This is a night of redemption for the politics of the Confederate Party. It is their second great redemption, the first one being the election of 1876. Like that election they needed to speak in code to win. Back then it was all about how slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. Now it is all about masking racism in vague economic mumbo-jumbo.
Years ago the Confederate Party maven of code-speaking–Lee Atwater–taught the the gang how to cover up their meaning as they took over the Republican Party:
In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
After America foolishly elected a black man President, the gang had to kick it up a notch. They tried many new ways of screaming ‘nigger’ from socialist to screaming “I want my country back”.
But of all the undercover code words to scream ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger’, the best is “Center Right Nation”. All that really mens when decoded is “White Nation” and that is what tonight’s Confederate Party gains were all about. It is a story about the white supremacy movement in America reasserting itself.
Some will of course disagree–as pointing out the deep racism of this neo-Confederate movement is considered extremely rude–especially with the pundit gasbag class. So many feel that one must respect proper decorum when our Confederate ‘betters’ discuss their racism in code, but fuck that.
I sorta wish they had the balls to ditch the code and go with their heart, but Lee Atwater and generations of Confederate code talkers have taught them well. The next two years are going to be really special and if we want to understand the newly elected Republicans we will just have to learn the code.
Perhaps we need a new tag: “Center White Nation”.
Cheers
denge
Comrade Luke
Booman pointed out that nearly all of the losses were in areas where there weren’t a substantial number of racial minorities, and that the Obama is a Muslim meme is what did it.
It does make some sense, but it’s not a fun thing to think about.
Violet
Yes, please.
Ross Hershberger
Just got off work and dropped in to say:
Fuck it. Bring it on, right wing crazies. You won a battle, but the war is long.
freelancer
In the latest WTF podcast with Marc Maron, he interviews Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys director and Eastbound and Down producer Adam McKay. The conversation gets highly political and sparked major interest on my part, when McKay reveals that one of his upcoming projects is a shock comedy based on Lee Atwater. It’s definitely worth a listen.
General Stuck
dude, we are so on the same wavelength. The new confederates are going to be full of themselves, and the GOP distillation to the elemental Dixie republican, will make even Mitch McConnell seem moderate. The old guard goopers will not be able to contain them, and we are going to progressively see the onion peeled to the core of white supremacy in this country, exposing it’s racist underbelly, code or not. The only question is how will the well scrubbed white folk outside the south will react.
Dennis G.
@Ross Hershberger:
Exactly.
The key now is to call them are their shit. Make them give up the fucking code and explain it. The real problem in their book is that Obama is black. Let’s go there and have them defend it–it is their main objection and it would be good to force them to explain it.
Cheers
Church Lady
Bitter much?
Comrade Luke
@Dennis G.:
Oh.
Really?
We’re fucked.
Cris
Fuck you.
James E. Powell
All that really means when decoded is “White Nation” and that is what tonight’s Confederate Party gains were all about. It is a story about the white supremacy movement in America reasserting itself.
Exactly. But anyone who says that out loud is immediately denounced as crazy, as the ‘real racist,’ as a person who is not going to be invited back on the talk shows.
The only thing more common than evidence of racism in America is people denying racism.
morzer
I think this election was the Solid South saying:
“I can haz white ass-hats also too”.
For my money, this is the dying GOP’s last big spasm before slumping to the ground. They won’t get much to show for the rage and big talk in the next two years, demographically the odds will tilt a little further against them, and we seem to be holding onto the Hispanics in the key south-western states. We lost out because the economy sucked, the kids didn’t show up at the polls, as per norm, and because the Democrats haven’t sold their policies very effectively. All things considered, the GOP haven’t made the best use of their chance, haven’t got the Senate, and don’t have a serious candidate for 2012, so our odds of cutting them down in that year still look good to me.
azlib
I have no doubt that racism and Southern victimhood played a part in this election cycle in the South. I still claim it was mostly the “economy stupid” which created an environment where fear and envy could be stoked for maximum advantage.
Coded racism can make a difference at the margins or in specific districts, but I still claim it was overwhelmed by the bleak economy.
Ross Hershberger
The Right wants to ‘take America back’ but they have no plan what to do with it. Governing isn’t their goal. Just the taking. And they only really want to take it because of who ‘has’ it now: liberals led by a black man.
That’s what it boils down to. They feel someone unworthy is in power and it infuriates them.
Violet
@Church Lady:
Is that how you talk at your church? Don’t think Jesus would approve: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) is more Jesus’s style.
uila
Dennis, my man! Make with the tag.
Baltimore in the house.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Cris: Guess that answers that question.
Jager
@morzer:
I pray to God Haley Barbour continues to position “hizsefF” as a possibly GOP Presidential candidate in 2012…
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve always thought the so-called Republican revolution in the early ’90s and the ascendancy of the conservative wing of the Democratic party as embodied by Clinton was a result of Jesse Jackson doing so well in the ’88 Democratic presidential nomination.
mikefromArlington
Lol. Just go to Humanevents.com and check their comment sections.
They are openly racists…oh and on politico too.
No hiding it there.
Just Some Fuckhead
How about “Scared White Folks Do Crazy Shit”?
Dennis G.
@James E. Powell:
This:
is spot on. Racism in America is fine as long as we do not talk about it. Us white folk like to pretend that we are all past the recent unpleasantries concerning race in America and get downright grumpy should anybody note the complete bullshit of that point of view. Racism in America is fine. Mentioning that it exists is what freaks folks out and produces white outrage.
Still, it must be pointed out and these neo-Confederate assholes need to drop the code and say what they mean. With a little encouragement, I’m sure they will be happy to come out of the closet and talk about their real motivations.
Cheers
jwb
@morzer: Yes, the great irony is that if Goopers had acted sane for the past two years, they would have almost certainly done better and they would be in a better position for the future. Now they have one house, a lot of hate and no plan except the usual tax cuts and ponies.
Dennis G.
@Violet:
I think the CL worships the FSM’s evil spock twin and that explains her comments. Poor deluded gal.
A Thousand Faces
@azlib:
If you don’t understand that latent racism has been the bedrock upon which this whole “movement” has rested, then you fundamentally do not understand America.
Comrade Luke
I don’t know why anyone would think that the GOP is even in decline at this point.
You might as well bookmark this so you have something to go back to the next two years:
The Republicans in the House will pass batshit insane bills that will get canned in the Senate or (with any luck, from their perspective) vetoed by the President.
They will then run on the fact that those bills were canned, saying “See? The Democrats don’t act in good faith! Kick them out!” And they’ll win.
I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Obama *not* veto a bill or bills, because Democrats would rather pass the bill than veto it and have Republicans use it against them in ’12.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. GOP sweep in ’12.
Bob Loblaw
This is basically insanely bitter for what is a purely temporary setback that is thoroughly rooted in electoral tradition. But maybe you’ll feel better in the morning…
Comrade Luke
@jwb:
Which they ride to victory every. fucking. time.
jwb
@Dennis G.: On the other hand and to put a bit of a monkey wrench in your schema, what do you think we’d be talking about tonight had Clinton been elected instead of Obama? I have little doubt that we’d be looking more or less at the same election results, and the issues would be more or less the same, except everything would be framed in terms of gender instead of race. Race here is the symptom not the basic cause.
Kryptik
@Comrade Luke:
Yeah. This is the great terrifying seizing fear I have about the future: The idea that the media and general electorate will still reward them for being bat shit insane because ‘nothing’s getting done, and it’s all Obama’s fault, he’s not signing anything, even though it’s all for REAL ‘MERICANS!’ Until I see some kind of sanity in coverage return, I’m expecting even more full metal wingnuttery, and more rewards for being batshit insane, as long as you’re of the right (and I do mean ‘right’) kind of folk. If you’re the left kind of folk, then fuck you dirty fucking liberal hippies, you dont’ fucking belong in this country, teabaggers say so.
morzer
@jwb:
Yes, but the white southern victim caucus is very heavily into the idea of womanly submission. Basically they would have hated HRC because for them only white male Christians ought to vote, own property and speak out in public. It’s just the flip side of their bigotry burger.
frosty
@General Stuck: Based on my understanding of well-scrubbed white folk? Lawyers, professionals, Eagle Scouts, post-graduate degrees and all?
Poorly. Very poorly. They still think they’re part of an honorable Republican Party. They don’t know they’ve been hijacked by the Confederate Party. I have no idea what, if anything, will open their eyes.
Cris
Thank you. It just occurred to me today that the “Obama’s supporters believe in a fantasy” line of thinking is yet another avenue for right-wing projection. The GOP base believe in the god damned underpants gnomes.
Comrade Luke
@Kryptik:
The entire GOP game plan consists of blaming the majority party for everything until they get the majority, then running everything into the ground as fast as they can and becoming the minority again.
What’s so incredibly frustrating is that they win either way, and no one makes them accountable, ever.
Dennis G.
@jwb:
Race was not the subtext of the 1994 election, but it was the subtext of this one. And it will be the subtext of the next Congress.
You can–of course–pretend that this is not the case. After all, it is quite rude among us white folks to admit that race motivates many of us to action and quite often a majority of us. We prefer to think that the entire race question is in the past. Of course it isn’t. You are free to pretend that other factors explain it all and to join in the great white washing of race from the conversation. I call bullshit on that, but I can see how you would be defensive about that. Most of us white folk are.
Cheers
Christin
Well, isn’t this what happens when good people sit back and do nothing? How’s that tired old expression go that we’re all so tired of?
Something about evil prevails because good men do nothing or something? too tired to look it up.
So, turnout is actually small but vocal in midterms.
And the people who sat this out? Because of their tired, whiny, petty, firebagging progressive where’s my pony crap? Or the others who are just to lazy and or apathetic to vote? Let the racist scumbags try to drag America back to the planation where all was good.
I’m not angry at the racist scum who pine for the Confederacy or the good old Jim Crow days. They are horrific pieces of dog shit. Many are old racits who miss the 50’s and 60’s and got theres and hate the rest of the country. They are just walking creepshows who are trying to destroy our future while sucking up the money I’m putting in for them. I’m not angry at their young racist spawn who are full of hate and bile. They are just doing what pieces of shit have been doing since the planet did the big bang. They are garbage, right?
I am angry at the idiots who whined “I’m sitting this out! That’ll teach mean old Obama. ” Screw them. I’m angry at the apathetic idiots who are too lazy to press a button. I’m angry at those who know more about Brad And Angie than they do about who their Senator is. I’m angry that people who should KNOW BETTER let the racist scumbags, lucatics, haters, and morans win. Those are the real idiots in 2010. And I pray to god they get the government the so deserve.
But my heart bleeds and cries for those who will be hurt by the racist scumbags and backwards cavemen who went out and voted for sanity. God that hurts. I say I don’t care, but I do.
But KY, PA, IL et al? My god. You emm effin idiots. I hope you are wearing diapers. You’re about to crap your cowardly, stupid, ignorant dipes for the next two years. And you so deserve it.
General Stuck
@jwb:
It’s all basically a symptom of an innate chasm of difference in basic world view between the south and north that has always existed. But race is the number one symptom and the single biggest trigger for that disease to flare. White supremacy as it has been defined in the past via slavery and the subsequent apartheid, is no longer defined just white versus black, but all minorities, and the reason it has the power that it does right now, is because of what is at stake, and what is causing primal fear amongst white people, even outside the south, is that it involves the assumed birthright by white people for white leadership of the nation. That strikes at the core of a sense of control, and what is different from the obvious progress that has been made in race relations in this country.Or, as the fear goes, once the first man of color gets elected president, it can happen again.
bobbyk
If the unemployment rate were even 6% this would be a democratic blow out. Though I don’t necessarily disagree with your view of how the confederate party operates.
Comrade Luke
@Christin:
Can’t wait to hear Axelrod go up to the podium tomorrow and echo your statements.
Because blaming the voters works so well.
uila
I can’t help thinking that the Democratic leadership has been watching the crazies take over the Republican party, and thinking that makes them well-positioned to pick up the disaffected moderate Republican vote in the future (obviously not this year) not to mention all that sweet corporate cash. So as the GOP becomes the Neo-Confederate Party, the Democrats become the Neo-Republican Party. That’s my biggest fear going forward.
Up next: extend all tax cuts…
Alex
Surely your intellectual abilities admit of **some** type of political analysis that reaches beyond the Civil War/Reconstruction period. #overstretchedanalogies #letthememedie
SiubhanDuinne
Dennis, forgive the somewhat O/T question, but I’d be very interested in your comments about the sudden death of documentary director George Hickenlooper. ISTR that you had some peripheral involvement with his forthcoming film on Abramoff, “Casino Jack.” Strange that when he died he was in Denver to be with his cousin John, now the Governor-elect of Colorado. What a bittersweet night it must be for him.
As to your topic, I think that sooner or later some of the neo-Confederates who were elected tonight are going to start believing that GOP control of the House gives them implicit permission to toss the code book away and just revert to Atwater’s 1954 level of discourse. Hell, Joe Wilson came close last year with “You lie!”
wengler
I don’t want to take a shit in the punchbowl, because the core of this post is absolutely true, but what does the modern Democratic coalition really offer to the white, male, underemployed and unemployed constituency? Racial antagonism is a powerful force, and the Democrats aren’t even willing to scrap the free market madness that has destroyed industrial America and made our workers compete against slaves.
So as these people lose status, they are naturally going to turn to nativism and racism. It’s the same everywhere and very much core to past white American identity.
I mean after hearing about all the great stuff that was going to happen with Obama and the Democratic Congress, we didn’t even get a vote on card check. And without trade barriers to protect our way of life those jobs aren’t coming back to Wisconsin or Ohio or upstate New York no matter who is president.
SiubhanDuinne
F. Y. W. P.
Can’t even quote a movie title without going to moderation. Again I say: F. Y. W. P.
rikyrah
He WILL be impeached for BEING PRESIDENT WHILE BLACK.
period.
General Stuck
@wengler:
Our system of government handed down from the founders is designed purposely to make change slow. It took 30 years for us to get to this fucked up place, and fixing that in two or ten years just isn’t conducive to our system, unless you break the rules in place to do it. Not making excuses, but a lot has been done, and a lot more needs to happen. Pain amongst the populace is the motivator, and this election seems to me a panic response, lurching for quick fixes that don’t exist. And I agree with the lack of forceful and decisive action to reigning in the money grubbers, but money, or the flow of it in one direction, is a bitch to turn around, because it generates it’s own power source to resist change. I think that we are in for a period of deconstruction of living standard in this country that is hard to fathom right now, before people start paying attention and learning what the problems are and the solutions needed to fix them.
Church Lady
@Dennis G.: While you keep thumping your Confederate Party bullshit, the Republicans pretty much ran the table in those famous Confederate outposts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois. They also seem to be moving into a large swathe of New York state north of Manhatten. Just ask Doug. I’m sure he knows a bunch of racists in that area of New York. Some of them are probably his best friends.
How about you look at it like this? Perhaps, just perhaps, a lot of people didn’t like what has been done over the past two to four years. Maybe they were letting some of their elected representatives know that, yes, maybe we really are somewhat of a center right country. Not far right, just a little to the right of center, in most places. After all, only about 20% of the country identifies at “Liberal/Progressive”. Over 40% identify as “Conservative”, with the balance calling themselves “Moderate”. Try taking a look at the New York Times map of today’s Congressional election results. For the most part, it’s a sea of red once you leave the West coast and upper Atlantic. Republicans will now control the majority of governorships. The Democratic Senate majority has been whittled down. Somehow, I don’t think that a huge swath of the country, most of it outside of the South, has suddenly decided to become racist, especially since many of those same places voted for President Obama just two years ago.
If it makes you feel better to blame it all on racism, more power to you. But I think you are wrong.
rageahol
Church Lady @46:
fuck you.
General Stuck
@Church Lady:
Thou doth protest too much, CL.
Comrade Kevin
@Church Lady:
Learn how to read, dumbass.
DonkeyKong
What we are looking at tonight is the reemergence of the American Independent Party of George Wallace (Wallace voters are what Atwater was refering to.)
Over sixty years ago Huberty Humphry spoke these words to the Dixiecrats, the Confederate Party of the day.
Over the course of twenty five years the Democratic Party pushed the States Rights/Dixie Party out of the body politic until it spilled out onto the electoral map as the George Wallace/American Independent Party.
This slithering parasite looked for a host and found a willing one in Richard Nixon greedly squatting low.
The Dixie/Parasite consumed its way through the Republican host and has finally emerged fully in control of its host.
ruemara
All I can take out of this elections is “Fuck Americans. Because They’ve Already Screwed Themselves.” For such a selection of ignorant, bile-spewing nimrods to be elected, nay, even nominated to run for anything but moron who hogs the mic at public comment, screams volumes about the people who voted for them and the people who sat there and allowed them to win. I may be ready for the long war tomorrow, but for tonight, I got my hate on. This was pretty fucking obvious what these asshats would bring, and a goddamn large portion of the country sat back and shrugged.
Mnemosyne
@Church Lady:
Ah, I see you bought into the meme that if Obama was elected, that meant that racism was dead in this country.
I guarantee you that if you go out and talk to some of those ordinary, non-racist Americans who just put the Republicans back in office, they’ll tell you that they did it because the Democrats were giving all of their hard-earned money to Those People. Those Lazy Unemployed People, Those Stupid People whose mortgages went bad.
Then ask yourself: what do they mean by “Those People”? Do you actually think that when they complain about Fannie and Freddie being forced to give mortgages to Those People because of equal housing laws that they’re talking about poor white people? Surely you’re not that naive.
ETA: And why do you think that suddenly people are trying to pass laws to prohibit sharia law? It’s not because there’s been a huge influx of Muslims in those states. It’s because “Muslim” is the new code word for “nigger.”
Malron
We see you, Jon “we just need to be more civil” Stewart, we see you.
Illinois senate race between Mark Kirk and Alexi Giannoulias might have been the most polarized in the nation tonight. Blacks voted 94% for Alexi and only 3% for Cap’n Kirk, but whites voted 63% for Kirk and 34 % for Alexi.
Cerberus
@jwb:
Well yeah, but that’s only because sex and gender are still big parts of this crisis as well, as well as the Confederate Psychosexual Drama. It may get less attention because of how out and out insane the racism has been ratcheted up to, but sexual resentment of women is part of the Teabagger rise to power, from the obsession of castration of phallic objects in the “they’re going to take away your guns” to the stepping up in the anti-choice rhetoric by mainstreaming running against abortions even in the case of rape or incest or straight up running against contraception or masturbation.
There’s been a few good articles on it in the feminism blogs, but it’s gone largely untouched upon simply because the opportunity to talk about race and racism has been so golden.
Yeah, the confederates are motivated by race, but gender and proper gender roles are also big in confederate definitions of “honor” wherein “protection of ladies” was seen as making sure they obey color lines and “date in the approved family” and are otherwise trapped into a slavery-like marital environment as soon as possible before they develop any type of life.
It’s why Red State areas have the youngest marriages, highest abortion rates, and generalized psychosexual hangups.
The whole black men must be destroyed because they’ll rape your white women and castrate you and otherwise make you unmanly or less manly has been the source of oppression against blacks, but also women in the making “chivalrous” the 24 hour “protection” against meeting any tribal outsiders or harboring desires of escape.
So yeah, the psychosexual stuff would have come out more in a Clinton presidency, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be shouting dixie about how Clinton is a loose woman n-lover or abandon their various racist lines of attack.
Cerberus
Sigh, moderation.
Malron
“Scary black man” is the new 9/11. Now there’s a tag for ya.
Malron
@Comrade Luke:
Well, yes. Because we live in a country where 39% of the electorate claims to be Democrat while only 25% claims to be Republican, yet every midterm more Republicans turn out than Democrats. That would be because the voters feel midterms are unimportant, or in this particular year, declaring they’ll stay home because nobody kissed their ass and begged them to do their civic duty. Democrats need to stop voting based on their fucking fee-fees if they want to build a better country, because the opposition does it out of a sense of duty – or, as was illustrated in this midterm, out of a misplaced sense of anger at the people who trying to solve the problem.
Jewish Steel
@Church Lady:
Somehow, I think if you lived halfway between Chicago and East St Louis as I do and could visit them and witness a level of segregation that can only be described as breathtaking…well, you might come to some different conclusions. Asshole.
Dennis G.
@Church Lady:
I expect nothing less from you and you do not disappoint.
Racism was never an exclusive Southern thing. Not 150 years ago and not now. In the 1876 election Reconstruction was killed and blacks subjugated to another century of second class citizenship. The notion of white supremacy was key and it is still key. A discussion of that may offend you, but so it goes. As I said, you do not disappoint.
Chris
Back in the 2008 election, blogger Rahul Mahajan commented with regards to Obama that “mainstream means, of course, supported by white people.” I thought it was a pretty good insight into our ethnic politics – the need for minority members to “prove” themselves to the ruling ethnic group.
Booman pointed out that nearly all of the losses were in areas where there weren’t a substantial number of racial minorities, and that the Obama is a Muslim meme is what did it.
It does make some sense, but it’s not a fun thing to think about.
More than anything, that’s why I vote against the Tea Party Movement. Ruining the economy and our foreign policy is standard GOPism; but the most uncomfortable new thing about post-2008 Republicans is that they seriously believe they’re at war with Islam, which wasn’t true of Bush and McCain.
Having read enough history to know what happens when a minority group is stigmatized in such fashion, and since I have several friends who belong to said minority, I’ll be damned if I vote for that.
debbie
@ Church Lady:
burnspbesq
Sorry, this is so simplistic as to be stupid.
Any analysis of yesterday’s election that ignores or minimizes the role of economic conditions in voter choice is laughable.
The result yesterday would have been the same if Barack Obama looked like George Clooney and sounded like Hayley Barbour.
Your theory of the Confederate Party has always been laughably simplistic. Never more so than yesterday.
rei
a) Fact: Larger percentage of women than men in the Tea Party.
b)Fact: KKK started by the Democrats.
Oopsie!
You’re obsession with gender and race really only displays your own inner angst, not that of ‘the Other”.
Have a nice day!
MrSimmonsSr
Why is it so hard to imagine that people’s dissatisfaction with the latest round of Democrat policy priorities has nothing to do with President Obama’s skin color?
This post is nothing short of pathetic.
Berial
Weren’t some women and non-white Republican candidates elected yesterday? Doesn’t that somewhat diminish the ‘All racism all the time’ meme you are advocating? Sure it’s there and played a part, but it seems to me, tribalism has as much to do with many of yesterdays elections as racism did.
It’s not just one thing. It’s several all wrapped in a twisted world view.
KMA
Aaaaaaand…..the meltdown commences.
azlib
@A Thousand Faces:
I understand the Atwater model very well and it worked in the South. All the racist Dems became Republicans with in a priod of 10-15 years. The old FDR coalition was dead. Atwater was very clever and fundamentally amoral. All he cared about was gaining power.
It still works at the margins in some cases. There was an election of a white liberal female friend of mine a number of years ago who ran against a conservative Latino. She did 3-5% better in conservative precincts than other liberals running in the same election. Essentially, the difference in the vote count was pure racism against Latinos. So I am not saying racism is not a factor, but in this election it was not the dominant factor.
willful-idiocy
Wow. You do realize that the Confederates were Democrats, right? I’m embarrassed for you, I really am. Shameful what that government edu-ma-cation did to you… crybaby.