(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Dedicated to Chris Matthews and his handwringing over the McCain campaign’s last, desperate attempt to win through fear and smear.
It happens at the drop of a hat, when you least expect it from folks you’d normally think are just better than to utter the phrase.
And then it comes. “I’m not a racist, but…”
And when you hear it you instinctively hold onto whatever chair you’re sitting in and prepare yourself for the worst and wackiest of racist rhetoric ever to cross another human’s lips. And the folks who utter this phrase are the ones the McCain campaign is trying to appeal to, with the drumbeat of Ayers and Obama’s middle name and all the nonsense they’ve been throwing the last few days.
The only problem is it’s not working, and it probably won’t work moving forward.
Why?
Well, reason #1 is the economy, certainly. Folks really don’t care what some guy’s middle name is or who he “pals around with” when they can’t put gas in the car and make the mortgage payment.
But the economy aside, the second reason why this strategy is failing is a more subtle one, and it deals with who these folks are. Let’s focus on the first part of that infamous phrase: “I’m not a racist”. This isn’t just a justification for the next utterance, but it is also a statement on how these folks identify themselves. “I’m not a racist”. These folks aren’t Klan members, they don’t burn crosses on lawns. They don’t commit acts of violence against minorities and they think – now – that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pretty good guy.
The problem for the McCain/Palin folks is they drove right past the suburb of soft bigotry and straight on into downtown racism because honestly, they don’t get it. They didn’t have a roadmap walking into the conversation on race. They don’t understand that there still are folks who have a very real, and very deep, racial animosity that can almost take over their personas. We’ve been seeing them come out of the woodwork at McCain and Palin rallies. We’ve heard the reports of “Kill Him!” and “Treason!” being shouted by random members of their audience when Obama’s name is referenced.
And by now, pretty much all of us have seen this:
See, the problem for the McCain folks is these aren’t the “I’m not a racist, but…” people. These are the racists. They own it. They’re proud of it. And they’re indignant that you’re trying to question them on it.
And if John McCain and Sarah Palin start to become linked to these folks – if they continue the fear and smear and don’t start correcting random taunts of “kill him!” at their rallies – they’ll lose the slice of the American electorate that this whole exercize is geared toward. So far, they’ve sent no signals that I can see that show they’re changing course.
Everyone wants to back the winner. The good guy. And no one wants to assocaite with racists but the folks for whom that emotion is the cause of their lives.
Right now, in Election Movie 08, the script is heading toward Obama winning, and McCain losing while appealing to the worst instincts of human nature. If McCain can’t flip that script this race is over, he may as well spend his time planning out his Saturday naps from now til the New Year.
Having one’s name becoming associated with racism isn’t a winning strategy for flipping that script. Let’s hope that lesson gets learned in three weeks.
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don’t even need to be written 😉
So, I’m an election judge and I have to call the other judges in my precinct to see if they can make it on Nov 4. Well, they all can make it but 2 judges haven’t passed the certification test. (You are allowed to miss 14 questions!) Guess which party these two judges represent? First two guess don’t count.
Seriously, they were the Republican judges!!!!!
article in the Times Online by Martin Fletcher titled Chicago South Siders don’t believe Obama will lead US. It summarizes both the hopes and fears of African Americans about this presidential race.
Palin and McCain are being recklessly and dangerously irresponsible with the deliberately inciteful language they purposefully use at their rallies.
How do they continue to keep getting away with this? When does it become the equivalent of shouting “Fire” in a Crowded Theater while knowing that there is no fire? When does the speech become “reckless or malicious speech”? IMHO, it’s getting to that point and I’d be relieved to see the Secret Service come down hard on them for it. Unfortunately, the hate-talk goons have paved the way for allowing speech that could present a “clear and present danger” to the targets of the venomous speech.
Palin & McCain deny any personal responsibility for the actions that people in a crowd will take as a result of their planned and deliberately inflammatory speech. But whether they want to admit it or not, their hate-talk is reckless. They have no way of knowing that people won’t be incited to harmful acts because of their deliberate fearmongering. Only people who value winning more than they value the good of the country, and people who have no ethics or honor whatsoever, would continue to provoke people who, by their shouted responses to Palin’s lies, have shown they aren’t entirely mentally stable.
the women speaking really depress me. It’s interesting to hear and see the actual people speaking. Now I know who the hard core percentage that supports McCain/Palin are, the video puts a face on the demographics. Politicians who court this segment and the media that acts like it’s a legitimate strategy to court them by fanning the worst and most hateful of the culture, need to stop this. For the last decade this demographic has held the rest of the country in it’s hateful, ignorant clutches. The corporate media and the pols have pandered to it and feed it. Here’s hoping that reality which is now crashing on everyone’s head, relegates these people to the fringe where they belong.
1. I would love to figure out a way to respond to people who abruptly end discussions on the deleterious (love that word) effects of racism with, “Everyone is a racist.” All the answers that I’ve come up with so far allow that idea to become the issue under discussion.
2. Don’t forget, folks, who owns the voting machines. Be vigilant.