I saw John McCain tell David Letterman the other night that the people causing problems at his rallies are just a few fringe nuts, and that every political rally has a few of those. Fair enough, it’s true that politics attracts some rather extreme people. Most of the people attending McCain-Palin rallies are probably decent people, right? Most of them would never call Barack Obama a terrorist, compare him to terrorists, make racist remarks, or threaten violence. Right? Maybe so. But I want you to take a look at this video from Johnstown, Pennsylvania in John Murtha’s district.
Now, I know that watching that was really unpleasant. But I want you to think about something. Let’s say that you’re a regular Republican that doesn’t hold any racial animus, doesn’t think Barack Obama is a terrorist or even a Muslim. Would you stand in that line with all those other people? Wouldn’t you pretty much be forced to conclude that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the McCain-Palin movement and the people it attracts? There are cameras there. Do you want you and your family to be caught on film in the middle of that crowd? What would your employer think? What about your friends? Your mom?
Even if I were raised as a Republican, believing in smaller government, social conservatism, and a strong defense, I’d be horrified by the attitude of the people in that line and I’d be forced to disassociate myself, and leave.
I don’t think you can describe that mob in Johnstown as a few nuts. Maybe they don’t constitute the majority of rally-goers, but they’re more than a small minority. And they’re badly misinformed and full of hate. Who misinformed them and stirred up their hate? Do you want to be associated with the people that are responsible for this?
I’m just saying…when you put a McCain-Palin sign in your front-yard, you’re basically saying you don’t mind being associated with a movement as ugly as any we’ve seen since the Civil Rights era. Fairly or not, you’re sending the signal that you are filled with hate. That’s what the McCain-Palin ticket has descended to, and it’s shocking.
I disagree with you only to the extent that I don’t find it shocking. I’ve been hearing this same type of ignorant, misinformed crap from conservative friends, neighbors and relatives for years. Palin and McCain have brought it to the surface, but it’s been there for decades.
What I find shocking is not that this sentiment exists, but that it is being expressed by supporters of one of the two major parties. I’d expect this a third-party rally for someone like Tom Tancredo. But it’s always been fringe behavior in the recent past. I think this is going to drive more and more Republicans away from the party.
Boo, it’s a black man running for President. What did you expect? After they called Kerry a traitor and he’s a white war hero, I’m not surprised by anything.
I have a low opinion of Reagan and a lower opinion of Poppy Bush. I profoundly disagreed with Bob Dole. And I absolutely detest Dubya. But I can’t imagine any of them letting their rallies get this out of hand. I know what they did to Kerry and Dukakis and what they did to Clinton. But I’m still amazed to see the Republican Party turned into a National Front group. It’s not good.
“The lunatics are now running the asylum.”
I can’t think of a better way to describe what the Republican party has become.
Bush didn’t have too.
But he ran robocalls telling us that Kerry was going to get us all killed. He had the same voter fraud allegations. The GOP in 2004 made us all fear the gay, remember, with all those anti-gay marriage referendums on the ballot.
And yes, he would have let his rallies get this out of hand if he were losing badly to a black man. He had the same advisers McCain has now for all intents and purposes.
Very true. But now it all goes on display in a way that it did not four years ago, and no one can pretend that they didn’t know how evil–and how truly small–they really are.
It’s kind of like taking the lid of segregation, though I don’t want to extend the analogy too far. People knew what was going on, and as long as they didn’t have pictures, they could be lulled into believing the bullshit from the Richard Russells, et al, that everything was harmonious and the horror stories were from a few instigators stirring up shit.
But when you have pure, unmitigated hate just oozing from the television screen, it forces the mind–and forces your hand. You will either be associated with it or you will not.
Either way, you can no longer pretend that you “just didn’t know.”
None of the Republicans on my road have McCain signs this year. They have lawn signs for other Republican candidates but not McCain/Palin. In 2000 and 2004 these same people had Bush/Cheney signs displayed very prominently in front of their homes, but this year is different. I like to think they are ashamed.
How could they not be, unless there is something wrong with them?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-western-pennsylvania.html
So maybe there’s a little hope for that part of the world after all.
And if anybody would like to come down to Houston and help us turn it blue — making it like Philly is to the rest of Pennsylvania — we’d sure love ta have ya.
We got plenty more crackers than y’all to convince.
yeah, I did see it. It’s almost amusing. Almost.
Ever wonder what JC Watts thinks of McCain-Palin spreading this hate? The Republican Big Tent is now the Republican Short Tent, in the Short Tent it should say Whites Only–because if you hate by the color of one’s skin tone–then you hate everyone who has that skin tone.
Just like with liberals, I’m sure there’s an element of Republicans who have the, “You’re a credit to your race” mentality. Lord knows I have to deal with that crap from liberals all the time and I have seen conservatives state, “But s/he’s not like other black people.” It’s how they can praise Juan Williams or Alan Keyes, but call Cynthia McKinney nuts. Oh oops, liberals do that too.
My husband, teenage son, and I went to a local restaurant last night. We were seated next to a table with three adults. They were openly and loudly discussing McCain and Palin and what a great team they made, and how awful Obama is. They were rattling off talking point after talking point, like some sort of hyper McCain commercial.
I looked at my husband and said, “Maybe we should have requested the “No Stupid Republican” section.
All the things they were saying were the same crap spewing from the crowds at McCain rallies. “Muslim this, Ayers that, taxes, taxes, taxes”. These idiots need to actually do a little reading or watch a whole debate to see what is really going on. But that would require some brains.
Obama said the other day that if it weren’t for Fox News, he’d probably be another 2-3% ahead in the polls. I don’t watch them, and in fact have taken them out of my cable lineup so I can’t possibly watch them, but apparently Faux Noise has gone all Ayers, all ACORN, all Muslim and all terrorist 24/7.
I am really, really, really hoping that under an Obama administration that network withers and dies.
In the early seventies when I was in the army I was a race relations specialist. The Vietnam war had been a failure, and on bases around the world the different racial groups were at each other’s throats. The army was smart enough to know that they weren’t going to win any wars with troops fight with each other.
One thing that I found was that many of the people in our classes, who may have been very bigoted, could at least admit that their racism was irrational, and that they could understand that a black man or a Puerto Rican or a Native American wanted the same as he wanted. That is, the same person could have both racist feelings and could logically understand that it was wrong at another level.
As profound as the racism was back then, the fact that the army, such a conservative institution, recognized the problem and tried to ameliorate the situation, realized the necessity of changing people’s hearts, gave me hope.
What the Republican Party is doing now is making racism okay. Public displays of racism are just fine. It helps to fire up the base. To answer the question, no, they have no decency.
But what we have here is a desperate Presidential campaign encouraging the worst in public discourse: racism, calls of treason, anything that distracts from the utter failure of eight years of Republicanism. Think about how we talk about our election. It’s not close enough for the Republicans to steal it!
Anyone who thinks that McCain is honorable is a fool. The entire corrupt party is closer to the fascists and Nazis than to even the party of Nixon. One can only hope that enough people repudiate them so that the current class of racist politicians go back to hiding under their hoods.