Sometimes, the quote simply speaks for itself:
“Well, talk about racism, that was a racist tinged question from David Gregory,” she said. “He made it sound like if you’re black, you are on food stamps and the President is referring to you as being on food stamps. I think that’s racist.” [Sarah Palin speaking to Sean Hannity, via TPM]
Victim politics demands that the real suffering of others must be made invisible. In its place comes the claim of precisely the injury actually done to those others, but now alleged to be suffered by the speaker.
Everyone reading here knows this dance, of course. But still, it’s important to keep calling this out.
To do so: let me just say as clearly as possible what, again, we all know: that when Palin calls David Gregory racists because Mr. Gregory had the temerity to ask Gingrich a question about his use of racist signalling — why then you have as perfect a measure as can be imagined of how much the modern Republican Party sees refighting the Civil War** (on the wrong side) as its only remaining path to power.
Bluntly: Palin and Gingrich and a Republican Party that tolerates them trade on race fear and race hatred for political gain. Evil is not, I think, too strong a word to describe either the sincere or cynical wielding of this particular cudgel.
It could work. It has in the past. And hence the obligation: every time a Palin or a Gingrich — or any of them — plays to that voter on the margin they think they can capture with a coded appeal to racism, it’s time to name and shame. It isn’t much, I know, but the goal is to raise the psychic cost of actually pulling the lever for and against the color of the candidates’ skin that much higher.
To put it another way: anyone who thinks that the next election is going to be even the least bit easy isn’t paying attention.
*A false dichotomy, I know.
**Really, restaging the post-reconstruction assertion of white supremacy following Hayes-Tilden fiasco, but that’s not nearly iconic enough to put over my meaning.
Image: J. W. M. Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840. (And yes, I know I’ve posted this one before, but I love it and it works here. Plus, I get to look at it whenever I head over to the MFA.)
sherifffruitfly
Made ubiquitous by white folks whining about “reverse racism”.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
The ad on the front page right below this post was for Afro Romance, which appears to be an interracial dating site. It depicts a black woman on top of a white man. Just found that interesting.
kdaug
So how do they run this play without being blatant? Not disagreeing that this will be the tack, but you’d have to run a pretty damn thin line to get the whistle out without awakening the war dogs.
It’s a dangerous game, and the downside could last for decades.
Cheryl from Maryland
I heart J.M.W.T., weird dude that he was. But his original title is so on point and better — “Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on” — because those words make you look closely, and then the cruelty is visible, not hidden in Turner’s beautiful skies and waters.
Omnes Omnibus
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: Dude, I’ve got “Should Sarah Run?” ads.
Love that particular Turner. Love Turner in general.
I agree that making racist behavior have a real cost for those who engage in it is the way to go.
Stefan
Well, talk about racism, that was a racist tinged question from David Gregory. He made it sound like if you’re black, you are on food stamps and the president is referring to you as being on food stamps. I think that’s racist. And, you know, enough is enough of this calling out, this racism, this false charges. Obviously, it is done just to end the conversation. Just to distract, divert attention from what the real substance is, and stop the conversation. Here again, enough is enough. Why do we let the press, the media personalities get away with such?
What was incredible to me in the above wasn’t so much her first three sentences, it was the pivot she made immediately made afterwards with the fourth sentence. See what she did? Within the space of a sentence — within THE VERY SAME BREATH — she moved from a false accusation of racism to a denunciation of false accusations of racism. “That’s racist, I think that’s racist, enough of these accusastions of racism, this is done just to distract.”
The mind literally boggles at the sheer chutzpah, the inaninity, the brazenness, the stupidity, of someone who can switch on a dime from falsely calling an opponent a racist, to then immediately demanding that everybody stop calling racists racists, to then admitting (subconsciously, that is) that their own side’s constant racist dog-whistles are just used to distract attention from real issues.
vhh
Tom–you are right. The GOP dog whistle is now “Not One of Us.” Everyone who has lived for some considerable time in the South (in my case over 20 yrs) knows what that means.
Look at the exclusionary language of the Christianists, the Immigrant Haters, and the Open Racists. It’s all the same. Not One of Us.
The problem is that in Arizona, for ex., something like 70-80% of the school kids are of at least part Hispanic origin. In California, it’s a mix of Latinos and Asians. The definition of Us is going to change inevitably.
There’s a name for the psychology. It is Colonial Anxiety. That is the what the GOP is about.
Of course, the US has been successful precisely because it has fused together the talents of people from everywhere.
I would like to think that the GOP’s offensive talk is the death howl of a dinosaur. If it isn’t, the USA is cooked.
JHH
gex
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s so frustrating because of Atwater’s trick. There are whole host of people, it seems, who believe racist things that are cloaked in economic rather than racist speech.
Warren Terra
The relevant portion of the transcript of Newt’s appearance on MTP (irritatingly, neither quoted nor linked at TPM that I could see):
I suppose it’s possible that when he called Obama “a food stamp President” Newt meant that Obama has created an America with more kids on food stamps than any that has gone before – having forgotten Obama’s biography, and therefore not considering that Obama is also a sterling example of what can be achieved by our less-fortunate fellow Americans if we help them out with food stamps and education programs, instead of going Galt and letting them wither and die. Leaving aside the tremendous dishonesty of blaming Obama for the economic collapse that caused so many people to need food stamps. But when he’s called on it? When he refuses even to acknowledge how what he said might be interpreted, when he doesn’t say that he could have phrased things better? That’s the giveaway that he meant the implication. The Republicans have long had this fear of a Black man in power using the Government to distribute T-bone steaks to strapping young bucks, and Newt went there, both clumsily and emphatically, as is his wont.
James E. Powell
@kdaug:
It’s more dangerous to allow the current politics continue without challenge. The racists enable the corporate ruling class, allowing them to rule even from a minority (See, e.g., the senate 2009-2010). They cannot be brought down with understanding or reasoned discussion.
We need to dispense with euphemisms like “southern strategy” and call it what it is: race-baiting. We will never convert the committed, but we can strip them of their “conservative” covers.
Scamp Dog
Um, what was your first (single) asterisk referring to? The second footnote (double asterisk) was for “refighting the Civil War”, but I couldn’t track down the first one.
cat48
Sabato’s Crystal Ball tried to measure “racial resentment” to find out how it affects Obama’s poll ratings. It was a depressing article to read. Racial resentment seems high in the poll numbers…..sigh
malraux
@kdaug: I’m not sure that they can. But I think they’ve become so self-referential that they no longer realize just how they sound to those outside the bubble.
As a counter to this though, its not like the racism in the GOP was ever really hidden. The young bucks buying steaks thing is vintage racism that never really had a negative effect.
debbie
Don’t stop at racism. They do the same thing when they accuse Democrats of class warfare, when they call teachers “thugs,” and harp over the “demonization of the white man.”
maya
Who better than Palin of “Real
GermansAmericans” fame to instruct us all in the purity of the republican race.chopper
palin knows that if gingrich, a guy who’s well versed in working over the media and telling everyone what they want to hear, can catch this much hell over being a raging hypocrite then she’s toast.
you’d wonder why she’s defending another candidate, but she’s scared as hell. she hasn’t gained a single new thought since 2008.
Mnemosyne
@Warren Terra:
You almost gotta admire how Newt immediately doubles down on the racist dogwhistles:
Gosh, Newt, what destructive political model is that? Could it be … putting black people in charge?
Just once, I wish a journalist would sit in front of one of these fuckers and say, “But what does that mean? Which policies are you talking about ? Give a few examples of the policies in Detroit that you say were harmful.” But they never will.
boss bitch
@kdaug:
they will probably increase their calls to stop being politically correct.
Cat Lady
@Mnemosyne:
Thisety this this this this. Why don’t they ask the obvious question that will really give them the nuclear soundbite – “what do you mean?” Why don’t they ask?? It’s why I’ve stopped watching those shows, because I’m yelling it at the TV, and they “leave it there”. I can’t fucking take it.
honus
“He made it sound like if you’re black, you are on food stamps and the President is referring to you as being on food stamps.”
What a dumb, evil, bitch. The president didn’t have anything to do with this exchange, but she has to take a gratuitous shot at Obama.
I hope these people are dying by demographic. I think the 2008 election showed that they are. Palin is the last embodiment of their hero, Reagan, a smiling, stupid, pretty face covering for hateful, destructive, racist and elitist policies.
honus
@kdaug: they’ve spent the last ten years working the media and the public so they can run it blatantly, repeatedly blaring the meme that liberals and minorities are the real racists, so now they are insulated from that charge.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@vhh:
If it helps, this is only a mild variation on stuff that’s been going on for all of American history – and indeed all of human history. We’ve also had political parties run right off the rails the way the GOP is now. Rumors of the demise of the Republic are greatly exaggerated.
This comment in no way implies that the GOP is not currently under the control of xenophobic paranoid assholes who should be stomped into irrelevancy. I’m just sayin’ this ain’t the Sixth Seal opening.
Martin
America doesn’t look like that any more. Sure, it doesn’t look totally unlike that, but there’s enough places that have crossed the tipping point that the job is going to get harder every year. We’re maybe 2 decades at most from a point where the GOP capturing 100% of the white electorate won’t be enough to save them.
California and NY are already lost to the GOP, effectively forever given the current policy attitudes. The GOP is now 100% dependent on Texas carrying them, and even that demographic trend is looking very bad for the GOP. They might get another 4-5 election cycles out of this, but the southern strategy is going to have to get buried soon, and buried very deep.
honus
@Martin: Agreed. No more proof is needed than the fact that in 2008 A black guy with an arabic name became the first democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to carry Virginia.
gex
@Martin: And a big thank you sir, for providing an uplifting note to my day. I like your analysis, hope you are spot on, and can’t wait ’til they have to chuck the [fill in the blank]phobia tactics.
chopper
i’m just surprised she’s moved beyond idiocy like ‘blood libel’.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
I agree, and the thing is, the GOP is bound and determined to be a permanent minority party.
Keep in mind that guys like Viguerie, Nordquist, and Weyrich wanted to have a vehicle for their neo-feudalist agenda, called it “conservative”, and set their sights on taking over the Republican Party.
They’ve pretty much succeeded in doing that, but in the process, have also marginalized the GOP so that, increasingly, only the 27% feel at home there. A permanent minority party.
Rebecca
I respect what you say in your posts. I always know what I’ll read is carefully considered.
But I believe that this facile comparing of things (the tea-partiers, the Republican grifter candidates etc.)to “the Confederacy” is ill-considered for a wide variety of reasons.
It’s late, I’m tired, I have so much work to do, and I don’t have time to go into this. But please consider at least that “Confederate” might be a clumsy tag to hang on things.
Josie
@Martin: For Texas and several other states to swing Democratic, as they should, we are going to have to combat the Republicans’ campaign to depress voting among the elderly, the young and the poor. Our lege is trying to pass voter id laws similar to those being pushed in Florida and Wisconsin and probably others. Our demographics won’t matter if those people are not allowed to vote.
danimal
Um, when the demographic bomb hits, the GOP will drop coded racism and find another odious way to divide people. In a two-party system, there will always be adjustments to bring the parties into rough balance. If Tweedle-Dee wins a couple of cycles in a row, Tweedle-Dum will adjust his message and tactics to reach 50%+1.
My point: don’t put too much stock in future electoral wins as the nation becomes more diverse. The elections we should care about are the next 1-3 cycles; counting on the inevitablity of major changes in the 2020s is a fools game. We need to make these coded racial appeals a problem for the GOP in the here and now.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Yes. It’s not so much that America doesn’t look exactly like that anymore as it is that America looks less and less like that every year. So while “It could work. It has in the past.” is literally true, it would also be fair to say “It could fail. It’s more likely to fail in the future.” And the harder the Republicans push the racism today, the harder they’re pushing away the people they need to win in the future. The reason they won’t be able to win with 100% of the white electorate* is because they’ll be getting just about 0% of the non-white electorate.
*Which they’re not going to get. Why? Because more and more of the whites are marrying non-whites and having non-white children. Racist appeals are a lot less convincing when they mean throwing the spouse and kids under the bus.
Reality Check
Liberals can’t run on their policies, so they have to divide and conquer people using racial and class hatred.
Roger the Cabin Boy
I’ve read her statement several times and it gets more incoherent each time I read it. Seriously, how does this woman dress herself in the morning? Gregory quoted Gingrich, he didn’t say it himself originally, and she somehow makes it Dancin’ Dave’s statement instead of Newt’s? And the way that Gregory asked it made it plain that he was quoting Newt. I’d call her stupid but that would be an insult to stupid people.
danimal
@Reality Check: Project much, troll?
Liberal policies are vastly more popular than conservative policies. Which is why conservatives rely on divisiveness, misdirection and personal attacks to such a great extent.
Roger the Cabin Boy
@Danimal:
Don’t feed the stupid! ;-)
danimal
@Roger the Cabin Boy: Momentary weakness. Must be getting tired, I usually don’t take the bait.
Roger Moore
@danimal:
Maybe so, but it’s going to be a lot harder. It’s not just that the country is getting less white, it’s that the country is getting more generally diverse. Playing us and them is much easier when there’s an easily identifiable us, and when some of the people you’re trying to identify as “us” weren’t recently part of “them”. I guess they’re already trying to recalibrate to a more religious and less ethnic axis for their identity politics, but that’s a much slipperier basis for identity politics.
piratedan
@Reality Check: yes, yes you are due for one.
gnomedad
@Reality Check: N.S.F.
Chyron HR
Why must you call Reality Check racist just because he hates Hussein Obongo, the Halfrican food stamp thug from Detroit, Kenya?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Reality Check: I know. You should see it here in Texas. They Democrats in charge have fucked up the state so much that Governor Perry, Democrat don’t ya know, made the first two priority bills a Voter ID bill and an immigration bill. Those bastards.
(In case you aren’t in Texas, a Democrat has not been elected to a major office in more than ten years and the Democrats lost all control of the state legislature about that time.)
Jeffro
After reading the transcript, I think Gingrich actually let it slip/meant that Obama was – correct me if I’m wrong – on food stamps or other assistance as a kid, yet is now a “Food Stamp President”.
As in part scoffing at the very idea that a kid from a family on food stamps could be president (then why not MEEEE, Newt screams, I’m connected!) and in part that taking care of food-stamp families, i.e., socia-malism, simply MUST be the sinister agenda behind everything Obama does.
Anyone more articulate than me able to explain that better?
It does go a ways to explaining why Gingrich can’t even remotely deal with Obama in a rational sense: Obama is genuinely smart (an “ideas man”, if you will =) and successful, Gingrich is not. And Obama is trying to help the country as a whole, whereas Gingrich, projecting of course, would be solely focused on revenge-based politics. He can’t believe Obama isn’t, therefore, Obama is hiding his grand plan…
Splitting Image
@Martin:
It isn’t just Texas. The Southern Strategy is beginning to fail in Georgia too.
PPP Georgia poll
The crosstabs in that poll are even more horrifying for the G.O.P. than I would have imagined. They are almost completely dependent on the 65+ voting bloc to hold the state.
Even if the G.O.P. manages to hang on to Texas for a few more cycles, the South without Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia isn’t the South anymore.
El Cid
@Roger the Cabin Boy: Yes.
I might know where Palin’s trying to go with this, but this statement in itself has no comprehensible meaning, unless you just choose to read in what you figure she might have meant to say.
Mnemosyne
@Reality Check:
That’s so weird, I could have sworn that the party that’s in power in the House ran on “Where are the jobs?” and then started passing anti-abortion bills as soon as they took over the majority.
I guess it must have been the Democrats who did that, because otherwise it sounds an awful lot like the Republicans lied about their policies to get into office.
SoINeedAName
Gingrich now trying to claim that he was ambushed by alleged “gotcha” questions from Republican lapdog David “Raps-With-Rove” Gregory is like being knocked out by a punching bag.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: Exactly. When Obama was ramming his massive health insurance reform package down the unwilling throats of patriots everywhere, it was entirely about giving free stuff to black people and attacking all those heroes showing up to scream n***** at Congressmen and scream about how Obama = HitlerStalin and about death panels as capitalist fiends.
Reality Check
Georgia voting for ‘Bam?
LOL.
Villago Delenda Est
@Reality Check:
This is a pretty good example of projecting like the octoplex down at the mall over Memorial Day weekend.
Villago Delenda Est
@SoINeedAName:
That’s the Palin card. Newt plays it as pathetically as the mistress of it herself plays it.
jo6pac
I’m not sure why the liberal press is is giving her time with no brain time? Oh right she gave up her job to prtect Ameirkans.
chopper
@Reality Check:
you aren’t getting better.
honus
@Reality Check: almost as funny as Virginia voting for a democrat (by 8 points) for the first time in 44 years
AliceBlue
I’m an even-tempered, mellow person, but I swear I would like nothing more than to slap Sarah Palin straight into the middle of next year, then beat her up within an inch of her life.
WereBear (itouch)
So did Newt even last a week? And it was David Lapdog Gregory who did it?
What signs and wonders!
stuckinred
@Reality Check: Shooo
Fred
I always know it’s a slow news day when someone posts about what the twat tweeted.
Or they are just being lazy and going to the ole standby for some crazy.
Her entourage of accountants and disbarred lawyers and tweet spell checkers thank you for helping to keep her relevant.
stuckinred
@AliceBlue: beat her
upwithin an inch of her life.Reality Check
@honus:
And one year later, they elected a conservative Republican governor by a landslide.My, my, how quickly they regreted voting for ‘Bam!
Everyone knows this next election will be down to the wire, like 2000 and 2004…
jwb
@Reality Check: Yup, that’s why all the Gooper big boys are chomping at the bit for 2012, amiright? Wait, who’s running again?
Reality Check
@jwb:
The “big name” Democrats sat out 1992, and look what happened.
stuckinred
@Reality Check: Yea and this motherfucker is the real Deal. Why don’t you go back to your Klan Rally?
Reality Check
@stuckinred:
What on earth are you blabbing about?
Valdivia
late to the thread but wanted to say: I love me some Turner.
Kobie
@jo6pac: Real USA Americans!
Reality Check
You fools dreams about winning Georgia and Texas, while Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania are fast turning red.
jwb
@Reality Check: That’s a different point, not that you care since you’re only here to stir up trouble. But the reason the big names sat out 1992 was certainly not because everyone knew the race was going to go down to the wire. Quite the opposite then as now.
Reality Check
I think Mark Halperin sums up the current state of the field nicely:
http://thepage.time.com/2011/05/19/the-big-questions-gop-12-after-trumphuckabee/#more-229972
jwb
@Reality Check: So you’re getting your “analysis” from Halperin? BWAHAHAHAHA!
Jeffro
@Reality Check: Show us Bill Clinton 2012, R-style, then…
…waiting
…waiting
You can’t. Because in general, the majority of the country is okay with BO, and more specifically, the R field is a pack of complete nuts. Where’s the moderate R who’ll still be able to pull over a few Ds and a lot of Independents after getting through the R primaries? Nah. Gonna. Happen.
The birth certificate and getting Osama took a lot of steam out of the nuts. Ryan overplayed, bigtime, and is about to take the whole GOP down with him. It’ll be interesting to see GOP “moderates” – if there are any – try to make the case that it’s time for a ‘serious’ plan for America’s future. Because when they do, they’ll have their Tea Party nuts on the right and Obama right there in the middle. (Who appears to have his own ‘serious’ plan(s) that sits pretty well with a majority of America, once you cut through the right-wing noise machine)
Reality Check
@jwb:
Sure. He’s the most even-handed pundit in the MSM, by far. Are you trying to paint him as some kind of right-wing loon now? Who would you respect? Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore?
cleek
word.
and President Giuliani agrees.
Reality Check
@Jeffro:
You’re pretty much the exception among liberals. Even liberal bastions like DailyKos are nervous about 2012, already squealing about Republicans “stealing” it through satanic voting machines remote controlled from the basement of Dick Cheney’s McLean, VA home.
jwb
@Reality Check: Even-handed? Man, spend a couple of weeks outside that Fox News-Drudge echo chamber!
jwb
@Reality Check: Your sockpuppetry is showing. Time to recalibrate.
Fred
@Reality Check: Apparently you divided rather than multiplied. It’s ok. We all know you’re not so good with the math.
Jeffro
@Reality Check: DailyKos posters and commenters are, gasp, not indicative of Dems at large.
Check this out from Halperin at TIME:
I’m not seeing much there (other than noting some severe delusion about Huntsman and Pawlenty’s ‘welterweight’ status, Santorum scuffing up ANYONE, and Christie as a ‘titan’). At this point, when even a hack like Halperin is talking about Tea Partyers and religious conservatives being ‘orphaned’ by the R field, well, good luck GOP.
Kobie
@Reality Check: I love how conservative assholes still drag up Michael Moore, a film director, and Cindy Sheehan. Get some new fucking material.
Villago Delenda Est
Too late. Gingrich is busy changing magazines again as he continues to put holes in his own feet.
Reality Check
@Kobie:
One could also say Leni Riefenstahl was just a “film director”. He’s in the business of leftist propaganda and agitprop, not film.
JD Rhoades
@Reality Check:
Doesn’t make him or Cindy Sheehan any more relevant to the conversation.
The only thing lamer than right-wing name-checking is outdated right-wing name-checking.
Reality Check
Just asking, who would you consider to be objective? Chris Matthews?
Kobie
@JD Rhoades: Precisely this. Every time one of these jackoff trolls wanders around here and drags up something from a questionable (at best) source, you can set your watch by them spouting off the same irrelevant “no you” names they they’ve been saying for 10 years.
Earth to RC: Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore are not even remotely germane to this conversation. Try to keep up.
Nomad
@Reality Check:
So who’s gonna beat ‘Bam in ’12, dickwad? The Schlesinger pendulum has swung. You and your ilk are toast and you know it. Be afraid, Be very afraid.
ruemara
I love that piece under it’s full name. For the beauty and the horror. I think things will be changing, either through a more controlled electoral process that shifts the country back towards the left, or through a massive failing of our entire system where we will have to rebuild ourselves (possibly a large portion of the rest of the world too) where we could swing anywhere. Right now, the best thing any progressive group could be doing is pushing for voter registration and education on the new laws cropping up to disenfranchise students, minorities and seniors. It will be interesting.
moops
I suggest a new tag for this political season
Dog Whistle
It will be a major element of this primary race
I was also going to suggest “Victim Politics” But that is already mostly synonymous with every Palin tag, so it get s a bit redundant here.
Perhaps we could retire some tags.
moops
Also, To, sitting back and letting the GOP die from demographics is a foolish strategy. All sorts of racial hate can be tapped. Mixed cultures have all sorts of racial levers you can pull and gain through fear. They can grab any of these levers in the future.
Conservatism just works on peoples’ fears, Liberalism works on peoples’ hopes.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Reality Check: Bookmark this, libs!
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Reality Check:
corbett may well succceed beyond my wildest dreams in turning pennsylvania a deep deep shade of blue.
when folks figure out, and many are in small ways, that no one outside of a few are going to ever get shit, but poison, from his marcellus shale discount sale, i think even the middle of the state will be willing to realign. every time i go shopping i see more and more bottled water in the checkouts, and the displays are getting bigger. now you might say pennsylvania is behind the trend, normally i would agree, but the bottled water trend passed through here some time ago. this is something different. people are getting scared of what is in the water, and it started with fracking, and it seems to be spreading…it may or may not be rational, but it doesn’t matter, there is awareness.
as to the op. call out palin, gingrich, but call out the candidates you want to face, because the gop is running on spite. the primary voters are going to pick the person the left hates the most.
moops
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
really ? bookmark a Halperin echo ?
when all he can manage is “but but but …uh…Cindy Sheehan!”
He doesn’t even read Halperin very carefully.
moops
Also, Wisconsin turning deep red ? Recall fever is mostly infesting the R incumbents. The D incumbents are mostly safe, or the recalls failed.
Or was 2010 the REAL election I should be watching ? not the recent events, or 2008. recent events are TOO recent, and 2008 was TOO long ago, but 2010 is just the right amount of time to set the wayback machine to.
OK, yeah. If THAT’s how you want to do analysis.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@moops: All internet traditions. You do not know them.
Aw, fuck it. I’ll explain. It’s a dead thread anyway. Over at Sadly, No! they had a right wing troll who sounded a lot like our pal RC named Gary Ruppert. Before the 2006 election, he made a bold prediction of Republican victory, and he was so sure of his predictions that he declared “Bookmark this, libs!” It’s been a running gag over there since.
It’s shorthand for “your prediction is stupid as fuck, you right-wing jackass.” Also, I suspect that RC actually is Gary Ruppert, but who really knows on these vast interwebs.
Pat
I see much voter suppression in 2012. So my advice to my not so white neighbors is to have you photo ID handy, and go to the the polls in LARGE groups!
Dr. Wu
Bill Maher has it right in this case: not all Republicans are racist, but if you’re racist, you’re probably a Republican.
bob h
To put it another way: anyone who thinks that the next election is going to be even the least bit easy isn’t paying attention.
When the warmup acts are finished (Gingrich, et. al.), it is going to come down to a spirtually enervating match between Romney and Obama with skin reflectivity the main issue.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Chyron HR: I saw what you did there.
xian
Reality Check is obviously Halperin, fluffing himself. Nobody else says ‘Bam.
Monala
@Warren Terra: Not to mention that Newt’s points don’t even make sense.
Which is it, Newt? Do low corporate taxes create jobs, or do they show that something is fundamentally wrong with the system?