The Glory of White-Wing Politics

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress … but then, I repeat myself.” -Mark Twain

Much has been written – argued heatedly by ideological TV pundits – over the past several years about the inability of members of Congress to agree on anything. Republicans stomp around like elephants in a china closet, shouting, “No! No! Hell No!” no matter what legislation comes before them. Democrats, in a timid effort to reach across the aisle, stumble and fall down, where they just sit, plaintively begging, “Please don’t hurt me …”

Both parties are adrift, cut loose from their moorings – in total disarray. Much of the chaos is a result of the previous administration lighting a myriad of fuses before slinking into the shadows, setting off a string of political and financial explosions designed to blow this republic all to hell. What they failed to consider – and what the bumbling members of Congress have yet to realize is – when the ship of state sinks, everybody on board is going down with it.

Which appears to be what the race-baiting Rush Limbaugh, the self-appointed “leader” of the Republican Party, is feverishly attempting to provoke. Anybody who doubts that Limbaugh hasn’t been in racist meltdown since 2007 when it became obvious that Barack Obama was a threat to white-wing Limbaughesque “values” just hasn’t been paying attention. Throughout the campaign – from constantly airing the insulting “Barack, the Magic Negro” jingle to calling Obama and actress Halle Berry “Halfrican-Americans,” to accusing Obama of “disowning his white half and deciding to go all in on the black side” – Limbaugh led the pack.

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And he still does. Republicans are united in support of the “I Hope He Fails” Limbaugh Doctrine, which El Rushbo announced as millions of relieved – even giddy – Americans gathered at the nation’s capitol for Obama’s inauguration. Just a day later, Limbaugh hit the racist trail, telling Fox’s Sean Hannity:

“[r]acism in this country is the exclusive province of the left. We’re witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We’re being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles. Bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president. We’ve got to accept this. The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign. So I think they’ve done a great job, the media has, of covering up his deficiencies.”

So, it’s all the Democrats’ fault. The Democrats are militantly racist. If we buy into Limbaugh’s rationale, none of his hateful, cruel, racist remarks would have been necessary if the Democrats hadn’t selected a Halfrican-American who threw his grandma under the bus and then backed over her before going over to the black side as their candidate for president. On his October 12, 2009, show, Limbaugh explained just how innocent and colorblind he is:

“I’m interested in people’s hearts and their souls, because that’s what animates us as human beings. Not our skin color. I’m colorblind. I have reached the point where everybody professes we need to go. I treat everybody equally. Nobody is – in the political arena – I don’t care. Male, female, black, white, gay, straight, bisexual. If you are opposed to the things I think are great for the country, I’m going to say so. I’m going to criticize you. Not because of whatever it is distinguishes you from me on a surface basis, but because of ideas. I’m just a lone guy here, in the arena of ideas, sharing mine.”

The Democrats quake with fear at the thought of being labeled racist. When Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their January 2009 book, “Game Change,” wrote that, during the campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was delighted that Obama was the Democratic presidential candidate, and had said privately that “Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his ‘light-skinned’ appearance and speaking patterns ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,'” all hell broke loose.

Reid immediately apologized to the media, to “any and all Americans,” and personally called President Obama, as well as “House Democrats Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Barbara Lee of California; the Rev. Al Sharpton; CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; NAACP chairman Julian Bond; and the head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Wade Henderson.”

If there is evidence of Limbaugh or any of his white-wing cohorts in the media, in Congress or in the dangerously leaderless, out-of-control tea-bagging movement offering even the semblance of an apology for their hateful rhetoric, I am unaware of it. Just recently, on July 2, Limbaugh was in full, bouncing racist fervor. According to Media Matters:

Rush stated that President Obama is “no different than Castro, in the sense that neither will be stopped by a governing document.” He also asserted that “[w]e are not a Third World country here, putting up shacks and huts like the president’s brother lives in.” And if that wasn’t bad enough, Rush “speculate[d]” that Michelle Obama did not attend the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s funeral because of her “authentic slave blood.”

Is anybody, other than a bunch of dittoheads or his obedient followers in Congress, listening to this guy? As if we didn’t have history to remind us, racism rots the soul of a nation, and the upheaval in Congress has its roots in racism.

This is about so much more than destroying one man, or even one party. Americans – not just Democrats – must find the courage to shout, “No! No! Hell No!” to the destruction planned for this republic. Unless we stand up, shake ourselves off and dare to fight back, the evil glory of white-wing Politics will devour us.

We have no choice. Because this ship is going down.