismissal. Berger said magistrates and registers of deeds who refuse service to gay couples are within their rights under constitutional protections guaranteeing freedom of religion.

Berger announced his plans Thursday at an event in Wentworth, standing beside the magistrate who resigned. His office declined an interview request from The Associated Press.

Berger and House Speaker Thom Tillis hired conservative lawyers to appeal the federal marriage ruling, after the state's attorney general declared all potential legal defenses had been exhausted. Tillis is currently in a tight campaign for the U.S. Senate. Both were strong backers of the now-defunct 2012 voter referendum that limited marriage to being between one man and one woman.

The recent case is not the first time state magistrates have cited religious objections to marrying certain couples. In 1977, AP reported that two Forsyth County magistrates refused to marry a black man and a white woman, nearly 10 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared state bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional. The couple responded by filing a federal lawsuit against the state officials.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/21/4252819_gop-leader-nc-officials-can-refuse.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

The behavior of today's Christofascist anti-gay magistrates is in the final analysis no different than that of segregationists of 50 years ago.  It's all about using supposed religious beliefs to justify hate and bigotry.   The cynic in me cannot help but wonder when we will see news stories about Berger getting busted for soliciting gay sex in a public restroom or molesting underage boys.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/21/4252819_gop-leader-nc-officials-can-refuse.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

"Sen. Berger continues to waste taxpayer dollars and ignore the real issues of the day, like our economy, education, and the environment," said Chris Sgro, the executive director of Equality NC. "The issue at hand is not about individuals' rights to freedom of religion and Berger, as an attorney, should understand the law well enough to know that. The issue (is) employees of the State of North Carolina doing their jobs."

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/21/4252819_gop-leader-nc-officials-can-refuse.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

 

 

There really is no differnce between today's anti-gay Christofascists and the 

State laws regarding same-sex marriage in the United States¹

---

  Same-sex marriage legal

  Same-sex marriage performed elsewhere recognized

  Same-sex marriage legalization pending, but not yet in effect²

  No prohibition or recognition of same-sex marriage in territory law

  Judicial ruling(s) overturning the same-sex marriage ban stayed indefinitely pending appeal

  Judicial ruling(s) overturning the ban on recognizing same-sex marriage performed elsewhere stayed indefinitely pending appeal

  Same-sex marriage banned contrary to federal appellate court precedent

  Same-sex marriage banned

If you are having a hard time keeping up with the dizzying pace of change on the same sex marriage over the past week - no one could have expected what's occurred this time just last week - the New York Times has a good summary that can be found here with the latest updates.  The image above is the latest revised version of marriage equality from Wikipedia.  For Virginia readers, here's the part of the piece that applies to Virginia:

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday was set to join the list of high-ranking American officials presiding at a same-sex wedding. Gay marriage has been legal in Virginia for only five days.

Mr. McAuliffe, who campaigned in support of same-sex marriage last fall, was scheduled to officiate at the marriage of Katherine Bradley-Black, 44, and Renée Bradley, 50, at their home in Northern Virginia.

The women, both education administrators whom Mr. McAuliffe met through a mutual friend, have been together for 18 years and have two children, ages 12 and 8. They are among the scores of couples who have snapped up marriages certificates since the Supreme Court order on Monday.

Elections DO matter - one can just imagine the chaos that would be reigning in Virginia right now had Ken Cuccinelli  won the governorship last November.

Meanwhile, the Christofascists are  beside themselves and calling for massive "civil disobedience" akin to Virginia's "Massive Resistance" after the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation - in my view, scratch a homophobe and you'll likely find a racist as well - and threatening to bolt from the Republican Party if the GOP doesn't stop same sex marriage.    They offer no explanation, of course, as to what the GOP is supposed to do since refusing to obey valid federal court orders would open up elected officials for removal from office.   Right Wing Watch has a compilation of the spittle flecked shrieks of the "godly folk."  Here are some examples:

Hate group leader Linda Harvey (who has no legitimate job and has been a parasite living off of homophobia for years) -

Linda Harvey of Mission America warned on her radio bulletin yesterday that America has entered “a time of possible civil disobedience” following the Supreme Court’s recent marriage equality announcement, telling listeners that “we must not serve the interests of sin and darkness” and “this court’s inaction is an act motivated by evil and deception and ultimately will not stand.”

“This is attempted theft of what God has ordained and our Lord will not honor this lawlessness,” Harvey said. “Allowing homosexuality to become normal in America may certainly be part of God’s judgment on our once-Christian nation for our irresponsible sexual practices and for turning our back on what the Lord has taught us.

Harvey hoped the court’s action will actually give a boost to the work of anti-gay activists

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and dean of  Liberty University Laws School, a daily embarassment to Virginia, exemplifies the shrieks against the GOP.   Ironically, he says a third party is needed to fight gay marriage which he equates to slavery, even though he and his followers are the direct descendants of the pro-slavery crowd and segregationists -

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver, who is still reeling from the Supreme Court’s decision this week to allow several lower-court marriage equality rulings to stand, is now lambasting his fellow Republicans for failing to defend the party’s anti-gay positions.

Staver told Greg Corombos of Radio America yesterday that a third party will be needed to take a strong stance against the legalization of same-sex marriage, just as the Republican Party emerged in the 1850s to oppose slavery as the Whigs were foundering due to divisions on the issue.

When Corombos asked why Republicans have delivered a muted response to the marriage decision, Staver didn’t hold back: “They’re cowards, and if Republicans don’t stand up for this, the party will become a non-issue and there will be a third party that will ultimately take its place. That’s what happened with the issue of slavery and there’s no party that’s immune from this situation.”

Staver urged Republicans to ignore polls showing growing support for marriage equality: “Just because polls change, that doesn’t make the marriage issue change. You can’t change gravity because a number of people want to fly and get rid of gravity.”

He predicted that the tide will soon turn against gay rights advocates as “more people feel the impact of same-sex marriage, both directly within the family but also specifically with regards to religious liberty.”

I have long considered Staver to be mentally imbalanced and way too hysterical about gays for someone who doesn't have serious issues of their own.

The Family Foundation's Fake Fast

TFF Preisdent Victoria Cobb with other gay haters

Few organizations in Virginia are more insidious than The Family Foundation ("TFF"), an affiliate of Focus on the Family and Family Research Council (although references to FRC have been conveniently scrubbed from TFF's website following FRC's designation as a hate group).  When not peddling lies and working to fan the flames of anti-gay animus, TFF supports efforts to force its hate and fear based version of Christianity on all Virginians and - true to its segregationist roots -  cheer leads GOP efforts to disenfranchise minorities.  Given the two rulings that have struck down Virginia's bans on same sex marriage, true to form, TFF has come up with a stunt to (i) garner media coverage and (ii) convince the gullible that it routinely fleeces that it is "fighting" for their beliefs.  The stunt?  A forty day fast.  Except one doesn't even need to fast to participate.  Pink News looks at this latest disingenuous BS from TFF.  Here are highlights:

The Virginia-based Family Foundation announced a coordinated ‘fast’ last month, in order to influence the US Supreme Court into rejecting same-sex marriage when it hears the first of a series of appeals cases in October.

The group had said: “The Supreme Court begins their session on October 6th. We fully expect them to take a marriage case sometime in the next year.

“Join us for 40 Days of Prayer, Fasting and Repentance for Marriage from August 27 through October 5, 2014.  “Our 40 Days will culminate on October 5th just before the court begins their session.”

However, they later quietly clarified that members don’t actually have to give up any food at all to take part in the ‘fast’.

They wrote: “We are asking the entire Body of Christ to join us for this feast – giving up physical food isn’t necessary – but feeding on the spiritual food provided is vital.”

As people don’t actually have to give up food to take part, the group opposed to re-defining the definition of marriage seem to be re-defining the meaning of a fast.

I continue to wonder when TFF will garner the formal hate group designation it so richly deserves.   Not that such a designation would convince Virginia Republicans to stop prostituting themselves to this heinous organization. 

The Tea Party in the South - A Reprise of Segregationist Politics

I get accused by former Republican colleagues of being "angry" or a "single issue voter" because I am gay and the GOP is anti-gay rather than admit that I rightly criticize the ugliness of what the Republican Party (especially the Tea Party faction) has become: a coven of religious extremists and white supremacists.  These twin pillars of the GOP base typically overlap and for an example here in Virginia look no farther than The Family Foundation ("TFF") which in addition to seeking to impose a Christofascist theocracy on all Virginians likewise supports every GOP effort to disenfranchise minority voters.  One doesn't have to scratch the surface very much to see that many of TFF's adherents are from a long line of racists and segregationists.  The phenomenon is not unique to Virginia as an article in the New York Times notes.  It is pervasive across the South in particular and is a common thread in the Tea Party.  Here are excerpts:

The Tea Party is on a roll across the South, having mounted major primary challenges in Texas, Mississippi and South Carolina, and knocked out Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The movement’s success, with its dangerous froth of anti-Washington posturing and barely concealed racial animus, raises an important question for Southern voters: Will they remember their history well enough to reject the siren song of nativism and populism that has won over the region so often before?

We often think of the typical segregationist politician of yore as a genteel member of the white upper crust. But the more common mode was the fiery populist. Names like Thomas E. Watson of Georgia, “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman of South Carolina and James K. Vardaman and Theodore G. Bilbo of Mississippi may be obscure outside the South, but for most anyone brought up here, they loom large.

In the early 20th century, these men rose on an agrarian revolt against Big Business and government corruption. They used that energy, in turn, to disenfranchise and segregate blacks, whose loyalty to the pro-business Republican Party made them targets of these racist reformers. 

Their activities spawned a second wave of Southern Democratic populists, who defied federal court orders and civil rights legislation during the 1960s, even as more moderate politicians were moving on. 

It’s hard not to hear echoes of those eras today. Tea Party candidates have targeted federal taxes and spending, while attacking Chamber of Commerce interests and the leadership of the Republican Party. Racism has been replaced with nativism in their demands for immigration restrictions, but the animosity toward the “other” is the same.

And there remains a whiff of the ancient fumes of bitter-end resistance: Chris McDaniel, a state senator who took Senator Thad Cochran into a runoff in Mississippi, still refuses to accept the validity of the election. Mr. McDaniel had all the bona fides of an old-time demagogue. He was once a conservative radio talk show host who dabbled in ethnic innuendo. He made appearances before neo-Confederate organizations.

Education became their whipping boy. A century ago, the first wave of populist demagogues withheld funds for poor, segregated schools and tried to purge college faculties of nonbelievers. The second wave, citing “states’ rights,” threatened to shut schools rather than integrate and denounced federal aid to education as a sinister investment. In the Cochran-McDaniel race, you could hear that same strain in Tea Party criticisms of the federal government, of federal aid to education and of the “establishment.”

[W]e are faced with an open, and very unsettling question: Which way will the South go this time?

For gays it is crucial to remember that the Tea Party is 3-1 against gay rights and gay marriage.  The GOP as a whole are 2-1 against us.  The Tea Party is not only the enemy of racial minorities, but gays as well. 

Nixon and the GOP's Racist Strategy

With the release of more tapes from the Nixon White House, the image of Richard Nixon only gets worse.  A number of the foul aspects that plague the GOP of today had their seeds planted in the Nixon era and have grown to full bloom with the rise of the Christofascists and Tea Party within the party.  Both groups, to the extent that they are no one and the same under different monikers, take to heart the racism that was the heart of Nixon's "Southern Strategy" that focused on winning white Democrats over to the GOP.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this ugly Nixon legacy.  Here are excerpts:

It was Nixon who devised and pursued what came to be called the Southern strategy. This was, in the admirably concise wording of Wikipedia, an appeal “to racism against African-Americans.” Nixon was hardly the first Republican to notice that Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legislation had alienated whites both in the South and elsewhere — Johnson himself had forecast that Southern whites would desert the Democratic Party. But Nixon was the GOP’s leader and, in January 1969, the president of the United States. The White House, it seemed, would not do a damned thing for African Americans.

Nixon was a complex figure — virtually a screaming liberal compared to today’s tea party types. He was, above all, a pragmatic, cynical politician. Johnson and the Democrats had wooed the black vote; Nixon would do the same for the white vote. Even-steven, you might say, except the Democrats were expanding rights while the Republicans wanted to narrow them or keep them restrictive. Nixon was being politically clever but morally reprehensible. That was, you could say, his MO.

After Nixon, though, there was no turning back. In 1980, Ronald Reagan — ever the innocent — went to Mississippi and the Neshoba County Fair to tastelessly proclaim his belief in “states’ rights.” Nearby, three civil rights worked had been killed just 16 years earlier, protesting one of those bogus rights — the right to segregate the races. Reagan never acknowledged any appeal to racism. Racists took it as a wink anyway.

The damage Nixon did to his own party, not to mention the rights of African Americans and the cause of racial comity, has lasted long after the stench of Watergate dispersed. It not only persuaded blacks that the Republican Party was inhospitable to them, but it, in effect, welcomed racists to the GOP fold. Dixiecrats moved to the right. 

Excuse me for extrapolating, but segregationists are not merit-scholarship winners. Racism is dumb and so are racists. The Democratic Party showed racists the door. The GOP welcomed them and, of course, their fellow travelers — creationists, gun nuts, anti-abortion zealots, immigrant haters of all sorts and homophobes. Increasingly, the Republican Party has come to be defined by what it opposes and not what it proposes. Its abiding enemy is modernity.

 The worst thing Richard Nixon ever did was tell racists they had a point and welcome them into the party of Lincoln. The best thing he ever did for the Democratic Party is give its racists a place to go.

If you doubt the lasting poison sowed by Nixon, look no farther than Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) (pictured below) who is claiming that the Democrats are "waging war on white people."   Here is a glimpse from the Huffington Post:

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) doesn't think that the hardline stance Republicans have taken on immigration could hurt the party’s standing with Hispanic voters. Instead, he thinks Democrats are hurting their prospects with white voters.

“This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else,” he said during an interview Monday with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. "It's part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well that’s not true.”

As I have said before, I sometimes wonder when the GOP will start handing out KKK robes before their city and county committee meetings get underway.

Campaign To Repeal Houston LGBT Rights Ordinance Fails Petition Count

Despite the great show and fanfare that they put on as they delivered supposedly 50,000 signatures on petitions seeking to put the repeal of Houston, Texas' LGBT rights ordinance on the ballot, the animus inspired hate merchants failed to produce enough valid signatures to put the measure up to a popular vote.  Despite the self-proclaimed "godliness" of the opponents to the LGBT rights ordinance, more than half of the signatures turned in were not valid (actually, roughly 69% were invalid).  That's right, they flawed and/or fraudulent.  As I have stated many times before, no one is more dishonest that the "godly Christian" crowd.  Here are highlights from the Houston Chronicle about the failed effort of the Christofascists and their allies:

Opponents of Houston's new non-discrimination ordinance did not get enough valid signatures to force a November repeal referendum, Mayor Annise Parker and City Attorney David Feldman announced Monday.

"With respect to the referendum petition filed to repeal the 'HERO' ordinance, there are simply too many documents with irregularities and problems to overlook," Feldman said. "The petition is simply invalid. There is no other conclusion."

The council approved the ordinance on an 11-6 vote in May. Opponents who took issue with the protections extended to gay and transgender people under the ordinance promised to send the issue to the voters. On July 3, they claimed to have delivered more than 50,000 signatures to the city secretary's office.

Opponents needed a minimum of 17,269 valid signatures - 10 percent of the ballots cast in the last mayoral election - to put a referendum on the November ballot. Feldman said some of the petition gatherers did not satisfy the requirements set out for such petitions in the city charter, such as by not being registered Houston voters or by not signing the petition themselves. If such requirements were not met, he said, all the signatures the circulator gathered were invalid.

Less than half of the more than 5,000 pages opponents submitted were valid, Feldman said, leaving the final valid tally at 15,249 signatures.

 Dave Welch of the Houston Area Pastor Council helped lead the repeal petition effort. He pledged to fight the Parker's decision in court.

"It is what it is," she [Mayor Parker] said. "As I've said throughout this process, I fully expected there would be legal pressure from one side or the other, however the issue came out. I fully expected it to end up on a ballot, and we would win. If it does not wind up on a ballot, it saves the city a significant amount of money and effort mounting a legal campaign, in addition to the community's efforts on both sides to wage that campaign."

Note how Welsh and his cohorts simply cannot admit (i) that they turned in bogus petitions and (ii) the days of Christofascists forcing their beliefs on all are over, even in red states like Texas.  They may win a few rear guard actions, but they have lost the war.  They are becoming more akin to failed segregationists of yesteryear with every passing day.  They cannot stand that they are quickly becoming irrelevant.