I don’t get the Republican sense of humor. It’s not just that I am not amused by their jokes. It’s that I can’t really determine where the snark begins and the sarcasm ends. Victor Davis Hanson’s NRO piece on winning the Latino vote is clearly tongue-in-cheek, except when it isn’t. If his intent were to make fun of Republicans’ views on race relations, his piece would actually be kind of clever, but that is not his intent at all. He’s making fun of the very idea of trying to reach out to Latinos.
My favorite part of his column is the the section that mocks the president for acting black like two times in his first term and then protests all the left’s false accusations of racism.
The Obama administration’s four-year barrage of “my people,” “punish our enemies,” “a nation of cowards,” the Skip Gates pontification, the Trayvon Martin if-I-had-a-son line, Eric Holder’s charges of racism over the Fast and Furious investigation, the whites-in-Hell slurs from Joseph Lowery, who gave the benediction at Obama’s inauguration in 2008, the hyphenated campaign committees, the executive orders, Sandra Fluke, the constant charges of racism by the liberal media, the weekly outraged Black Caucus — all of that insidiously created a climate of socially acceptable anti-old-white-guy feeling that anyone not of that suspect group could buy into — and anyone of that unfortunate group could buy out of by loudly proclaiming his support for Obama.
Is this not a model for capturing more of the Latino vote?
I’ll let Latinos decide if Mr. Hanson’s profile of the Latino community is racist or just hopelessly unfunny. But I am confident that the GOP won’t be winning any more Latino votes if they follow Hanson’s example.
