Just to be clear, what exactly is a Scapegoat?
scape·goat n.
1. One that is made to bear the blame of others.
2. Bible. A live goat over whose head Aaron confessed all the sins of the children of Israel on the Day of Atonement. The goat, symbolically bearing their sins, was then sent into the wilderness.
. . . At a later period an evasion or modification of the law of Moses was introduced by the Jews. “The goat was conducted to a mountain named Tzuk, situated at a distance of ten Sabbath days’ journey, or about six and a half English miles, from Jerusalem. At this place the Judean desert was supposed to commence; and the man in whose charge the goat was sent out, while
setting him free, was instructed to push the unhappy beast down the slope of the mountain side, which was so steep as to insure the death of the goat, whose
bones were broken by the fall. The reason of this barbarous custom was that on one occasion the scapegoat returned to Jerusalem after being set free, which was considered such an evil omen that its recurrence was prevented for the future by the death of the goat”
Now, I’d be thrilled if Republicans actually felt the need to atone for their sins by releasing a live animal into the wilderness. What great television that would make, eh? Bush, Cheney, Scooter, Rove, Delay, Abramoff, Frist, Lott, ad nauseum, all clustered together as their High Priest (Dobson? Robertson?) performed the appropriate incantations and then ceremoniously kicked the goat down the mountainside (Pikes Peak ought to make a nice spot, so I guess that gives Dobson a leg up) amid much gnashing and wailing from the collected dignitaries of the Republican Party.
Sadly, Republicans don’t do the whole atonement thing, as that requires an actual willingness to confess one’s sins. As we all know, accepting blame for anything is not the Republican way. No, the other definition is the only one that is operative in today’s GOP: blaming others for their own failings and mistakes.
Some of their favorite scapegoats over the years have been minorities. Indeed, Republicans have made an entire political strategy out of scapegoating African Americans:
“The trick lay in sympathizing with and appealing to the fears of angry whites without appearing to become an extremist and driving away moderates-or, as Ehrlichman described the process, to present a position on crime, education, or public housing in such a way that a voter could ‘avoid admitting to himself that he was attracted by a racist appeal.'” In the 1980s, Republicans were able to embed encoded racial issues (quotas and welfare dependency) in their anti-government campaigning.
From failing public schools to increased crime to federal budget deficits, Republicans have used blacks (often in coded references so as not to put off moderates) as the bogey men and women who were the villains responsible for these problems, rather than their own failed policies. The most recent example, and perhaps the most egregious, was to blame not FEMA or President Bush but the residents of New Orleans themselves (predominately poor and black) for the misery they endured in the wake of Hurricane Katrina:
In New Orleans, “you are dealing with the permanently poor — people who don’t have jobs, are not used to getting up and organizing themselves and getting things done and for whom sitting and waiting is a way of life,” says Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a former head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
“This is a natural disaster that is exacerbated by the problems of the underclass. The chief cause of poverty today among blacks is no longer racism. It is the breakdown of the traditional family.”
Speaking of the breakdown of the traditional family brings me to another favorite scapegoat of Republicans these days: Gays. That’s right, gays are to blame (according to the GOP bible) for breakdowns in that most famous of conservative shibboleths: the sanctity of marriage:
Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, understands that this nation is at a crossroads, and he strives to drive home this point in Marriage Under Fire. Dobson writes with urgency in detailing how the legalization of gay marriage, by redefining the family, would seriously damage society at its very core.
. . . Dobson outlines eleven repercussions of legalizing gay marriage, although he mentions that he could list at least fifty. The most convincing argument against it is that if the current definition is expanded, the precedence would be set to acknowledge a marriage as something other than a one man/one woman relationship. From there, polygamy would only be the starting point. Marriage would come to represent little more than a legal agreement that provided health care benefits to any number of partners. But the real victims of gay marriage would be America’s youth who, as Dobson notes, would become confused about sexual identity and who would sometimes be forced to live in unstable homes, since homosexuals are “rarely monogamous.”
The fact that divorce rates are highest in states that vote solidly Republican seems to have escaped their notice.
As researchers have noted, the areas of the country where divorce rates are highest are also frequently the areas where many conservative Christians live.
Kentucky, Mississippi and Arkansas, for example, voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. But they had three of the highest divorce rates in 2003, based on figures from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics.
Easier to blame those nefarious gays with their “Gay Agenda” then to consider whether Republican policies such as teaching abstinence as the only method of birth control and to prevent STD transmission just might have something to with it:
Men who live in rural areas often use condoms incorrectly, according to a study out this week that Indiana University researchers say underscores the shortcomings of sex education in Hoosier public schools.
Of course, after a while the old, familiar blameworthy groups, such as blacks and gays, need to make room at the top of the Republican heap for a newer, flashier, trendier scapegoat: the Illegal Immigrant Horde:
Clustered largely in northern Virginia, illegal immigrants barely mustered a response among voters just a few years ago.
Yet this election season, they have taken center stage, with Republicans vowing to cut off state benefits to illegal immigrants, while activists urge an end to divisive politics.
“Illegal immigration affects state budget, it affects our public safety in Virginia–that’s why it’s a big issue in this campaign,” Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore said Friday. “I’m the only candidate that will say no benefits for those illegally in this country, no in-state tuition.”
To be clear about this, Republicans aren’t blaming white, European and/or canadian immigration for these problems. No, what they’re concerned about, and the people whom they want to blame for anything from the loss of jobs to crime to breaking government budgets (sounds familiar after a while, doesn’t it) are immigrants from south of the border:
Is Mexico reconquering
U.S. southwest?Illegal immigration fueling aims of Hispanic radicals
A massive influx of illegal immigrants is “importing poverty” and growing an ethnic community with greater loyalty to Mexico than the U.S., maintains Glenn Spencer, president of Voices of Citizens Together, a California-based non-profit group.
“Unless this is shut down within two years, I believe that it will be irreversible, and that it will most certainly lead to a breakup of the United States,” Spencer told WorldNetDaily. “I don’t think there is any doubt about it.”
Republicans who won’t want to talk about Iraq, or the failures of the federal government under Republican control, will be more than happy to blame “illegal immigrants” (which is, let’s be honest, a code word for Hispanics) for a host of problems, much as Jerry Kilgore tried to do in Virginia. You can be sure you’ll be hearing more of this as the 2006 race heats up, as Chris Bowers notes:
Along with many other commenters, I have noted how immigration is slowly moving up he ranks of issues that Republicans are focusing on, and that it is gaining more traction in the general public as well. Like many others, I have suggested that Republicans will probably try to make immigration matter in 2006 the way they made the drumbeat to war matter in 2002, or homophobia matter in 2004.
Chris goes on to say he doesn’t think this will work for Republicans in 2006, but that by 2008 it will probably be one of their big wedge issues. Which is really the point, isn’t it? Republicans claim to be a big tent party, claim they want to attract more Hispanic and African American voters, but in the final analysis, they can’t help relying on a politics of divisiveness, of scapegoating, to try to win elections.
It’s worked well for them too, these last few years. Deflecting blame for the country’s problems to issues like gay marriage has allowed them to split off voters who might otherwise have been more inclined to vote for Democratic candidates. But I wonder if it will continue to work as well. In the backlash over Joe and Valerie Wilson (whom Republican smear merchants did their damnest to vilify) we may be starting to see a public that is fed up with these “scapegoating” tactics of the GOP.
The outrageous attempts by Republican operatives to place the blame for the Katrina relief disaster on anyone other than Bush (i.e., state and local officials, people who couldn’t evacuate, and even — in the ultimate of absurd scapegoating — on New Orleans’ gay community) has also opened the eyes of many who don’t normally follow politics to the venality and gross incompetence of Republican governance.
But hoping for the public at long last to recognize that this is at heart an immoral tactic by Republican politicians, isn’t sufficient. We need to be reminding people everyday that the Republican Party is the party of blame anyone but us. Because, as this last week has shown, Republicans aren’t going to stop doing it on their own:
In an address Monday at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, President Bush accused war critics of “playing politics with this issue and … sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy.”
Jeff Greenfield: . . .
But, clearly, in Pennsylvania and again [in Alaska], the President is really trying to turn the tables and say, it’s you Democrats who are partly responsible for the uncertainty out in the land.
I think, by the way, it’s also a way to say, that that’s why my poll numbers are going down. It’s because Democrats are misleading people about the history.
