I guess my first question is why Washington State’s Snohomish County Republicans asked former congressman Allen West to be the feature attraction at their annual Lincoln Day dinner. I mean, I get the whole Lincoln Day=find a black guy thing, and I know that the bench is pretty empty once you get past Clarence Thomas, but Allen West is not only insane, he’s intemperate and nasty.
Of course, West made some news by ruminating on the enthusiasm with which Seattle Seahawks fans root on their team. Why root for your local football team but not root for America (fuck yeah)?
For that matter, why root for the University of Washington’s sport teams if you’re basically more interested in perpetuating failure and dependency than success, amirite?
This is the kind of deep and delusional thinking that gets you invited to address Snohomish Republicans on Lincoln Day.
“Why is it that here in Seattle you have the loudest, I mean the loudest, fans in the National Football League?” West asked.
“You want to win, right? Why is it that you’re one of the most liberal cities in the United States? This is the juxtaposition. Why is it that you go to a game and you cheer for your own team to win, but yet you don’t cheer for your own city, you don’t cheer for your own country, to win?”
…“Why is it that you want to relegate (sic) the individuals on the football field to success, to score a touchdown, but yet you would rather have people in your city, in your state, in your country sit on the sidelines and wait for somebody to go out and score a touchdown for them?” West asked.
“How dare you scream and cheer here on a Saturday or a Sunday at the UW stadium or there in CenturyLink stadium and then when it comes to Monday through Friday, you’re not cheering? You’re seeking every single way that you don’t create victors, you’re creating victims. That’s the incredible perplexion (sic) that we see.”
“That’s the incredible perplexion (sic) that we see. Every single inner city where you have an NFL team people are going out and cheering for success, but when they go on Monday they’re not cheering for success.
“That’s what you should be talking about. See it comes down to this: Do we want to have a state of productivity or do we want to have a welfare state.”
The first reason this nonsense is stupid is, of course, that Seattle and Washington State are doing just fine and better than average on the employment front. But I don’t want to argue about West’s meritless speech. What I want to discuss is this:
As has been the case lately at Lincoln Day dinners, a viable prospective Republican candidate for Governor — Seattle Port Commissioner Bill Bryant — played second fiddle at Friday night’s dinner.
He did, too, in Yakima earlier this month, with radio talker David Boze the keynote speaker.
There is the problem.
That’s it.
The Republican base wants to listen to lunatics, so that’s who gets to keynote their county dinners. The Port Commissioner cools his heels while the entertainment talks.
This is the key to understanding the larger picture of what’s gone wrong with the Party of Lincoln. They’d rather celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s legacy by flying a token black guy 3,000 miles so he can insult their city and state than listen to the ideas of the person who might make a serious run at the governorship.
That right there is some powerful stupid. I hear the “Patriots” play in a deeply unpatriotic place, too.
To be fair, it’s probably best if West gets the headlines. Bill Bryant hasn’t had a very good month, either.
Given the choice between policy speeches by people who might be in a position to govern and listening to stupidity masquerading as entertainment, it’s clear from their choice that Republicans are very unserious people.
There’s no equivalent to Sarah Palin or Mike Pence in the Democratic Party. Or Dan Quayle, George Bush, etc.
It’s the intersection of willful ignorance, laziness, and negligence. Right where they want to be.
i’d add greed, sanctimony, hypocrisy, immaturity, cowardice, narcissism, tribalism, bigotry, sociopathy and petty vindictiveness to that list …
Yes, it’s true. Republicans are awful people and we are all righteously indignant at their willful hateful ignorance and generally nasty demeanor.
Is this what our politics has become? The bloggers write post after post complaining and pointing fingers at the awful radical republicans. Only the democrats can save us all from GOP oppression and hatred. Whatever. I’ll vote for democrats just like I always do. Not that it will do any good.
But I will be content to watch the radical GOP suck this horrible awful country down the rathole of silliness should they win. Heck, I sort of hope they do win. I’ll be fine either way because politics in america today is a meaningless exercise in tribalism and posturing with the only effect being to reinforce the status quo. And honestly, the status quo is fine with me.
I absolutely loathe Republicans who iift that phrase from Newt Gingrich’s playbook, “the welfare state.” It’s laughable. It’s a term used to describe post WWII Britain, at least until Thatcher, not America by any means. The benefits lavished on citizens of the UK, were far in excess of anything that Americans ever dreamed of enjoying.
I’ve worked alongside British expats for the last 30 years, and I have Anglo Irish cousins to fill in the details with how supported they were growing up by their government, and by extension, their fellow citizens. Talk about a real security net. Most of their university education was paid for. They received generous housing stipends as college students, and they always had the security of popping into any clinic or hospital with a national healthcare card. When the expats I know returned home from their overseas postings with the intention of doing graduate school work (usually a master’s degree is complete in just one year with intensive, state supported study), and then returning to Asia with good credentials in tow, the usual price tag for their coursework was around three thousand dollars in tuition costs in the late 90’s and early aughts. Their ranks fill the university faculties in places like Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Arab states, while Canadians, Australians, and Americans are at a somewhat unfair disadvantage as it takes about two years to complete a master’s degree at 25,000 dollars each year in tuition costs not including housing, and this prolongs the process. In many cases, opportunities are lost because we’re out of the job market for two to three years on a slow track towards financing our graduate degrees.
Tax brackets upwards of 98% were common in the 1960’s for England’s wealthy. George Harrison’s “Taxman” comes to mind, and this is why the Rolling Stones and Phil Collins have Swiss residency status that allows them only a few months of being back in Blighty each year.
In short, the Repulsive Reprehensible Republicans have no business grafting that phrase from the Brits. Americans never enjoyed cradle to the grave security offered by a true welfare state. Ghosts of Gingrich! (give it a rest)
There is a word for Allen West’s act before predominately racist white people. “Minstrelsy” comes close but does quite get the bitter edge of the war criminal. And West, remember, is a war criminal. Thus the hyperpatriotism.
I believe the appropriate phrase was “Slave-catching coon” but I could be mistaken…
I’ll accept your judgement on this one. But is he actually catching any? All of the flies he seems to be drawing with his stink seem to be white bigots trying to wrap themselves in the flag and quoting the Bible.
No.
The black political community has matured significantly since the turn of the millennium. Identity politics still plays a significant part, but there is a realization that being black does not automatically make you “good for the blacks”.
Case in point: Artur Davis in Alabama became the first black gubernatorial candidate since Reconstruction … and the first black candidate in Alabama history to lose the black vote to a white opponent. Side note: he was an asshole and deserved it.
So no, being black does not assure of a black positive response. The identity politics only really works for white people these days.
That’s why I say that no Americans are more politically pragmatic than African-Americans.
Try Hispanic Americans.
The Hispanic community has long history of independent thinking, politically. Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Hondurans, Mexicans, Brazilians and Columbians are distinct and exact in their politics. There is little correspondence between mainstream Cuban and Mexican political messages. Not much more between Cuban and Puerto Rican.
Ted Cruz is not a mistake … either in Texas or Cuban Politics.
While I agree with every words penned here, maybe we should also address the Jackson part of the Democrats annual Jefferson-Jackson dinners. Two completely different issues, granted, but while we’re on the subject it deserves mentioning.
yeah.
Let us not miss a chance for “both sides do it”.
Not quite a “both sides do it” thing so much as an acknowledgement that Jackson was an m/f’er who we might not want to celebrate, and the idea occurred to me thinking about the GOP annual celebration.
Surprised that Snohomish County invited West. I would have figured Skagit was more his speed.
I was just thinking that! Skagit not only has a stronghold of R’s but is hometurf to Beck even though he did go to B’ham’s Sehome High.
West is the warmup act, so to speak. Anything that follows would gain in stature.
Yes folks even here in the great Evergreen state the TP/GOP are all mentally challenged to say the least. The more extremely prejudice an issue is the more they love it. This shows to all no where are you save from these TP/GOP fanatics. Vancouver, Washington here.