"Racism" Through Republican Eyes

It's all against whites. Not that all Republicans are racists, but it's a strong element of the party's electoral strategy, and has been for decades. (Sorry, but the Southern Strategy was not a myth.) Dday has some comments on the new, improved version:

It takes a special dementia and a deep-seated sense of aggrievement to come up with this statement:

On the June 2 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, Rush Limbaugh asserted that the Democratic Party was "go[ing] with a veritable rookie whose only chance of winning is that he's black."

I think we can take a look at the 230-year record of African-Americans in the electoral arena and make a decent judgment on this one. But this is standard-issue Nixonland backlash stuff. "The blacks" get the jobs, the government handouts, the special treatment, and now they're being handed the Presidency. That's the particular view of the world that Limbaugh is endorsing here. The Republican Party, demoralized and frustrated, is hoping to rile up the country with an identity politics-based campaign intended to speak to white people as a captive, persecuted minority against the big, bad un-American black majority waiting to install themselves in the White House and send every Caucasian to a re-education camp.

That's one reason I have been less than assured that Obama will sweep into the White House: no matter what people are telling the pollsters, once in that booth they're going to vote their prejudices. In fact, the Republicans will do everything they can to insure that people vote their prejudices. That's their only hope.

I would really like to have more confidence in the American people than that, but when it comes right down to it, we're no better and no worse than anyone else, and as we've seen in more than one primary so far, skin color outweighs any other consideration in some minds. Of course, it doesn't help that so many elements of the right wing are doing everything in their power to insure that race is a major issue, and that the electorate remains as ill-informed as possible -- and this includes first and foremost the press. That comment of Limbaugh's above is no more than you expect from him, and actually somewhat mild, all things considered, but you can bet the media will milk it and similar remarks for every ratings point to be gotten out of them. (Really -- what do you think passes for integrity in a press establishment that considers Matt Drudge to be required reading?)

And speaking of the press, Digby has an astute take on that whole mare's nest:

That's an interesting way of looking at it, don't you think? Americans have been more apt to call themselves Democrats than Republicans for decades, and the fact that Democrats have gained nearly ten points in just four years means the country is --- still center right. Isn't it always?

There is a lot of interesting information in this article. Some of it is even correct. But the facts recounted in it aren't as important as the conclusions which will, in my view, be the ones that dominate the media's coverage starting tomorrow.

Depressing, but more than likely accurate. Just think about Scott McClellan.