And, to Be Fair, Also Greed
by M.J. Rosenberg
I have come to a 'not so startling' conclusion. It is that the right in this country is almost entirely driven by racism and always has been.
From years of reading and watching Republicans it becomes obvious that their hatred of big government (welfare!) derives from the fact they associate it with helping African Americans.
It is not that they don't know that most "welfare" recipients are, in fact, white, it is just that so long as any black people are receiving help, they hate the whole idea of it.
The same with Obamacare, raising the minimum wage, labor unions, and all the other social programs that drive them up the wall. The deadly infatuation with guns, necessary to put down slave rebellions or defend against black kids in hoodies, is part of this same phenomenon.
The Republican party is driven by racism. In 1964, the solid Democratic south became the solid Republican south over one issue: civil rights. It took only five months.
LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in July 1964. In November 1964, Barry Goldwater, the first far right Republican nominee and a senator who voted against the bill, carried the south. He also carried many white ethnic enclaves in the big northern cities that had previously voted overwhelmingly for Democrats and adored FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ (until LBJ endorsed civil rights).
Nothing has changed since. The former slave states are solidly Republican and so are those northern whites now called "Reagan Democrats."
This is not to say that there are no non-racist Republicans who prefer small government for reasons other than race (like preferring to look out for themselves and not their neighbors) but those people are now a small part of the GOP.
There are also the Bible thumpers, the NRA, homophobes, anti-abortion fanatics, Islamohaters, immigrant bashers, etc. But the main issue that drives the right (including driving it crazy) is race.
So long as the Democratic party is the party of African Americans, they will vote Republican. (There are also those few Jews who vote Republican because their hearts are on the West Bank not here, but luckily there are only a few of them.)
I know that none of this is revolutionary. It's just that the media pretends that these obvious facts are not true, just as it pretends that most of the virulent hatred of the president is not driven by his skin color.
The good news is that demography is killing the racist GOP coalition, hence the GOP's strategy of voter suppression to keep blacks, Latinos and Jews in Florida from voting. I think its last hurrah will take place this November but that the GOP will be crushed in the presidential election of 2016, hopefully by a large enough margin that they will go the way of the Whigs. (A guy can dream.)
What does this have to do with my usual subject, Israel? Not much except this. It is not only "shared democratic values" that Israel and the United States have in common. It is also widespread racism, religious extremism, and politics built on hate of "the other."
Those who condemn Israel as if America is not still a racist country, and one in which one of the two major parties is not all about white supremacy, is unfair. When it comes to racism, we are still #1.
Nonetheless, I'd rather live here than anywhere else on the planet. But, hey, I'm white. America has never been America for black people.
POSTSCRIPT: Best piece of evidence of what the GOP is all about. In 1980, Saint Ronald Reagan delivered his first speech after receiving the GOP nomination in Philadelphia. No, not Philadelphia, PA. but in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a tiny town known for only one thing. It was the site of the lynching of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner. St. Ronald spoke about "states rights." Read about it here.
- See more at: http://mwcnews.net/focus/politics/41048-racism.html#sthash.fWlEHO1X.dpuf
