GOP

Racism in South Carolina? How Original! (June 5, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Nikki Haley

Talk about the ultimate backfire. When Palmetto State Republican gubernatorial candidate John M. “Jake” Knotts Jr., called GOP frontrunner Nikki Haley, a converted Christian of Sikh Indian descent, a “raghead” this week, he made the young lawmaker a household name. Heretofore, she had only been known as the slutty would-be replacement for the current tramp in the Governor’s mansion, Mark Sanford. Haley was well on her way to doing herself in, having faced two separate allegations, within the span ten days, of having sexual relations with GOP operatives. But leave it to an old, fat, racist white man to breathe new life into Haley’s candidacy.

I have to admit that I never bothered to search for an image of Haley, until Knotts hurled his antiquated and culturally ignorant epithet. I read a column in the New York Times by the incandescent Gail Collins this week that addressed the infidelity accusations dogging Haley’s campaign, and upon coming across her name for the first time, I assumed she was simply another hypocritical, greedy member of the far right, which tends as we know, to be WASP-y in its makeup. No thanks. It wasn’t until news spread that Knotts had not only insulted Haley’s cultural heritage, but managed to rope President Obama into a racist slam at the same time, that I wanted to know more about this woman.

And if I am discovering interest in Haley, it is not a far conjectural leap to assume that voters in South Carolina are doing the same. The rumored adulterer and mother of two has suddenly been rendered sympathetic by the shocking ignorance of a challenging member of the ruling class. In a political climate that is very anti-establishment at the moment, Knotts could not have made a more damaging faux pas, leaving aside what it says about his tolerance and character. All of the sudden, the clout of Republican heavyweight Sarah Palin is thrown behind Haley’s candidacy, in the form of recorded robo-calls. Whatever one might think of Palin, there is no denying her star power, particularly in the Red States. I doubt Knotts can count on any important party support, except perhaps from the ghost of late South Carolina Senator and fellow ideological crackpot, Strom Thurmond.

Which brings me to another point. I thought conventional wisdom had it that in order for the Republican party to compete in the ever more diverse landscape of American politics, they were going to have to break with the past, be more inclusive? Wasn’t the point of hiring bumbling jackass Michael Steele as chairman of the RNC (the gift to the Democrats that keeps on giving), to put a face on that effort? Well you can place as many visages of color in leadership positions as you want, Republicans, but as long as you have wingnuts like Knotts, and media personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly doing your talking for you, it’s going to be hard to convince people that you are other than the party of discrimination. In a nation that becomes more multi-ethnic by the year, intolerance is dangerous and unsustainable.

One can only assume, despite Knotts’s predictable, insincere apology for his comments, that his candidacy is all but over. Thank goodness for that. I believe an additional boost to Haley’s run will stem from her measured, savvy response to the controversy. She was quoted as saying: “What the race in 2010 will prove is the goodness of the people of South Carolina, that there [are] fewer people of the Jake Knotts [ilk] and that there are a lot more good, educated people [who] want their voice heard in government.”

I can only hope that other members of the new Republican movement are sincere in their desire to expand their membership base, and are not just cynically chasing votes. Because even those of us are who lean far left have much to gain in finding a worthy adversary with new ideas and attitudes. Clearly however, the old guard of the GOP has not looked a calendar lately. It’s 2010, not 1959 fellas.

WTF is up with Sarah Palin? (July 6, 2009)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

I realize I am a few days late on this. As usual, I have been self-involved and monumentally busy coping with the last three days of my mother-in-law’s visit.

Let me start by saying, I am no fan of this chick. I was talking to our cousins, Cindy and Sanjiv, over the weekend, and we all kind of agreed the GOP’s attempt to ram the “Barracuda” down our throats as a Hillary Clinton replacement never sat right. On one side, I admire Governor Palin, slightly, I say slightly, for her rep as a loose canon. Anyone who gives old Republican stalwarts a headache warrants an occasional chuckle from me. But Palin proved herself an overmatched chowderhead on the 2008 campaign trail. This rather stymying resignation does nothing to change my opinion.

It would be one thing if I were able, somehow, to chalk up the coming end of her reign as a savvy political move. But to announce this the day before a holiday weekend, a virtual media blackout? And call me crazy, but if you do intend to run for higher office, like say, the presidency, doesn’t it help to have a steady job while doing so? Ask Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson if not holding an office did them any favors when they went after the brass ring. Why would a person repeatedly pelted with the label “inexperienced” so oft last year, pull the plug on the only avenue she currently has to gain knowledge?

The possibility that her resignation pre-empts some shocking scandal that was about to come out has been thrown around. But I really don’t like this either. If the juice is any good, we’ll find out anyway. John Edwards anyone?

So I return to my initial question: What is up? And moreover, do any of you care what Sarah Palin does next? For the meanspirited of our readers (like me), are you enjoying the summer movie implosion of the GOP favorites?

In Stunning Display Of Myopia, Ross Douthat Wonders Where The ‘Frightening Fringe Groups’ Are (October 2, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

douthatsmall_400x400

As a general rule, we’ve accepted that it’s best to ignore the right wing pundits and writers who overrun large swaths of our local and national media apparatuses. As most of us learned in childhood, once you give a loudmouth attention, it’s unlikely he or she will ever retreat. These talking heads are really just speaking to their own kind anyway, right?

Sometimes they’re whipping up the base over social issues fashioned into a wedge-shaped instrument with which to blunt public discourse (see: gay marriage 2004 or abortion 2012). Other times they are inflating a non-scandal (such as the supposed Benghazi conspiracy) to create a political distraction. And when not occupied with the previous two scenarios, these “journalists” are usually looking to provide disingenuous cover for the GOP’s indefensible positions on a whole host of issues such as: the rejection of Medicare expansion, the out of control proliferation of guns and ammunition, a head-in-the sand approach to immigration reform, and tax policy that enriches the one percent at the expense of everything else (the middle and working classes, public education, infrastructure, etc.).

But sometimes, it’s hard to let a tone deaf piece of right wing commentary slide, particularly when it appears in the “newspaper of record,” The New York Times. And doubly so when it is symptomatic of the GOP’s greatest ill: a shocking and dangerous lack of self-awareness.

At the end of a recent Sunday Review Op-Ed entitled, “The Cult Deficit,” I found myself annoyed by some of Douthat’s bland, unquantifiable assertions about the state of religious pedagogy. Take this example: “Spiritual gurus still flourish in our era, of course, but they are generally comforting, vapid, safe.” I’m not sure the majority of Americans found recently deceased Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps comforting or safe. Vapid possibly, but Phelps’ form of hate-filled ignorance was certainly not benign. However, we’ve come to accept this kind of selective memory from conservative commentators.

What really took me by surprise was the crux of Douthat’s argument, the base upon which the entire ludicrous column was constructed:

“From the 1970s through the 1990s, from Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate, frightening fringe groups and their charismatic leaders seemed like an essential element of the American religious landscape.

Yet we don’t hear nearly as much about them anymore.”

To this, I would offer three counter observations/ questions:

  1. Frightening fringe groups with religious underpinnings have progressed beyond the edge, working their way to the mainstream with shocking alacrity.
  2. Do you really not know who these people are, Douthat?
  3. To quote the character Ted from How I Met Your Mother, “If you can’t spot the crazy person on the bus, it’s you.”

Mr. Douthat, the radical fringe is, in fact, alive and well and to drop another pop cultural reference, their calls are coming from inside the House. The GOP-led, gerrymandered, ideological purity tested, Tea-Party infested House of Representatives. Your argument that “many fewer Americans ‘take unorthodox ideas seriously,’” is undone in seconds, without much effort.

  • Only 25 percent of Tea Partiers acknowledge the reality of climate change.
  • We’ve made it a mere 83 days without a male GOP candidate using the word “rape,” typically alongside a swipe at a woman’s right to choose.
  • Despite years and years of evidence to the contrary, Republican orthodoxy insists we can leverage austerity to starve our way out of recession.

It must be noted that across most of the Western world, suggestions that global warming is a hoax, that reducing access to family planning options is positive for “women’s health” or that widespread gun ownership saves lives, would be laughed out of the room. But here in good old America, these arguments are accepted as educated disagreement. And nothing is more radical and “crazy” than that. What need have we for cults when Washington is overrun with fringe lunatics with dangerous ideas, damaging the country and the direction of its policy each and every day?

Apparently when Douthat looks at a reflection of his party in the mirror, he sees normalcy. That’s how deluded the GOP perspective has become. Worse yet, the rest of us have become enablers. I opened the column with an observation that “it’s best to ignore the right wing pundits and writers who overrun large swaths of our local and national media apparatuses.” But no, that is incorrect. We are on the fringe because we allowed the conversation to be moved there.

It’s tempting to extrapolate from Douthat’s statement, “the cult phenomenon feels increasingly antique, like lava lamps and bell bottoms,” that the current radical right fever will eventually cure itself. But if there’s nothing forcing the fever to break – decreased media traction, lost votes and other forms of public rebuke – it will continue to burn.

So this column is my minor contribution to the effort. Can’t find the cult Mr. Douthat? It’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time.

Republican Ideology Has Its Worst Week Ever (July 20, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

lets_talk_ideology

Though you’d never guess by listening to its representatives speak, it was a terrible week for modern Republican ideology.

Those right-wingers who love to call President Obama weak on foreign policy, setting him in relief against their favorite bare-chested strongman Vladimir Putin, are scrambling to crawl under the nearest rock. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the icon of conservative male virility lent support to war criminals who shot 80 children from the sky. Per a report from theAssociated Press:

“On Thursday, Putin blamed Ukraine for the crash, saying Kiev was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions. But he didn’t accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and didn’t address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.”

If gathering rumors are to be believed, Russian interlopers may have already absconded to Moscow with Malaysian Airlines Flight 17’s “black box” recorder. And as of Saturday morning, the crash site in Eastern Ukraine remains unsecured. As evidence decays and/or is purposefully tampered with, Putin’s Thursday statement may be the closest thing we ever get to an admission of the truth. A wise person once told me that when an unpleasant man tells you something about himself, believe him. And by shying away from implausible deniability (a sport in which the Russian thug routinely indulges), Putin is speaking loud and clear.

Russian sponsorship of the downing of the defenseless civilian airliners. Yeah, that’s real bravery. Keep talking McCain Nation.

Moving onto another human tragedy a little closer to home, the Republican Party continued its parade of heartless, xenophobic double talk about the Central American child immigrant crisis. Even as Colorado’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper offered a ray of humanitarian hope in writing, “If Denver or other communities in Colorado want to offer their support and sponsorship while these children are in the legal system, the state respects and would defend that decision,” and Pope Francis publicly cautioned the devout to love and protect the kids, a dark strain of ugliness continued to permeate the official GOP response.

This past week, retired medical doctor and Republican House member Phil Gingrey told NBC News, “The border patrol gave us a list of the diseases that they’re concerned about, and Ebola was one of those…I can’t tell you specifically that there were any cases of Ebola, I don’t think there were, but of course Tuberculosis, Chagas disease, many – small pox, some of the infectious diseases of children, all of these are concerns.”

These alarmist and disgusting comments continue to undercut our nation’s once-vaunted reputation as a refuge for freedom seekers. On a secondary level, you have to wonder if the GOP understands that they won’t be able to erase Hispanic voter memory in 2014 and beyond. Yet the certainty that the party is briskly digging its own electoral grave doesn’t do much to relieve the dire and fearful predicament of the kids. They’ve run from terror only to be treated as enemy invaders by the Land of the Free.

This year has been unbelievably tough for those in favor of contemplative, deliberate foreign policy, sensible gun and comprehensive immigration reforms and last but not least, liberty for the GOP’s most discounted “special interest group” – women.

New York Times commentator Timothy Egan makes the case this week that the SCOTUS’ disastrous Hobby Lobby decision does more than assault female reproductive freedom. It also takes a swipe at our founding principle – the separation of church and state. He writes, “In the United States, God is on the currency. By brilliant design, though, he is not mentioned in the Constitution. The founders were explicit: This country would never formally align God with one political party, or allow someone to use religion to ignore civil laws. At least that was the intent. In this summer of the violent God, five justices on the Supreme Court seem to feel otherwise.”

As Americans continue to grapple with the Supreme Court’s increasingly partisan suppression of human rights in favor of corporate ones, the media is finally (finally!) beginning to take the five Catholic male justices responsible to task in a semi-bipartisan way. Meanwhile, Democratic Congressional leaders are trying to develop and pass legislation that would grant women access to everything promised by the Affordable Care Act. May they be relentless.

It was a week when modern Republican claims to be defenders of freedom, limited government and human dignity were clearly exposed as money and power grabbing, racist scams. Individual rights trump all else – except for women who want to make their own family planning decisions. Give us your tired and your poor – unless they are frightened brown children. We have no money to take care of them properly as dictated by law. Those funds are subsidizing the lifestyles and business ventures of the one percent. And that weak-willed, effeminate Obama. If only he’d man up and covertly supply terrorists who murder international civilians like that macho Vladimir Putin.

CVS Ending Sales Of Tobacco Offers Conservative Media Dual Dissembling Opportunity (February 5, 2014)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

CVS_pharmacy

Unfortunately, nicotine addiction knows no political affiliation. I can report anecdotally that I am acquainted with as many liberal, free-thinking chain-smokers as those whose right-wing beliefs tend to set my teeth on edge. Be that as it may, the image of the big plantation tobacco farmer is inextricably linked to the Republican Party, and as long ago as 1998, GOP leadership began to understand that the inflow of lobbyist funds was not worth the long-term PR hassle.

During the month of March, 16 years ago, Washington Postwriters Ceci Connelly and John Mintz published a piece entitled,For Big Tobacco, a Future Without GOP Support. This trip through 20th Century history is fascinating for many reasons, not the least because former House Speaker-turned-CNN Crossfirehost Newt Gingrich seemed to declare the end of an era.  While ironically hitching a ride to California aboard a Big Tobacco plane, Gingrich is quoted putting his benefactors on notice:

“‘You guys have screwed us…The Republican Party has been saddled with tobacco.’

This time, said Gingrich, he wouldn’t allow President Clinton to demagogue Republicans on the tobacco issue in the same way he had outmaneuvered GOP leaders on the budget in 1995.

‘I will not let Bill Clinton get to the left of me on this,’ he said.”

And yet…

When CVS/Caremark announced its decision this week to cease the sale of tobacco products in its retail stores by October 1, it wasn’t the liberal media that seized on a perceived opportunity to protect donor dollars while creating another tenuous rebuke of Obamacare. I am fairly certain at this point that the GOP platform consists of blaming every conceivable worldly ill on health care reform. Shaun White withdraws from the slopestyle snowboarding competition at the Sochi Olympic games? Thanks faulty exchange rollout!

Though the tactics may have changed, conservative media figures have wasted little time spin doctoring, in sort of a shadow defense of the tobacco lobby. USAToday Contributor Katrina Trinko (also Managing Editor of Heritage Foundation publication,The Foundry) writes with evidence in hand (none) that the chain’s decision will have no impact upon the nation’s smoking patterns. She observes, “There’s no doubt that cigarettes are unhealthy — and that second-hand smoke has exposed non-smokers to health risks as well. But CVS’ decision doesn’t affect second-hand smoke, and won’t necessarily make a steep dent in overall smoking rates. Other chains, such as Target, haven’t sold cigarettes in years.”

So really then, CVS, why bother?

And in what I’m sure is 100 percent coincidence, wouldn’t you know it, The Foundry (yes!) ran its own piece attempting to tie CVS’ business decision with the desire of conservative-run corporations to exclude female employees from Obamacare’s contraceptive coverage mandate. Writer Amy Payne offers:

“Businesses want to provide products and services that customers want to buy. If they don’t, they go out of business. But CVS’s move to change the products it offers shows that plenty of business leaders consider more than just the bottom line—they consider the values they want their companies to reflect. This is another freedom they should enjoy in America—though it has recently been denied to businesses like Hobby Lobby that are trying to defend their right to do business in accordance with their values.”

Yes, the obvious connection between CVS’s decision to adhere to carefully cultivated healthy brand standards, versus Hobby Lobby’s assertion of religious freedom rights equal to American citizens. I don’t know how we missed it! White males seeking to deny female employees a full range of reproductive health options is exactly the same as a national chain deciding to discontinue harmful products that a customer can just go to another store to obtain.

So if you ask conservative media, CVS’s landmark decision is either a pointless public health move or an assertion of corporate entitlement that undercuts Obamacare. Sometimes you just have to step back and admire the other side’s contortionary skill.