Again, let’s be honest with ourselves. Racism is one of the key building blocks of Republican politics in the United States. Don’t look at me with a straight face and tell me you don’t realize that’s true. That doesn’t mean that all Republicans are racists. Far from it. It doesn’t mean that a lot of Republicans don’t wish the stain wasn’t part of their party’s recent political heritage. They do. But racism and race-baiting is the hold card Republicans take into every election. When times are good, guys like Mehlman ‘reach out’ to blacks and Latinos to try to take the edge off their opposition to the Republican officeholders. But when things get rough the card gets played. And pretty much every time.
For those who are not up to speed about what this is all about, in the Senate race between Harold Ford (Democrat, who is black) and Bob Corker (Republican, white) in Tennessee, the Republican National Committee put out a race-baiting television ad. The Corker campaign then put out a radio spot where items about Ford were backgrounded with “jungle drums.” In both cases, it is clear that the ads were appealing to racist stereotypes and the racist legacy of the South in order to try to save this Senate seat for the Republicans.
This isn’t news to me. I’ve written about the Republicans’ dirty little secret on many occasions. But that doesn’t make it any less despicable when they drop down to that level again.
Corker will probably win this campaign because of his racist message, although it is my hope that the good people of Tennessee will see the garbage that this is and reject it - and him. And that very well may allow the Republicans to hold onto the Senate. A fact which should make every member of the party of Lincoln ashamed of the role that they have given to racism in their party.
And don’t EVEN get me started about Rush Limbaugh making fun of Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease.
The fact is, the modern Republican party has repudiated all of its values in order to win elections. For their sake, as well as our own, we owe it to them to send them home from Washington so they can re-think that position.
