Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“But what about the lurkers?”

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

We still have time to mess this up!

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Infrastructure week. at last.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Second rate reporter says what?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The willow is too close to the house.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Kiss My Black Ass / FightBigotry.com: Because Black People Are the Real Racists

FightBigotry.com: Because Black People Are the Real Racists

by | 205 Comments

This post is in: 

ni-CLANG!

We’ve taken another step closer to the ni-CLANG! Event Horizon. Gird your loins, people:

FightBigotry.com, a new Super PAC registered with the Federal Election Commission this week, makes no bones about its aim. It intends to run an attack ad that it says will hit President Barack Obama for “his disturbing, yet crystal-clear pattern of tacitly defending black racism against white folks before and since being elected president.”

~snip~

A two-minute version of the new spot is already available on the group’s website, though the group promises a one-minute version is forthcoming. In it, he says:

The Obama administration has injected race into the presidential campaign. Obama Attorney General Eric Holder recently said – with no argument from the president – that their white critics are motivated by race. Implying whites are too stupid to have honest disagreements with the president without being racist is in-and-of-itself racist against whites, reinforcing Mr. Obama’s disturbing pattern of tacitly defending black racism. …

Obama’s attorney general said pursuing the New Black Panthers does a great disservice to whose “who risked all, for my people.” So it’s okay for his people to commit racial crimes? In 2009, President Obama defended his friend Henry Louis Gates after a racist altercation with police, telling a white officer he wouldn’t speak to him but would speak to his mama. Mr. Obama’s response? “The Cambridge police acted stupidly.” …

Mr. President, you ran as the candidate of change. But one thing has not changed—your tacit defense of racism against white folks, despite receiving nearly half the white vote to win the presidency.

*blink*

I just —

I got nothin’.

[via Think Progress]

[cross-posted at ABLC]

Reader Interactions

205Comments

  2. 2.

    Hunter Gathers

    But one thing has not changed—your tacit defense of racism against white folks, despite receiving nearly half the white vote to win the presidency.

    So losing the white vote by 13 points is nearly receiving half of that vote. By that logic, the GOP almost wins a majority of black voters every year.

  4. 4.

    redshirt

    There’s no law against outright lies in ads, right?

    Also, black people are racist cuz of the NAACP, amirite? There’s no NAAWP is there?

    *cough*

  6. 6.

    Steve

    No mantra has been as pervasive since 2008 as the claim that anyone who criticizes Obama gets called a racist.

  7. 7.

    MeDrewNotYou

    that their white critics are motivated by race.

    I kinda, kinda, get the whole birther thing: the President traveled a lot as a kid, so to the idiot mind maybe he’s “foreign.” But when you hear folks bring up college transcripts, you know you’re dealing with a flat-out racist. It’s actually a convenient marker since you can pretty much disregard anything else the person has to say about, well, anything*.

    *-Okay, one exception. My grandmother knows how to make chicken noodles. Even if she thinks Obama and his negro hordes are coming for the white women, she does make some damn good soup.

  9. 9.

    General Stuck

    We may need to fortify the defenses at Ft Sumter. Though I believe The Park Service carry six shooters. If we get word of a senate caning, clean yer muskets, you yankee doodle dandies. Teh South will rise again!!

  14. 14.

    phantomist

    And they would of had the web site up earlier if they weren’t busy buying chicken sandwiches all week.

  16. 16.

    Spiffy McBang

    If we’d let the South secede 150 years ago, I wonder what we’d be calling them now.

  17. 17.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Excellent. My plan for the Republican Party to regret Citizens United is entering the final stage: PACs run by crazy people airing hate ads that will make Romney and the entire Republican Party finally look like the racist lunatics they are. While the RNC was in charge of everything, they could stick to the nice, polite dog whistles. Now the circus has no ring master, but a surfeit of clowns.

  18. 18.

    Linda Featheringill

    Well. I never.

    All large ethnic groups have some members that are so xenophobic that they could be called racist. I’ve seen various racist folks. They come in all colors, shapes, and permutations.

    I assume the folks in this PAC are talking about black people who hate non-Hispanic and non-Oriental white people. Such people do exist. But none of them were featured in that video.

    All the racist diatribes that I’ve ever heard sound a whole lot alike, with just a few nouns changed. Nothing like that was shown on this video.

    Therefore, I judge the whole campaign a lot of nonsense.

  19. 19.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    Let’s see, so when did Holder say the Obama administration critics were motivated by race? Also, when did he say “who risked all, for my people”?

  22. 22.

    Linda Featheringill

    @MeDrewNotYou: #7

    Okay, one exception. My grandmother knows how to make chicken noodles. Even if she thinks Obama and his negro hordes are coming for the white women, she does make some damn good soup.

    People are complex.

    Which, of course, is what I think Obama was trying to say about his grandmother.

  28. 28.

    SatanicPanic

    Haha, Right-wing morons continue to forget to disable the Youtube dislike button. Currently at 4 likes, 21 dislikes.

  31. 31.

    wrb

    @MeDrewNotYou:

    But when you hear folks bring up college transcripts, you know you’re dealing with a flat-out racist

    Nah, I figure it is a clever demand, because they know that due to the times and Obam’s major the course titles are going to include words like “Marxist” and “revolutionary.” So he wouldn’t want to release them even if he got straight A’s. As a result they get to infer that he was a pot-smoking D-student. Why not release them if there is nothing to conceal?, they ask.

    It is reverse Reid-jitsu.

  33. 33.

    Ash Can

    OK, I’m betting that the n-word will be said out loud by some non-politician (e.g., some assistant deputy something or other from Focus On the Family or some other crackpot group) at the GOP convention, during a non-prime-time speech. Thus tricked into saying what everyone else has always wanted to say but didn’t have the stones, this non-pol will immediately be thrown under the bus and denounced by all the actual pols, with the tacit understanding and permission of the base, because, well, they had to denounce the offender because our lame stream lie-brul media would pillory them otherwise.

    At this rate, there will be KKK contingents in full white-robe regalia at the GOP convention.

  35. 35.

    Yutsano

    @Mattminus: You really just can’t help yourself can you? That durn woman sullies your blog and you just HAVE to respond. Because dammit you MUST defeat her amirite? Clown shoes. U haz them.

  36. 36.

    lacp

    These yoyos are wasting their money – anybody who thinks that the President is prejudiced against white people isn’t going to vote for him anyway.

  37. 37.

    Surreal American

    I’m waiting for the Super PAC ad that will consist of nothing but “Birth Of A Nation” clips.

  41. 41.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    ABL,

    I am a middle aged white male. Hypothetically speaking one night I were to burn a cross on your front yard while parading with a noose and a shotgun you would have me arrested for making threats to murder you while white.

    Can’t you see how that is racists?

  43. 43.

    MeDrewNotYou

    @wrb: If we could get Romney’s transcripts at the same time, I’d love to see the President’s straight A’s alongside Mitt’s purchased B’s and C’s.

    But then again, in those elitist colleges, “A” probably stands for Affirmative Action, while “B” and “C” are for Best Caucasian.

  44. 44.

    wrb

    @Surreal American:

    I’m waiting for the Super PAC ad that will consist of nothing but “Birth Of A Nation” clips

    I look forward to the foreign policy ad featuring Willie “Feets don’t fail me now” Best

  45. 45.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)

    Apparently they’ve moved beyond dog whistles and are now using air raid sirens.

  48. 48.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Soonergrunt:

    OT:
    Ah, you’re still among the living. I wondered if you had melted. The innertubes tell me it’s 111 degrees in your neighborhood. Wow.

    Okay, back to the subject.

    My apologies.

  49. 49.

    taylormattd

    @Mattminus: Hey ABL, this Mattminus guy must be one of those people from your comment threads that Anne Laurie was saying she disliked.

  52. 52.

    Martin

    @Linda Featheringill:

    The innertubes tell me it’s 111 degrees in your neighborhood. Wow.

    They really should tie Inhofe to the ground out in the middle of the state and tell him not to worry, if he’s deserving God will lower the temperature for him.

  55. 55.

    gogol's wife

    @wrb:

    I actually love Willie Best. He was a good comic actor, defeated by the times he lived in, of course.

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Cassidy: And next comes the asdertion that he almost NEVER comments on this thread, even though he shows up Every. Single. Time. We all are quite familiar with this game. But they just can’t quite figure out why THIS FPer bothers them so bad. Must be difficult to see through those little eyeholes in the white hood.

  59. 59.

    mai naem

    This is like saying Mitt believes in a far far away planet where one goes to live after they die and that his ancestors had many wives and that blacks were bad people, and that all his ancestors and their polygamous families are living on that planet in a big happy family. Just wow. What will people make up now?

  61. 61.

    wrb

    @lacp:

    hese yoyos are wasting their money – anybody who thinks that the President is prejudiced against white people isn’t going to vote for him anyway.
    Reply

    Hopefully they will spend many of their millions teaching America about the Kenyan birth, the ties to Bill Ayers, his taste in mustard and all those other vital truths about the inadequate black man we’ve still failed to grasp.

  63. 63.

    shortstop

    I don’t see how you people are so blind. Obama had Earth, Wind and Fire; Smokey Robinson; AND Stevie Wonder at the White House. Wake up, sheeple!

  64. 64.

    fraught

    Damn, ABL! These guys just assemble wherever you go, like the shadow people who followed Whoopie Goldberg in Ghosts. Its creepy to watch how they stalk with their watery sarcasm and their smug references to you past behaviors. Its as if they think they own part of your mind because they float behind you, haunting your movements. The other day I saw a few of them stay on this thread for 6 hours or more. Do they not have lives of their own? Or is following you on BJ their only reason for being? Have they no sense of how much their behavior diminishes the impact of whatever point of view they’re trying to espouse? Sick feeling in my stomach from seeing such overt over- zealousness. Yuck!

  68. 68.

    Martin

    @Shawn in ShowMe: I’ve been digging up my front yard. Two weekends and a week of nights swinging a pickaxe in clay soil full of backfill (mostly concrete slag from when all of the contractors dumped their wheelbarrows out) has left me quite in pain. I get really cranky when I’m sore. This was easier in my 30s. I’m hoping to get all of this hard shit done before I hit my 50s.

    On the upside, I’ve lost 35 lbs from my peak last summer and had I tried this then, I’d most likely be dead. So, I’m pretty upbeat about that. Only about 10 more pounds to go – should be done by the end of the month.

  71. 71.

    gogol's wife

    @shortstop:

    Yes, I actually look for White House concerts in the TV listings now. They had a tribute to Hal David & Burt Bacharach on which Stevie Wonder did a fantastic version of “Alfie.” It made me really hear the lyrics for the first time — even though he did the last part without words, just with harmonica — and I was devastated by it. I don’t think I ever watched a White House concert when Bush was in office, with the exception of the one by Natalie Cole (I guess there’s a theme here).

  73. 73.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @fraught:
    They used to be much, much worse. MUCH worse. ABL couldn’t post on any topic without a 300 comment thread choked with angry accusations that she’s a racist. She had three times the stalker trolls the other FPs do. I have to wonder if a few other FPs coming out as black (what a ridiculous phrase that is, but it describes the situation) finally made them feel like they’d lost the war and there was no point in trying to shout her down anymore.

    @Yutsano:
    I like her gentle and stylish sarcasm, and she’s taught me a lot. Having listened to her descriptions of how subtle and masked racism can be, I looked around and had to agree she’s right. Like a lot of injustices, it seems minor until you’re on the business end of it.

  75. 75.

    BGinCHI

    @shortstop: Plus the black sports like basketball.

    Why can’t he do something more like what Reagan did? You know, ratting out people to HUAC (and the FBI) and other blood sports.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    I am a middle aged white male. Hypothetically speaking one night I were to burn a cross on your front yard while parading with a noose and a shotgun you would have me arrested for making threats to murder you while white.
    __
    Can’t you see how that is racists?

    So threatening to murder ABL because because of the color of her skin is not racist, but charging someone with a hate crime for threatening to murder someone based on the color of their skin is totally racist.

    Fascinating legal theory you have there.

  80. 80.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Time out for a logic question

    F1 I am white, middle aged and male.

    F2 I think most middle aged white males are racist idiots, incapable of poring piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel and living off of the good names of their fathers.

    Q. Does that make me a black racists?

  81. 81.

    Mnemosyne

    @shortstop:

    Right here, right now, I pledge an extra $50 to the Obama campaign if they’ll use “Let’s Stay Together” as an unofficial campaign song.

    Who’s with me?

  83. 83.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @shortstop:

    A President who sings Al Green and slow jams the news is an affront to our Anglo-Saxon values! As your President I promise that Anglo-Saxon icons like Pat Boone and Paul Anka will be returned to their rightful place in the Oval Office playlist.

  84. 84.

    wrb

    @shortstop:

    The White House if full of the Negro Bongo drums,
    the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
    he just sings about Jesus and drinks wine all day

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I wasn’t entirely sure, though I was suspicious of the “that is racists” ending.

    If I did miss some snark, I’ll re-aim it back to mattminus, who I suspect is nodding his head saying, “See, that’s what I was saying!”

  92. 92.

    shortstop

    @shortstop: Why do I know stuff like what atrociously corny band Ike and Mamie loved, when I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast? Well, it won’t be long now. All of you can come visit me at the home.

    P.S. I was born at the end of the Kennedy administration, so it’s even more pathetic.

  96. 96.

    JaneE

    Whenever you criticize the president for doing the same things as every president before him, and you never uttered one word of criticism until now, you identify yourself as a racist. If you criticized the policies of Eisenhower, you are allowed to criticize the policies of Obama without being accused of racism. If you objected when Bush II did the same things you object to Obama doing, you are not a racist. If you were fine with all the white guys doing things and not the black guy, guess what? You are a racist. If this president is the last straw that forced you to voice an objection, you are still probably a racist, because what is different now? The color of his skin.

    I have not seen this much open and thinly veiled racism since the late 50’s. A lot of people who were OK with blacks getting jobs and going to school still can’t stand the idea that any black person could actually be preferred as president. Obama’s election shattered that belief, hence the all out determination to make his presidency a failure.

    These people probably don’t realize that they are racists, but they are. Policy wise Obama is no different from many of his predecessors, both Democratic and Republican. So what does make him different? Some people will try to say that it is a Democrat Vs. Republican thing, but again, why was it possible for Clinton to get some things through a Republican congress and not Obama? Clinton was hated too, but he never had the open disrespect that Obama has seen.

    It is my personal opinion that Republican and bigot are synonyms. Not all criticism and opposition is primarily based on racism, but it is almost always part of the equation. I keep hoping to find a really honest, principled Republican to discuss issues and policies with, but all the ones I used to know have left the party (myself included).

  98. 98.

    Tone In DC

    @Zandar:

    TEH ST00PID. IT BURNS.

    Unoriginal, I know. But very apropos in the case highlighted here. These people aren’t just thick as bricks, irrational and illogical. They’re down the damn rabbit hole.

  99. 99.

    wrb

    @Raven:

    The Kenyan’s and Ethiopian’s are starting to move.

    Despite the Ds and Fs concealed in his transcripts, he’s a genius when it comes to devilish strategy. That is why we can’t yey see the plan, we can only read the reports and worry. His Russian Special Forces now sited all over Colorado, the Kenyans and Ethiopians on the move…

  105. 105.

    shortstop

    Don’t spoil it! I’ve been looking forward all day to tonight’s track and field coverage. No doubt the president is, too, since he loves black people so damned much.

  108. 108.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @JaneE:

    With the teabaggers, the test is amazingly easy to apply.

    At right around 8PM PST, on 4 November 2008, the US Federal Budget deficit, and national debt, became issues that mobilized these people to parade around in costume and send teabags to congressmen.

    At that time, some sort of epiphany occurred that made them realize the import of those issues.

    I cannot imagine what it was, but it happened.

  110. 110.

    Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)

    @Mattminus:

    Oh, fuck, there’s nothing fair about that. I’ve never seen her write that anybody who criticizes the president is a racist. I have seen her write that racism spawns much of the criticism that President Obama gets. But that’s a long way from saying any criticim of President Obama proves the critic is a racist. I’ve also seen her point out many, many–too many to count–racist things people have done or said. Now, you might not think every instance that she believes is racism is, indeed racism. But on the question of whether something is racist or not, I trust her judgement a whole hell of a lot more thn yours.

  111. 111.

    Someguy

    Keep calling ’em out for being the racists they are. It’s working.

    Sure, this generation – 45% of the country – is lost, but as long as kids coming up know Republican = racist homophobe bigot, there’s hope for the future.

  113. 113.

    MikeF

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Some wingnut congressman said that the Black Panthers case was the worst voter intimidation in his lifetime. Holder shot back that southern black folks during the civil rights era faced much worse intimidation and that the comparison of was offensive to those who risked all for his people (referring to the civil rights activists).

    In other words, the racist videographers are liars as well.

  115. 115.

    shortstop

    @MikeF: Two guys?! Two dudes standing around with baseball bats at a single precinct are the “worst voter intimidation of his lifetime”?

  117. 117.

    Turgidson

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    It was also at that precise moment that that very same group of people had group amnesia about what had happened in the previous 8 years and who had been responsible for it.

  119. 119.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @shortstop:

    Little organism, not only will Fred Waring’s legendary catalog be represented, I happen to be close friends with the surviving members of The Four Aces! A little secret: Ann still gets a little hot under the collar when I put on a 45 of Love is a Many-Splendored-Thing.

  120. 120.

    greennotGreen

    Remember way up in the top of this thread when people were talking about FightBigotry.com, a pac started by one Stephen Marks. Does anyone know where he’s from? Because down the thread people started hating on the bigots in the south, and I’d just like to point out that bigots are, unfortunately, distributed across a wide swath of our nation. Remember the desegregation riots in Boston, the LA riots after the Rodney King verdict?

    Yes, the racism we’ve seen come to the surface like a festering sore since Obama’s election has been a really ugly, depressing thing to behold, but don’t pretend it’s isolated to a particular geographic region. And don’t wish to drop the South into the Gulf – you’d be drowning a lot of good people along with the plentiful yahoos.

  122. 122.

    Turgidson

    @shortstop:

    In his personal experience, it probably was (if it happened at all, of course).

    Idiotic white men have had very few obstacles put between them and the voting booth in the past…oh, couple of centuries.

  126. 126.

    gogol's wife

    @shortstop:

    I was not disputing your characterization, I was just saying I have even more embarrassing ties to the Eisenhower administration than just remembering Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians.

    I actually am quite nostalgic for Eisenhower, to tell the truth. If today’s Republicans were like him we’d be a lot better off.

  127. 127.

    Ash Can

    @Frankensteinbeck: You put it perfectly. As a white, my default approach to ABL’s observations on racism is “shut up and listen.” I rarely have anything to add and usually come away further educated, and it gobsmacks me when people criticize on the basis of zero experience. It’s great that she posts here.

  128. 128.

    shortstop

    @gogol’s wife: Oh, good. And absolutely right about Ike. Look how good he looks in retrospect. So does Nixon, if you discount the lying, paranoia, racism, sexism, antisemitism, bullying and obstruction of justice.

    And I really do not personally remember the Eisenhower administration; I really was born in 1963. I’m just a geek about presidential history.

  130. 130.

    peorgietirebiter

    Maybe we’d best ignore them for another decade or so and let their sick minds heal in a more natural fashion… Then again, maybe it’s finally time to fill up e Joe Paterno Memorial Cemetary For Statues of Americans Once Horribly Mistaken As Heroic.
    Davis, Lee, Forrest, Reagan, Hoover etc. And maybe a confederate flag buy-back program that offers discount coupons for American beers. A little stealth stimulus for a worthy industry,

  131. 131.

    Steve

    @shortstop: As you probably know, one of the main reasons the DOJ didn’t go any farther with the case is that they couldn’t find a single voter who would actually say they were intimidated. If that’s the worst, then wow.

  132. 132.

    LanceThruster

    “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” – Albert Einstein

  133. 133.

    danielx

    @Steve:

    Hey, I criticize Obama all the time. Why not; his foreign policy is George Bush’s on steroids minus the yee-haw triumphalism and he’s disappointed me in a lot of other areas too.

    I just think he’s a better alternative than the Marquis.

  134. 134.

    General Stuck

    @greennotGreen:

    I don’t mind noting now and again that there are good people in the south, some of which comment here regular. Nor the fact that I grew in a part of the south, about as backward and xenophobic as it gets. And that there are bigots and racists found in all 50 states.

    I maintain however, the notion that racism as an institution gone crazy, is and has always been based in the south. Top to bottom for the powers that be, and a clear majority of white citizens that are also the white majority. I would include AZ in that mix, as they also fall under the waiver requirement in the VRA.

    Trying to deflect the power base of what we call racism, as anywhere but the south as an entire region of about 1/3 of the states, and more if you count some border states, will remain part of my political vocabulary for filing shit where it belongs.

  136. 136.

    quannlace

    Hmmm. So to show a constant, consistent pattern of Obama’s racism, they have to go all the way back to 2009?

  139. 139.

    fraught

    @Tone In DC: Pat Boone and President Obama both got their undrgraduate degrees from the same Ivy League university. Is there something ironic about that since they both sang in the Whie House? Or has irony changed and its no more than a coincidence these days? Hard to keep up.

  143. 143.

    different-church-lady

    It’s almost as though a bunch of cockroaches decided they liked the light of day.

  145. 145.

    General Stuck

    @greennotGreen:

    Hope I didn’t sound huffy. As I think your concern is valid, and we should make occasional notation of good folk in dixie, white and black.

  146. 146.

    bootsy

    @JaneE: I’ve worked at 3 companies now that were dominated by Republicans (explicitly or implicitly) and I can say that every one of them was pretty racist, and would eventually reveal themselves to me. Why? Because I’m white of course.

    My Dad was a Republican for fifty years before Bush. And he wouldn’t go on about ‘the other’ in the ways that some of them do, but he still said some racist stuff. And part of his conversion to reason (or being a Democrat) was that he admitted he was an ‘asshole for 50 years’, about race among other things.

    I’ve never met a Republican who wasn’t racist. I understand there’s a theoretical argument that some totally atheist Ayn Rand anti-tax guy might not be racist, but I’ve met those people, and they’re all racists too. Hell, Reagan used explicitly racist messages to help sell his anti-tax positions.

  147. 147.

    No One of Consequence

    I believe in Ma-a-jic.
    Why because it is so quick.
    You don’t need power when you’re hypno-tized…
    Look in my eyes…

    – NOoC

  148. 148.

    Schlemizel

    cuz there is never enough crazy to go around MN CD5 Congressman Keith Ellison’s opponent pretends he didn’t say Ellison is a reverse racist – he just asked the question “is he??

  150. 150.

    Southern Beale

    I saw this today. My first thought: “Yeah, that Rev. Wright stuff was such a winning argument in 2008.”

    Honestly, they have no fucking clue. None.

    The only people this plays with is their racist, knuckle-dragging base. Who, last time I checked, are already on board with the program. I guess they’re really scared that the base is turned off by the Mormon thing.

    BTW it’s puzzling to me that Romney’s religion is “off limits” when Rev. Wright and “Obama is a secret Mooooslim” have been a major part of the GOP campaign messaging since 2008.

  152. 152.

    Raven

    @bootsy: I dunno. My old man was die hard Republican. He was also a high school football and basketball coach and I grew up with AA kids in my house when we lived in North Chicago. He went south when he lived in Arizona and they took away the Superbowl because AZ didn’t celebrate the King Holiday. It was down hill from there and he really hated Tiger but I don’t think he started out that way.

  153. 153.

    Catsy

    @Mattminus: For anyone who is in danger of taking seriously anything Mattminus has to say about the subject of racism, kindly refer to this roundup of past hits or just review any recent ABL thread.

    You can usually count on this douche troll to chime in with some flavor of “ABL is the real racist” within twenty comments or so, although I think this time he set a record for the time it takes for someone to unwittingly prove the OP’s point in a thread.

  155. 155.

    LanceThruster

    @danielx:

    I love the Marquis moniker. I may start using the Marquis de Mo (Mormon) or Marquis de JoMo (Joseph Smith/Mormon).

    Marquis de Bain?

    Marquis de Cybertron?

    Marquis de Cornholio? (in need of TP for his bunghole)

    Great Glob of Kolob, how I despise the Willard Mechanism.

  156. 156.

    David Hunt

    I can’t really believe that we’re going to get that Ni-CLANG! moment, but instead think that all the usual suspects will move closer and closer without quite getting there in the manner of Zeno’s paradox. At least as written publications go…

    I can envision some icon of white power goodness and virtue saying it out loud in front of a hot mic when he’s upset. However, they all know that actually saying using that word in a format that will become known to the public is instantly hitting the “I lose” button. I firmly believe that anyone who makes a living in the public eye whose personality would leave them inclined to use that word, have trained themselves not to use it.

  157. 157.

    Turgidson

    @bootsy:

    I understand there’s a theoretical argument that some totally atheist Ayn Rand anti-tax guy might not be racist, but I’ve met those people, and they’re all racists too.

    I know some of these types who really, truly aren’t racist.

    Narrow-minded selfish assholes in various ways, yes. But not about race.

    But there are definitely some who are. One Randroid I know – who’s a decent person overall but…has flaws – has told me that I suffer from acute white guilt. I said I’d take that as a compliment, rather than respond that he has a case of racist fuckheaditis.

  158. 158.

    gogol's wife

    @Raven:

    That is fantastic! I love it! As soon as it started I realized that I do of course know that song (the title just didn’t ring a bell), and as soon as I saw that lead singer I realized I remembered him too. Love his glasses, too.

  160. 160.

    Catsy

    @Spiffy McBang:

    If we’d let the South secede 150 years ago, I wonder what we’d be calling them now.

    A third-world nation and a bitter enemy.

    If we’d let the South secede 150 years ago, we would’ve fought them again in WWI, WWII or both.

  161. 161.

    Chris T.

    Someone needs to tell these guys: “It’s not your disagreement with the President that makes you racist. It’s your racism that makes you racist.”

  163. 163.

    Raven

    @gogol’s wife: Forever Changes Overview.

    Live and Let Live

    Yes I’ve seen you sitting on the couch
    I recognize your artillery
    I have seen you many times before
    Once when I was an indian
    And I was on my land
    Why can’t you understand

    Served my time
    Served it well
    You made my soul

    Write the rules
    In the sky
    But ask your leaders
    Why why

  164. 164.

    Patricia Kayden

    So the racists in the Repub party (I assume 90% of them are racist from what I see) think that in 2012, people are going to be moved to vote against President Obama because of Beck-like accusations that Obama hates Whitey?

    Right. Keep in mind that Obama is half-White and was raised by the White side of his family (only met his Black father one time).

    Keep going Racist Repubs. Keep showing your behinds.

    ABL,

    Rest easy, Girl. This is a strikeout and pathetic.

  165. 165.

    peorgietirebiter

    @greennotGreen: I found that the majority here understand that but there are always a few who can’t pass up any opportunity to take a cheap shot at The South. I mean hey, what’s more clever than condemning an entire population as ignorant, anti science racists based on geography? Three million Texans voted for Obama but we couldn’t manage to go back in time to keep Texas in The Union, Lee Harvey Oswald out of Dallas or give Dubya a visit from the Ghost of Christmas’ future.
    Randy Newman nailed your sentiment in Rednecks, … free to live in a cage in Roxbury Boston
    free to livemin a cage in East St. Louis, gather em up from miles around, keeping the N’s down.

  168. 168.

    jl

    OT but nice to see:
    Headline blrub of top Yahoo news story from ABC for last several hours:

    ‘It’s a mathematical fact of life’

    Romney’s tax plan will raise middle-class taxes while reducing the burden on the rich, a study claims.

    Story headline is not so hot:
    How Romney’s Tax Plan Could Raise Middle-Class Taxes
    By Amy Bingham | ABC OTUS News

    (Edit: Could? I did not know that mathematical facts of life were ‘coulds’.)

    ” Mitt Romney’s campaign is hitting back against a study released this week showing the GOP candidate’s tax plan would raise taxes on the middle class while slashing the tax burden for millionaires, calling the report “biased” and “a joke.”

    The study was developed by the centrist Tax Policy Center and authored by economists who have worked under both the Obama and Bush administrations.

    It concluded that Romney’s proposed tax cuts – which include reducing all personal income taxes rates by 20 percent, eliminating the estate tax and zeroing-out taxes on investment income for couples earning less than $200,000 per year would slash $360 billion in federal revenues in 2015. ”

    … snip …

    ‘ …because Romney’s proposed tax cuts are so large, according to the study, he would have to slice 65 percent of all the loopholes and deductions that are feasible to cut, such as the mortgage interest deduction, child credit, deductions for charitable contributions and exclusions for employer-provided health insurance.

    “You’re kind of not left with very much to work with,” said Adam Looney, one of the report’s authors and a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Policy Center, formed as a nonpartisan venture by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

    “The purpose of that paper was to scale back people’s expectations for what could actually be reduced in a tax reform,” Looney continued, “to establish what’s really feasible and what’s on the table.” ‘

    http://news.yahoo.com/romneys-tax-plan-could-raise-middle-class-taxes-170554681–abc-news-politics.html

    Emphasis added.

    I eagerly await the sorrowful GOP PAC ad campaign decrying the elitist Nobama bigotry against people who can read, add and subtract.

    And the conspriacy nuts: did you know UN black helicopters are going to swarm the countryside with Bolshevick Kenyan shock troops, who will rapell down into Amercian homes and teach people to add and subtract?

  169. 169.

    jl

    @jl:

    I meant to type:

    I eagerly await the sorrowful GOP PAC ad campaign decrying the elitist Nobama bigotry against people who can’t read, add and subtract.

    Sorry, I am getting over a bad cold, and you damn kids get off my lawn.

  170. 170.

    Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)

    @JaneE:

    This is dead on. It made me think of something somebody said somewhere in this thread about the national debt. I wonder whether anybody recalls what happened 10 or 12 years ago. Alan Greenspan went up to the Capitol and testified that, thanks to the surpluses President Clinton had run for about 6 years, the U.S. was paying off the debt too fast. That’s right. I’m not an economist, so I don’t know what his thinking was or whether that made any sense at oall or whether he pulled it from his ass, but the Republicans in Congress bought into it–not that they needed much prodding.

    So thanks to the Paris Hilton Tax Relief Acts, I and II, we cut our tax income and then we fought two wars, and blew through more of the country’s money than I can fathom. And thanks to that profligacy, when Obama came into office with an economy on the edge of an outright depression, he didn’t have a nice pile of money to use to prime the pump; he had a big, fucking debt, which he needed to make bigger to save us from another Great Depression.

    And now these assholes are shrieking about deficits and the debt? I heard Rob Portman campaigning in Ohio this afternoon on the radio in the car, and he was going on about the awful, awful debt, and how Obama’s a profligate wastrel, and I wanted to put my fist through the windshield. Portman was in the U.S. House and voted for those very tax cuts that blew away our surpluses, but now, now, he’s just frantic about the debt. Fuckwad.

    You’re right. These assholes had nothing to say about the debt for 8 years while Bush was pissing away our money, but, well, hey, when there’s a black guy in the White House, oh, now it’s something to worry about. For whatever it may be worth, I don’t know that Portman himself is a racist, or that race plays any part at all in his moaning about the debt. I know almost nothing about him, so for all I know, he doesn’t give a shit either way about the president’s race. But he’s willing to stoke this debt frenzy for his own, and his party’s, gain, even if a lot of that frenzy is racial.

    These people have gone out of their way to suck up to bigots for 45 years now, and the bigots they suck up to have been that way even longer. But now, we need to shut up about race and give these dickwads the benefit of the doubt? Fuck that. These assholes have made their bed. Nobody made people like Portman or Rmoney suck up to racists. That was their choice. But they want us to overlook it, because, I don’t know, they’re good to their children and give to their churches or some such shit. Well, again, fuck that shit.

    Now, strictly speaking, that might not be fair. It isn’t impartial. It isn’t blind, the way justice should be. But, really, what the hell? I should hold Rmoney and the Republican Party to the same standard I hold somebody like John Lewis to? The hell with that shit. These people are delusional.

    When I was teaching in Honduras one year, this girl Eneyda was talking in class, so I asked her to stop. One of the fourth graders whined that he got in trouble for talking all the time, most of the other students got in trouble when they talked in class, but I let Eneyda get away with it. I told him that I couldn’t even remember the last time Eneyda had talked in class, bothered a classmate, forgotten her homework, talked back to me; I couldn’t think of the last time she’d done anything remotely bothersome or disruptive. So I let it go when she slipped up that time. I told him, in essence, that how you behave colors the way others see you. When you smack the kid in front of you in the back of the head a few times every week, when you make life hard for me in class, I’m not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you’re a teacher’s dream in class, then you get some leeway to screw up once in a while.

    It’s the same here. It’s like Republicans look at the way liberals think about John Lewis, and they say, “Hey, that isn’t fair! You never call John Lewis a race baiter! You never point at him for sucking up to racists to get their votes! You shouldn’t say that about me if you don’t say it about John Lewis! You’re mean!” But, again, these people want a free pass. They want us to look at them and talk about them the same way we look at and talk about John Lewis, even though their behavior is nothing like Lewis’s. Fairness isn’t treating people the same way however they behave; that’s about 180 degrees away from what’s fair; that’s about as unfair as you can get.

  171. 171.

    greenergood

    So much to read – will have to go back, but thanks for alerting me to what my ni-clang mom will be ‘linking’ me to in the next day or two. Gawd, it’s depressing …

  172. 172.

    JR in WV

    OK, ok … ok.

    My Dad was born in the 1920s, and was a Republican all his life. An active worker in many elections.

    He was also a dues paying member of the NAACP, and participated in many protests of horrible abuse taking place Down SOUTH!

    People were being beaten and whipped with clubs and barbed wire, sprayed with fire hoses, attacked by dogs trained to be meaner than your average attack dog. My Dad knew that wasn’t right.

    He hired black people who were qualified for the job. He resigned from the country club and the other dinner clubs in town, because they didn’t allow African-American members – think I caught some shit in school?

    So there were (and may be still today) some Republicans who are not racists.

    On the other hand, the power structure of the current Republican Party acts like they are the only thing keeping Americans from being eaten by Mau-Mau commando guerrila terrorists, and that all the young and beautiful WHITE VIRGINS will be raped and eaten BBQ style if President Obama is re-elected.

    I cried when Senator Obama was inaugurated. The whole thing was wonderful, ‘cept for when Justice Roberts FORGOT THE Fuckin’ Oath! [ Although that was really funny in one sense, the least competent person in the whole ceremony was the white Repug Supreme Court Justice!] Thank you to Aretha for singing, thank you to all the people who voted for Mr.Obama, that helped his organization overcome Senator McCain’s campaign team.

    OK, ’nuff said. But that’s what I think, and a little of what I know. Take it or leave it.

    God Bless President Obama!

  173. 173.

    gogol's wife

    @JR in WV:

    Great post. I’ll say “God bless President Obama” too! I got to say it to his face (before he was president), and it was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

    /Obot.

  176. 176.

    Mnemosyne

    @Raven:

    He went south when he lived in Arizona and they took away the Superbowl because AZ didn’t celebrate the King Holiday. It was down hill from there and he really hated Tiger but I don’t think he started out that way.

    Apologies to the several ‘Zonies I know are regular posters, but what the fuck is up with Arizona, anyway? My dad is a lifelong Republican, but I swear to dog he wasn’t the crazy homophobic racist he is now before he started wintering in Arizona.

    I know Fox News and Rush Limbaugh did a lot of damage, too, but seriously, Arizona, WTF did you do to the man who told me in 1987 that it was perfectly fine that one of my friends had come out as a lesbian and how do I get that guy back?

  177. 177.

    Groucho48

    Mad Dogs and Englishmen don’t go out in the noon day sun, but, apparently Arizonian Republicans do.

  178. 178.

    shortstop

    @JR in WV: My mom is perhaps 10 years younger than your dad would be now. She grew up in a small town in Kentucky, and she’s been an ardent anti-racist her whole life. She says that even as a small child, she could not believe the shit she witnessed…well, actually small children are natural anti-racists; the trick is not getting that sense of fair play talked out of you.

    She was also a lifelong Republican…until she stopped being one around 2000. Now she phonebanks for Obama and Bill Foster and declares that she doesn’t understand how anyone with any decency, morality or self-worth can associate themselves with the GOP.

    I wonder if your dad would have ended up the same way, given the last few years? Kind of sounds like it.

  180. 180.

    peorgietirebiter

    @General Stuck:

    I maintain however, the notion that racism as an institution gone crazy, is and has always been based in the south. Top to bottom for the powers that be, and a clear majority of white citizens that are also the white majority. I would include AZ in that mix, as they also fall under the waiver requirement in the VRA.

    Hard not to agree with a good deal of this but I think it is still problematic on a couple of levels.
    The long popular generalization had made it too easy for the incurious to ignore the obvious in their own backyards. An easy scapegoat allows the more powerful in the north to congratulate themselves on their enlightened lives without opening the can of worms that excercising their power to reenergize reconstruction would undoubtedly open, out of sight out of kind. And those behind the institutional crazy aren’t crazy. They’re the amoral aristocrats that invest in keeping the
    mob worked up. That is sti
    l works down here should be a national shame because because it couldn’t have become institutional with the enabling of the north. It took LBJ to pass the voting rights act.
    I am not and never will excuse or make excuses for the South’s hideous and ongoing bigotry, I’m just talking about braoder responsibility and some ideas and attitudes that I believe to be counterproductive to ending the nightmare.

  182. 182.

    AxelFoley

    @shortstop:

    Don’t spoil it! I’ve been looking forward all day to tonight’s track and field coverage. No doubt the president is, too, since he loves black people so damned much.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  183. 183.

    General Stuck

    @peorgietirebiter:

    It has been expressed many times here on BJ, with a huge hand to ABL for exposing the broader picture you speak of commonly referred to white liberal privilege, and a kind of reactionary mindset of the north. I have that from time to time with what I see slipping back into old ways in the south. Not to mention northern white republicans back in the Rockefeller Republican days receiving with open arms the southern bigots that once were part and parcel to the dem party.

    It is not so much the racists themselves, living where racism is more condoned, in the south. It is the awakening of sleeping rebellion that comes from the bottom up to state government powers in that region, that concerns me of backsliding into a confederate mindset of a third of the country. And I disagree with the notion the north is largely involved with this, beyond some snooty wankery. Though they have a point about bankrolling the peasant population of the south, to the benefit of modern Big Daddy types.

    It is a legacy for the south to bear, on its own. They built the aristocratic model via stolen labor, and it took a bloody conflict for them to mostly stand down. But the idea of grievance lives on past slavery and Jim Crow, to the fundamental disagreement that was always there. And that are the ideas put forth in the constitution itself, of equality in all its forms. Not to mention other stuff like separating religion from our governing matrix, progressive taxation, etc.. etc….. Having a black liberal president has got their backs up, not to mention the fact they are getting populated by other minorities, like Hispanics, threatening their birthright to rule their roost. It all may end happily, but I doubt it. And since losing the right to own people outright, I don’t know if all this is enough to cause them to go the route in the 19th century. to fight another war. I kind of doubt it, but they sure will raise some stink and political mayhem. As demographics surround them with multiculture.

  184. 184.

    rb

    @MikeF: In fairness, they were black, which is horribly intimidating to many white voters who happen to be congresspeople.

  185. 185.

    AxelFoley

    @danielx:

    Hey, I criticize Obama all the time. Why not; his foreign policy is George Bush’s on steroids minus the yee-haw triumphalism

    And tell us how his foreign policy is worst than Bush’s.

  187. 187.

    rb

    @JR in WV: So there were (and may be still today) some Republicans who are not racists.

    Much respect to your dad (sincerely).

    But christ, there ‘may’ be ‘some’ republicans that are not racist? So damned depressing.

  188. 188.

    Brachiator

    I maintain however, the notion that racism as an institution gone crazy, is and has always been based in the south.

    No. Slavery, as an institution, was based in the South. But racism is as American as apple pie. That’s just the plain historical fact.

  189. 189.

    General Stuck

    @Brachiator:

    After slavery came Jim Crow, as institutionalized racial oppression, so maybe a better term would be concentrated in the south at present, is racism as a mentality of an overwhelming majority of whites there. I already said upthread that racism is throughout the country, unless you are going to argue that as a matter of degree, it is equal in the north.

  191. 191.

    General Stuck

    @Maude:

    I live in a county that is about 50 50 anglo/Hispanic. Plus a variety of other minorities such as native American. It has changed my entire outlook on racial matters, as well as being highly relaxing, not having to deal with all that white majority bullshit.

  192. 192.

    NA

    @danielx:

    His foreign policy is like “Bush on steroids”? Like 911 plus Afghanistan War plus Iraq War with constant terror alerts times 10? Really? Really?

  193. 193.

    Brachiator

    @General Stuck:

    After slavery came Jim Crow, as institutionalized racial oppression, so maybe a better term would be concentrated in the south at present, is racism as a mentality of an overwhelming majority of whites there. I already said upthread that racism is throughout the country, unless you are going to argue that as a matter of degree, it is equal in the north.

    We more agree than disagree. But the North was complicit in maintaining slavery and even had its own variations of Jim Crow. And racist policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act or the internment of Japanese Americans, we’re national policies, not extensions of any Southern Manifesto.

    And back to the major point of this thread, the clowns behind the blacks are more racist than whites sentiment seem to believe that they can influence voters throughout the country and especially perhaps in swing states. Some of their noxious message may resonate more deeply in the South, but it also appeals to other folk throughout the country.

  195. 195.

    Ruckus

    @shortstop:

    Remember that the remark was made by someone who has at best a maturity level of a 12 year old and then ask how much history could he have experienced. Cause it’s for sure he hasn’t learned any thing but falsehoods and lies masquerading as history.

  196. 196.

    peorgietirebiter

    @General Stuck:

    And I disagree with the notion the north is largely involved with this, beyond some snooty wankery. Though they have a point about bankrolling the peasant population of the south, to the benefit of modern Big Daddy types.

    Again, I agree with most of your previous points but this is just silly. The active enabling of the north has been absolutely essential to the perpetuation of the south’s institutionalization of the crazy.
    It wasn’t just wankery when Harvard observed their own Jim Crow laws, the just didn’t boast about it like the jerks down here. Without northern votes the south wouln’t get a single gov’t contract, the TVA or anything else. Jim Crow thrived nationwide throughout WWII, Harry Truman had the balls to say enough and he was from a former slave state. Again, the great unwashed down here won’t evolve on its own and the leadership here has no interest in fiixing what they don’t think of as broken. The northern mob wasn’t enlightened from the bottom up and it won’t be here. Pointing fingers just relieves the discomfort and delays what the solution. It’s to easy and the path of least resistance…

  197. 197.

    Tripod

    Takeaway? Toby Keith Democrats aren’t interested in voting for Rmoney.

    Can you blame them?

  198. 198.

    General Stuck

    @peorgietirebiter:

    The active enabling of the north has been absolutely essential to the perpetuation of the south’s institutionalization of the crazy.

    I said the north does enable the south to maintain their non progressive way of life, via sending tax dollars to keep it going, or whatever the assistance. But what is silly is the comparison of ‘the north does it too’ argument of both sides do it, as far as the institutionalism of crazy. Anecdotes of similar behavior here and there in the north is no real comparison with entrenched white supremacy in the south. Even today, though it is not what it once was in that department.

    Pointing fingers just relieves the discomfort and delays what the solution. It’s to easy and the path of least resistance…

    Pointing fingers is how we keep the discussion and topic alive, so that change becomes possible. Invoking Broderism like comparison of north and south, both sides do it, imo inhibits change by watering down reality. That is ‘relief of discomfort’ that current enlightened white denizens of the south use sometimes as a way of coping with life there. If I was still living there, I’d probly do the same.

    That said, I agree that sometimes the bashing the south is overdone, with respect to not recognizing the good white folk that live there, all 12 percent that voted for Obama in 2008. But it does take some effort to overdue it.

  199. 199.

    General Stuck

    @General Stuck:

    A final point. While the north does enable southern intransigence to evolve toward fairness and equality, the north did not cause the south to be the way it is.

    That anchor of white supremacy was and still is, a self contained proposition, with deep and old roots. Locally grown. The enabling by the north, is, if nothing else a payout to keep them from burning down the American house, imo. Stockholm Syndrome, or whatever you want to call it. And no doubt with some financial reward as modern day carpetbaggers with internet.

  200. 200.

    Brachiator

    @General Stuck:

    I said the north does enable the south to maintain their non progressive way of life, via sending tax dollars to keep it going, or whatever the assistance. But what is silly is the comparison of ‘the north does it too’ argument of both sides do it, as far as the institutionalism of crazy

    It is not a “the north does it too” thing. Up until the modern civil rights era, the United States, through its laws, policy and institutions, endorsed, encouraged and maintained a version of American apartheid. It’s not as though there was a separate Southern Supreme Court which validated segregation or kept state sponsored bigotry contained within the South.

  201. 201.

    General Stuck

    @Brachiator:

    You are once again arguing contrary via anecdotal evidence. As compared to the depth and width of racism in the south, as somehow comparable to the rest of the country. In actual practice.

    Elements complicit in the north for what went on in the south do exist, as well as turning blind eyes to it, but the actual racism on the ground in the south is not remotely comparable to whatever actual on the ground racism that happened in the north. That it became impossible for the north to look away when the truth of the violence and mayhem conducted in the south started showing up in the northern living rooms on the teevee devices. And yes, you are creating an apologia of equal guilt with a ‘both sides do it’ argument. IMO/ Between the actual perpetrators and those who didn’t stop it, living in the north.

    The last lynching in the south was I think in 1981. How many lynchings occurred in the north? If you didn’t grow up in that world, I don’t know how you could understand depth of racial hate in that region, and the willingness to murder and terrorize the black population under the banner of white supremacy. And the mentality of that way of life is still present, even if mostly dormant.

  202. 202.

    peorgietirebiter

    @General Stuck: Probably too late but I u derstand your point.
    I think maybe we’ve been talking past each other missing by less than an inch and I’ll take responsibility for that. I think I got sidetracked from the original intention intention of my comment and began reactiing to small parts of your overall point. My misunderstanding snowballed a bit.
    I thought I was clear that my beef was with the few here that can’t pass up the easy cheap shots.
    You obviously have an informed and nuanced take that I was trying to add some personal perspective of a local. I was born in Compton and grew up in L.A. To be clear, I loathe the “lost cause” narrative and the irrepairable harm it’s done. It wasn’t my intention to deflect responsibility to the north, sole responsibility resides here, where it belongs. Any anecdotals aren’t claims or arguments of anything, they’re meant as prods toward a little introspection to the knee-jerk cheap shot crowd. Here’s the thing, you are right, the North has no responsibility to help do what the elites won’t and the powerless can’t (not for the two three decades at least) so where does that leaves us? The South created it and continues to exacerbate it but on the practical level alone, its a national problem.

  203. 203.

    ABL

    @Frankensteinbeck: Thanks, that’s very kind! Those threads used to really bother me. They don’t anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Or maybe Zandar takes some of the heat offa me. :)

  204. 204.

    Eolirin

    @JaneE

    I don’t disagree with the general point you’re making, but what they did to Clinton when he was in office *was* pretty crazy. They weren’t quite as radicalized as they are now, they weren’t quite as extreme as they are now, but remember that they *actually* shut the government down instead of almost shutting the government down, and spent hundreds of hours investigating things like Christmas card lists. They slandered him as a murderer and he spent his entire time in office fighting off spurious attacks until they finally managed to find a legitimate scandal to impeach him over. So I think Obama being black makes things worse, but to think that there isn’t *also* a huge Democrat versus Republican issue is not remotely true. Anyone that isn’t them is immediately demonized and made illegitimate if they’re in a position of power, black or white – they’re racist too yes, but the tribalism is very very strong. So strong that they’re more that willing to forgive the “sin” of having the wrong skin color if they happen to be part of the tribe; see Herman Cain.

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