Via TPM…I guess the Reagan Rule doesn’t apply if you are Republicaning while Black*:
From: Jim Allen <[email protected]>
Sent: 06/18/13 10:59 PM
To: [Doug Ibendahl] Subject: 13th Congressional District replyRodney Davis will win and the love child of the D.N.C. will be back in Shitcago by May of 2014 working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires.
Yup, that’s the actual first line of an email about Erika Harold, a Republican mounting a primary challenge — from the Montgomery County’s Republican party chairman, Jim Allen. You can find the complete text here. PSA: it doesn’t get any better from its opening. One more choice little number — it seems that Ms. Harold is not just someone born out of wedlock and all that, she is, to Mr. Allen, something else:
Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS…These pimps want something they can’t get,,, the seat held by a conservative REPUBLICAN
Ladies and Gentlemen: your modern GOP. Treasure it.
I got just two thoughts to add to a message that I think speaks just fine for itself.
First, there is one detail you should know: Allen actually sent his email to a journalist, Doug Ibendahl, the editor of Republican News Watch, the site linked above.
Now, in general (and even before the NSA revelations) it’s a good idea to assume any message on which you press “send” is essentially a public utterance. But to write to a ink-stained wretch?
Oy.
Even if, to steal Molly Ivins’ immortal phrase, you are in fact so dumb they have to water you twice a day, c’mon! You have to know you’ve just shouted whatever it is from the rooftops. If Allen represents the best Montgomery County Republicans have to offer, then…
…hell, fill in your own disaster du jour.
The only other thing I have to say follows from the above. I’m guessing that in fact Mr. Allen can tie his own shoes, navigate a knife and fork and all that. He’s stupid — mind numbingly, catastrophically moronic — but only in a narrow way. Whatever internal circuit that might have suggested to him that the message above might not be a wise thing to say has been deactivated. And that’s really the issue, at least in a political sense.
Here’s the thing: obviously what Allen wrote is hateful, racist, scummy, craptastic…I’m wishing now I knew one of those languages whose vocabulary of invective was much richer than my own. (Yiddish! I wish I really had Yiddish in my bones. See, e.g. this one — relevant to the need to vet those who may speak for your team: Dos hitl iz gut nor der kop iz tsu kleyn — The hat is fine but the head is too small.) But the truly amazing thing to me is not that he thought such vile thoughts, but that he was willing to say so in a very public way.
This is what makes this little glimpse of nastiness something more than just an insight into one crappy excuse for a human being. That Allen didn’t have enough sense to realize that what he was saying should have been un-sayable tells you that the environment in which he lives and breathes does not view such sentiments as out of bounds. Calling a young African American woman taking part in the political process a bastard and a whore is OK where Allen lives…
…and, of course, his home is inside the Republican party.
Now, disclaimer: I’m not suggesting, for example, that John McCain or Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell or John Boehner or whoever are sitting behind their desks saying to themselves daily that Barack Obama as a N*clang!, or Nancy Pelosi as a pimp or whatever.
But they and others are leaders of a party that — with seemingly growing intensity since 2008 — has tolerated within its ranks the use of grotesque racial and sexist crap that garners, most often, only the weakest of pro-forma rebuke coming from the actual voices that could shape the culture of the party. If party NCOs (and Allen’s hardly the first) feel comfortable enough to spout as above, it’s in large measure because the Republican party — their own tribe — hasn’t made it clear that there is no place for such words and such beliefs in the party of Lincoln.
Shorter: if you want people who don’t look exactly like you to think that you don’t hate them, you have to make sure your folks don’t say out loud how much they, in fact, do despise the other.
Hence how much this one, brief email tells you why the current incarnation of the Republican Party must, and likely will, immolate itself. For the rest of the country? We just have to hope is that the GOP does not manage its exit by murder-suicide.
Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est.
*It’s important to note one more thing: for all of Allen’s racial code-talking, Erika Harold is, as reported here, about as 21st century American as it’s possible to imagine: “Harold’s heritage is complex—her mother is African American and Native American while her father is Greek, German, and English.”
That comprehensively rich heritage — to me, at least — makes Allen’s zeroing in on Harold value as quota-bait for “minority hires” even more grotesque, if that were possible. I’m betting I’m not the only one hearing the “one drop” dog whistle.
Image: Lavinia Fontana, Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene, 1581.
Cacti
Really? Why not?
bill d
But he didn’t mention rape, they’re getting smarter.
ruemara
Having worked with many politicians locally, we’ll have to disagree on this:
Trust me, it still matters. Even democrats are just more self deluded on what they mean by “fit” and “comfort”.
But I feel outreached. think I’ll vote GOP for all the extra inclusion efforts.
Tone in DC
I am not at all surprised that he said that. He’d say the same about Alan Keyes, JC Watts, Herman Cain, Armstrong Williams and so many other idiots (useful or otherwise).
To me, the G00pers misogyny is too well documented (not just the recent stuff from Mourdock and Akin; remember what Grampy McCain said about his own wife, Cindy?) for anyone here to belabor.
Tom Levenson
@Cacti: Apophasis, perhaps?
LittlePig
Wow, it really will end up as one ol’ white dude in Council Bluffs (Pierce) or three old dudes in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Dothan, Alabama (Newell).
Zifnab
The Reagan Rule was always more of a Reagan Guideline. Hell, if memory serves I think Reagan coined it shortly after getting his ass whooped despite going hard negative on Gerald Ford in the ’76 GOP Primary.
Tone in DC
Also, this must have made Grampy’s day…
http://bossip.com/783275/swirly-matrimony-dom-john-mccains-son-marries-a-beautiful-nubian-princess-air-force-captain-43081/
Pluky
@bill d: Only because, in his world, a street walker can’t be raped.
danimal
As a non-GOP white male, all I can say is that I hope to gawd that women and minority voters show up in incredible numbers and give the Republicans the righteous beating they so richly deserve in 2014.
These old white dudes are pampered idiots, they need to be removed from the civic discourse.
Chris
You don’t have to do anything nearly that dramatic to be a bigot.
What I find fascinating is the number of Republicans who feel this way, say it out loud, and damn to the depths the “political correctness” that makes it unfashionable to say it in public – and yet (see Rand Paul re civil rights in the previous post) still really really want credit for their part in helping minorities and for being the real party of civil rights, etc, and get really really upset when anyone points out that they’re bigots.
I’m not confused about why that is – conservatives have a pathological need for recognition and respect, even when it’s not earned and even from the people they hate (maybe especially then). But it still blows my mind how people can get to be that badly fucked in the head.
Capri
Calling what someone says a “dog whistle” usually refers to language that is on its surface innocuous. Not reading a dog whistle here, one drop or otherwise. More along the lines with a tornado siren.
Chris
@danimal:
As another white male (and a straight one, and a Christian, well, Christian-raised one, and an Anglo one), put ‘er there.
MaryJane
Nothing shocking here. The only question I have, why is she a Republican?
LittlePig
Just be aware, my Northern friends, that this is actually pretty mild as these things go. Remembering how folks talked back when the local theater had a Colored Balcony, I’m reminded of Mrs. Truman’s “It took me forty years to get him to say manure!”.
That being said, I’m glad to see their new marketing ideas. Honesty is the best policy, after all.
shortstop
@Tone in DC: The GOP’s racism is every bit as well documented as its misogyny. I think there’s plenty of reason to “belabor” both.
It’s worth reading the whole email if y’all haven’t. It’s not that easy to make every single word other than articles and general pronouns sound spiteful, bigoted, illiterate and adolescent, but by dog, this gent has done it. There’s an economy of assholery and cluelessness here that’s quite admirable in its way.
Gin & Tonic
“I got just two thoughts to add.”
I can’t help wondering what you’d say to a student who went on for nearly 700 words after a phrase like that. Seems like more that two thoughts, but I didn’t have the benefit of your instruction when I was an undergrad.
maya
Shorter: Republican – The Party of Lincoln………..Rockwell.
Zifnab
@MaryJane: Same reason Romney ran as a Republican. All the slots for Democrats were taken.
That’s kinda the joke in the two-party system (and one reason you see so many mushy centrist DINO/RINOs). If you’ve got better odds winning as a Republican in the general than as a Democrat in the primary, might as well run as a Republican. Weaker local parties provide more opportunities to climb the ladder, even if the end result is that you’re running in the underdog’s ticket.
Before you’re elected, it pays to look like a squishy moderate. After you’re elected, the Democrats are just happy to have you while the Republicans press-gang you into their leadership structure. Gerrymander for flavor, and you get the current Congressional composition.
Kay
Completely agree. It was inevitable that it would appear publicly and get worse.
Conservatives made a decision. They said and did nothing as the unhinged racist rants got more and more blatant and now all bets are off.
They all but told candidates like this “we’re your Party- this is OKAY with us”
They shouldn’t be surprised if this is the kind of candidate they attract.
JPL
@Tone in DC: Well that explains why McCain wasn’t on Meet the Press.
shortstop
@Kay: He’s not a candidate, at least not at this moment (I realize he had to run within a limited audience for this position). He’s a county GOP chair, which is worse in some ways.
pharniel
I’m not confused about why that is – conservatives have a pathological need for recognition and respect, even when it’s not earned and even from the people they hate (maybe especially then). But it still blows my mind how people can get to be that badly fucked in the head.
So you’re saying the GOP are the Millennials of the Political world? I’ll buy that.
Boots Day
You have to wonder what’s going through Erika Harold’s mmind this morning. Or that of any other minority who was thinking of running for office as a Republican.
Tom Levenson
@Gin & Tonic: Heh.
To channel my inner Mel Brooks*: It’s good to be the king.
There really are only two thoughts there: “Boy is he dumb.” And “what kind of party lets really dumb people let it all hang out in its name?”
The rest, to channel my inner Hillel, is commentary.**
*Now there’s a truly horrible notion.
**Seven more and I am my own minyan.
TooManyJens
@Zifnab:
Except that I live in the district she’s running in, and can say that the Democratic bench here is not very deep.
She seems to have very conservative views about sex, which is probably why she’s a Republican. I don’t know her views on anything else.
Tom Levenson
@Tom Levenson:
Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Dopey and Doc….Cohen.
shortstop
@Boots Day: She wouldn’t be running as a Republican if she weren’t already expert at filtering out and making excuses for this stuff. That’s not to imply that she deserves it — she’s just highly likely to dismiss it as an aberration rather than honestly consider that it’s a majority view among her partymates.
bill d
So has Mr. Allen responded to this deal at all? Sorry if anyone was offended? Poor choice of words? Emailing while on Bath Salts?
Kay
@shortstop:
Right, I know, but there’s a sort of screening process that has broken down in the GOP.
People like this aren’t supposed to get to leadership positions in political parties.
They rant from the back of the room.
It’s sort of amusing, because it’s like what conservatives used to accuse liberals of: no standards, over-inclusiveness. Republicans HAVE a big tent now. It’s just that it includes the worst of the “conservative movement” in the mainstream Party.
shortstop
@bill d: Not yet. When it comes, my money’s on it being a mixture of fake solicitude and open defiance. There will be references to freedom of speech, censorship and “bullying” from the left.
Cacti
Just realized that the particular “streetwalker” in this man’s screed happens to be a former Miss America.
Proceed GOP.
Villago Delenda Est
The GOP parade of sooper-geniouses continues. Meanwhile, Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner are rolling around all over Arizona and New Mexico laughing their tails off.
Roger Moore
@danimal:
As another non-GOP white male, I hope that our group does its part in the effort. I don’t really expect white men to vote Democratic, but falling off from “strong GOP” to “lean GOP” would be a surprisingly strong message. If they can’t win a large majority of the white male vote, they’ll have to start rethinking their policies, not just their messaging and attempts to disenfranchise everyone who doesn’t look like a traditional GOP voter.
Gin & Tonic
@Tom Levenson: Now you’ve got me thinking of a movie reference. Elliott Gould? James Caan? “Bet you can’t name the 7 dwarves.” Too lazy to look, and I know somebody’ll post the answer within 15 comments from now.
shortstop
@Kay: I was going to say something about states like this one (in which the statewide Republican party has been pretty well rendered powerless) possibly putting more extreme loons in party leadership because of the demiglace theory of GOP insanity. Then I remembered the entire South, so…never mind.
MomSense
@Chris:
I’m not saying John McCain and Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are racists but they have been pallin’ around with them!
Roger Moore
@Tone in DC:
Wow, that really hits the trifecta: she’s older, black, and in the Air Force. The only thing that could make it worse is if she’s a better pilot than he is.
LittlePig
@Cacti: Proceed GOP.
I know, right? Miss America for cryin’ out loud.
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
I’d say that one’s a given unless she also used her family connections to become an aviator despite her lack of qualifications.
shortstop
@Cacti: I hate how black women are always doing that, don’t you?
Jim C
Have you ever been to Montgomery County in Illinois? He just might be.
shortstop
@Jim C: I was born there. And look at me now. ;)
jibeaux
I always wonder when I see things like this, how the journalist got a hold of the email.
In this case, it’s an email directly to him, directly from racist dude.
I think they’re devolving.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
How many crash landings does she have to her credit?
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
I was thinking about her being a better pilot than her husband, not her father-in-law. Since the article only mentions she’s in the Air Force without mentioning her duties, it seems likely that she’s not a pilot at all.
ETA: And doesn’t the picture really say it all? The rest of them are bunched in tight to make a family, while Grampy is pulling away as if he doesn’t want to touch his wife. And I’m a bit surprised that the happy couple are in traditional wedding dress rather than full dress uniform.
Kay
@shortstop:
It’s fun to watch as a Democrat because it’s a kind of “political correctness” all its own.
They’re terrified of reining these people in: ” must not alienate the racist part of the base!”
They’ve been dressing up racism as “truth telling” for so long, winking and nodding, that the dumber portions of local leadership took it as a green light to just let fly.
They used to pride themselves on control and restraint and cohesiveness.
Now they’re incapable of any sort of exclusiveness. EVERYONE is in!
maya
Democrats have been saying unkind things about Republicans for, like, years, so, BOTH SIDES DO IT.
I have to go and pick up Tom Brokaw’s check now.
Burnspbesq
Just look at a map and this becomes easy to understand. Montgomery County is rural and Downstate. It might as well be in Mississippi.
Howard Beale IV
Speaking of Media, Jay Rosen quoting Mediaiate that Howard Kurtz is joining Fox.
Mandalay
Only slightly OT, I have just been reading in TPM about the wedding Food Network chef Paula Deen wants to plan for her brother…
A whole lot of older people need to die before there is any prospect of this this country getting rid of racism. A culture shift is not going to get the job done.
Another Halocene Human
Jesus’ hat is pasted on yaye.
Unless that is some odd manner of wearing a hat with which I have not been heretofore acquainted.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Roger Moore:
One of my Navy assignments was with a jet training squadron. One of our young pilots had the habit of touching down way too late. The instructors worked with him, but he kept on plunking his aircraft halfway down the runway. Flat spotted tires and breathtaking stops just before the barriers and the oh my God gravel run out. They kept working with him because he was otherwise very capable. Then he did it. He came in hot, touched down late, ran off the end of the runway. The aircraft had three barrier nets wrapped around the nose before he started scattering gravel, fire bottles and one very startled sailor who was on wheel watch.
That young man was a better pilot than John McCain.
Kay
They’ll invoke their fucked up, ridiculous version of “free speech!”
This jerk can say anything he wants and ANY push-back is “unfair” or a “smear” or “playing the race card”
Villago Delenda Est
@Howard Beale IV:
I’m shocked. Shocked!
Jim C
@shortstop: Are you still there?
bill d
@Howard Beale IV:
Kurtz leaving CNN to go to FoxNews, about time.
I know it is too much to ask to wish for CNN to hire some non-dickweed for that kind of show.
MaryJane
@Zifnab:
Thanks, that’s a better supposition than I came up with.* That it’s a Jeebus thing for her.
* Although I can’t imagine Rmoney running as anything BUT a Republican.
piratedan
obviously this is a false flag operation as some nefarious libtard skeezbag hijacked this account and sent the most hurtful and slanderous comments hoping to distract the voters from the real evilz of Obummercare!
Bob In Portland
@MaryJane: A question she may be asking herself.
Shortstop
@Jim C: Sweet fancy Moses, no. I’m happily (except for the weather) ensconced in Shitcago via London.
maya
@Burnspbesq: On a cross-country drive I stopped at an all-night diner in lower Ill. It happened to be on a November Saturday evening just when DST was going to end at 2AM. The waitress was asking her female manager -probably owner – about how the time change affected her paycheck. Would she get paid an extra hour or what? The manager replied that she actually would lose an hour’s pay since a whole hour was erased from the day. The waitress bought it. I felt like butting in but thought better of it. Dog, these people are dumb.
Another Halocene Human
@TooManyJens: She seems to have very conservative views about sex, which is probably why she’s a Republican. I don’t know her views on anything else.
I then eagerly await her massive butthurt Republican screaming-meemee response to be called a whore.
Pleasepleaseplease don’t decide that it “doesn’t merit a response”.
Pleeeeeease go ex-Lt Gov of Florida and say something illconsidered and dumb
Popcorn doesn’t eat itself!
Roger Moore
Yeah, because affirmative action is the only reason anyone hires Harvard Law alumnae with experience at big city law firms. Could these guys get any more transparent?
Another Halocene Human
@shortstop: She is probably convinced that BOTH SIDES DO IT! and liberals are intolerant (of our Dominionist agenda) & so on.
Another Halocene Human
@Kay: It’s a big tent, but the number of revival-goers may have been just a tad exaggerated.
https://twitter.com/Melanie_Lea/status/347379257447682048/photo/1
raven
@Jim C: I’m from Urbana, close enough?
Another Halocene Human
@Roger Moore: It would be nice if white men could think about somebody else for a change and join the progressive coalition for a better society instead of voting to deny other people “stuff” (because we all know status is a zero-sum game, amirite?)
catclub
That is one weird painting with Jesus in a plantation owners hat.
D58826
@shortstop: And he thinks by issuing an ‘apology’ he will make it all go away. Why any one would give the least credence to the ‘apology’ is beyond me. You don’t spend that much time and effort writing something if it doesn’t in some way reflect your real feelings. It’s not like yelling the n-word after a few to many in a bar fight. TGhat may be put down as the heat of the moment but this rant was well thought out.
Burnspbesq
It’s an interesting district. Mostly Cracker (Barrel) country, but it also includes three college towns: Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal, and Edwardsville. The incumbent is in his first term, and got in only because the former holder of the seat was gerrymandered into a different district. Cook rates it as “lean Republican.”
Shortstop
@Another Halocene Human: I would put large coin on her response carefully absolving most Republicans from Allen’s sins.
Jim C
@Shortstop: Ha! If you had been, I might have apologized. I’m from that area as well – north of Springfield – but I never really noticed the high cracker content until I moved away.
I had forgotten about Erika Harold, so I read up on Wikipedia. She was one of the candidates interviewed to replace Tim Johnson on the 13th District ballot in 2012. Rodney Davis was chosen, and only won by 1000 votes (0.4% of the total). Interestingly, the 13th seems to have moved a lot over time – once held by Don Rumsfeld (If memory serves, I think Evanston was in the district at the time) and later by Phil Crane – but it has been held by a Republican since 1895.
Roger Moore
@Another Halocene Human:
and it’s full of clowns.
Jim C
@raven: Nope, you’re from a University town. (Just like Erika Harold.)
If you were from, say, Seymour …
TaMara (BHF)
I swear to you, I knew electing a black man president was going to be an issue. I was more worried about attempts on his life and stuff.
I never, NEVER expected the batshit crazy stuff that has been public discourse since. Hot mess indeed.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826:
If it’s a “Captain Needa” apology, it will solve many problems, however.
Another Halocene Human
@Burnspbesq: It’s probably worse. Jackson, MS (btw, check out who just became mayor) is on the old Illinois Central line, which passes through Effingham, 60 miles away. Which is to say, it’s probably worse in Hillboro, IL than Jackson, MS.
Another Halocene Human
@TaMara (BHF): Ditto. I would have thought it would have put a lid on that shit but nooooo.
It’s hard to imagine good coming from this (though maybe some moderates will now believe people of color about all the racists out there) but maybe the daily ragegasms will either burn these clowns out from politics entirely or cause them to exit stage left early?
raven
@Jim C: Sibley, Forrest Strawn, Wing maybe
Another Halocene Human
You have to really wonder what the racists were thinking when their boy GWB put so many people of color in his administration?
I imagine it was quite fantastical.
Shakezula
Translation: How dare this hot Negress run for office against a white man when she should be in my kitchen waiting for me to rape her while she’s washing dishes?!
The Republic of Stupidity
Dood… that’s why the Good Dog Above gave man Velcro, sporks, and sippy cups…
Wow… just… wow…
raven
@Jim C: Wow, I didn’t realize she was from Urbana too!
Forum Transmitted Disease
Huh. At least he didn’t use the term “NigBama”, I was certain that was going to be in there.
dmsilev
Annals of Excellence In Media: The original story reporting this currently carries the headline “Illinois GOP official pens allegedly racist attack on black GOP candidate”. ‘Allegedly’ racist? Seriously?
rea
What kind of crazed traitor calls Miss America a street walker?
Roger Moore
@Another Halocene Human:
I think appointed positions within the administration are different from elected officials. Cabinet officers may be important, but they’re still fundamentally working for the President. As long as the President is white, racists can imagine people of color within the administration as properly subservient, having to suck up to keep their jobs, etc. But elected officials have power in their own right, so it’s much more offensive if they’re people of color.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
In fairness, the original article appears in Republican News Watch, a publication that happily refers to the Republican party in the first person. They aren’t pretending to be an honest, unbiased news source. If there’s a piece of real news here, it’s that such a Republican organ would decide to air this kind of dirty laundry.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@TaMara (BHF): It was good for me. Before Obama, I would have told you, with firm sincerity, that racism wasn’t that big an issue in this country. Yeah, there were still some throwbacks, and still some parts of the Deep South that I wouldn’t have wanted to be a black man in after sunset, but in general we had the problem licked and the people bitching about it were oversensitive whiners.
Go ahead and laugh, by God I deserve it.
When I’m wrong I go big, and I have never been more wrong about anything than I was about just how racist a country this was. Holy shit. I had no fucking idea. The conservatives are all racist, most of the “liberals” are racist, and those who don’t give a shit about politics are, to a person, racists all. This is a racist country, period. I am appalled and deeply ashamed on a personal level for not seeing it. This country is FUCKED UP and we have a lot of work to do. At this point I don’t expect racial harmony in my lifetime, hell, I’ll settle for polite hatefulness, which would be a huge improvement on what we have now.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, that phrasing jangled. I thought maybe T-Lev was trying to go “street,” but it doesn’t really suit him.
TooManyJens
@Burnspbesq:
A couple of other things I would note:
* The district is very winnable for Democrats, at least in a Presidential year. The D candidate last year, David Gill, got within 1300 votes of winning despite not being very strong as a candidate (good guy, bad politician) and getting thumped in his three previous races in the old IL-15.
* The previous IL-15 representative chose, after the 2012 primary, not to seek re-election. The reason Harold is running at all, AFAICT, is that Johnson’s staffers were butthurt that they didn’t get to slate their preferred candidate and the party went with Davis instead. Also, there’s that sweet, sweet consulting $ to be made, including by some of the selfsame former staffers, especially if the race is contentious again and gets a lot of national money poured into it.
Steeplejack
@Roger Moore:
I’m willing to accept that as a given.
raven
And when ya’ll get on your high horses about the “south” I keep telling you that where I am from is no different.
Rick Massimo
It would be nice if someone pointed out that casually referring to one of Americas biggest cities as shit is also not all that outreachy, but the GOP has been doing that for decades and evidently if you say you love America loud and often enough you can actually hate a pretty big fraction of the country and its OK.
One thing Allen did that was clever, if he did it on purpose which I put at 50-50: he used an expletive in his screed. Now no MSM outlet will publish it, which means they can pretend it never happened. (Whew! Close one!)
Tom Levenson
@Steeplejack: noted.
PaulW
There is a rule that I abide by when it comes to posting and saying stuff on the Intertubes:
If you’re saying or writing something in private, you better be able to say and write the same thing in public. Don’t go writing off to someone else with the expectation it’s gonna stay private: in this day and age, nothing really IS private (even the stuff not going to the NSA).
Or in another way: If what you wanna say is clearly not something you want to say in public, then you better be able to understand why you shouldn’t be thinking or saying such sh-t in the first place.
This is what Allen clearly thinks of a fellow Republican: he clearly doesn’t like the idea of her challenging an incumbent, that is obvious. The way he decided to express that hate, though, says a lot about his view of the world. And it ain’t pretty.
There were about ten other ways Allen could have ripped her in private (“She’s an inexperience pol, going after a guy I respect, what is wrong with her?” is the cleanest and still-honest (for him) way to go), and he went with the cheap sexist insults.
Omnes Omnibus
I will echo what I said in the Taranto thread a couple of days ago…. What kind of person can write things like this and look at himself in a mirror?
Shortstop
@Another Halocene Human: Hillsboro with an S. It’s definitely worse than Jackson, although much of that has to do with the large disparity in size.
@Roger Moore: True! This doesn’t stop rank-and-file wingers from hauling out black appointees as proof of their party’s open-mindedness, though. I recall some dumbass earnestly insisting in 2004 or 2005 that the GOP was more enlightened than the Dems because they’d had two black SoS and we’d had none. At that time the Republican members of the Congressional Black Caucus numbered exactly zero and that number had held steady since JC Watts left office in…1997? My bus stop is coming up and I can’t look it up.
Lurking Canadian
@Chris: Actually, I don’t think those are contradictory. It’s the same thinking that leads to the “Democrat plantation” stuff. They just view Civil Rights as a gift they gave to the untermenshen, but c’mon, you didn’t really think that meant they’re *equal* to white people?
An analogy might be to think that your average Republican thinks every black person has Down’s Syndrome. Batshit crazy and racist as hell, but not necessarily internally inconsistent.
In a sense, this was also Lincoln’s view of black people (at least early in life-I think there are reasons to believe that his views genuinely changed towards the end), so they come by it honestly.
gene108
@Boots Day:
Duh? Winning!
This is the sort of stupid comment that could propel her to oust the incumbent.
She’s probably doing a little dance about her good fortune to have such stupid opposition.
gene108
@TooManyJens:
I wonder how she reconciles being beauty pageants, with a conservative view on sex? Seems to me the two don’t mesh.
Seanly
@bill d:
He’ll say the email was taken out of context. It’s a stock Republican reply and doesn’t mean what they think it means (ie, he’s showed his rascist, sexist true self).
Of course, when Democrats are quoted out of context, then context doesn’t matter.
Lurking Canadian
@gene108: Sure they do. Pageants are all about wholesome, traditional ladies fitting into wholesome traditional roles.
Notice the shitstorm that erupts each time a pageant contestant’s sex pics/video leak.
Another Halocene Human
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I have hope but keep in mind that progress is very gradual. People pick up these attitudes at home and often don’t have them challenged through their lifetime. (Instead, they decide that the people they know well are special exceptions.) Progress also hasn’t been in a straight line. Reactionary forces have struck back repeatedly, from the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era to Taft-Hartley to Reaganism.
The sucky thing is that reactionary policies linger for so. damn. long. Woodrow Wilson’s biggest blow to racial reconciliation (aside from what he did to Haiti) was redlining mortgage lending. We are STILL suffering the aftereffects despite the fact that the US government no longer discriminates on basis of race and private housing discrimination is at least legally banned, if you can prove it. Or look at what Plecker did in Virginia. Families are still suffering from what he did to them, 90 years ago.
Shit. Look at our dumbass land use planning and transportation policies. Fuck me.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@gene108: Makes it more fun when it’s all filthy and dirty. Ask Carrie Prejean, San Diego’s finest camwhore/bigot/former Miss America, current jellydong endorser.
Another Halocene Human
@Forum Transmitted Disease: The conservatives are all racist, most of the “liberals” are racist, and those who don’t give a shit about politics are, to a person, racists all. This is a racist country, period.
I found out in school, thanks to a confrontational & sarcastic (but overall, very fun) African American teacher that my family, or rather, my dad’s family was the exception and my mom’s family was the norm. Mom bitched up and down about affirmative action and reverse racism (though she didn’t use that term, guess it hadn’t been thunk up yet in the 70s which is the period she was moaning about) and even made her distrust of j00000s abundantly clear, whereas my Dad used to take us down to the ghetto for Jamaican food and shoot the breeze with the clerks*. Heck, one time on a visit to Grandma’s house he took us along on a visit to his childhood cleaning lady. She had social security retirement because Grandma paid the taxes, apparently she was the only one in the neighborhood b/c Grandma had to pay over the going rate nominally to make the cash rate the same. It really makes me sad to think of what happened to those other domestic workers.
*-Mom endured because she had a barbeque jones, and if it took going to Blue Hill Ave, Dorchester during the height of the crack epidemic with her holed up in the car like it was the DMZ, so be it… let’s just say it took a long time for yankee food and Southern Italian cuisine, yankee style, to grow on her
Grandma was a big Obama booster and was really disappointed at the insanely racist pushback against him.
Another Halocene Human
@Lurking Canadian: It’s like Herman Cain’s shuck’n’jive act–pageant contestants aren’t supposed to have their own sexuality, identity, agency. They’re supposed to mold themselves to patriarchal expectations. They’re supposed to be chaste, yet sexay. And note how they yap on stage about how they want to do some sort of apolitical charity work, even though a good number of them either have or go onto very serious academics and careers. The suffragettes wept. (Thinking about how middle class women and upper class women in the industrial era got heavily involved in highly politicized “charity” work, pretty much full time activism if you think about it.)
Another Halocene Human
@raven: It’s the Southern part of Illinois.
The Fat Kate Middleton
From tthe News-Gazette (“Serving East Central Illinois”)
The Fat Kate Middleton
I’ve obv. not mastered the linkage process here – sorry.
Kay
@shortstop:
I don’t really buy the “we’re a political minority, so we don’t have leadership competition”
Democrats are a political minority here. It’s rural and overwhelmingly white. We HAVE racists in the Democratic Party here. Absolutely.
We just don’t promote or elect them to leadership positions.
Conservatives made a choice not to call this out. Now they have two problems. People like this guy rise in the ranks, and people like this guy repel not-insane Republicans.
The Other Chuck
@gene108:
The crowned Miss America is contractually required to remain abstinent during her year “reign”. Really. They’ve stripped winners of their title when evidence to the contrary (like pregnancy) came to light. That and can you name a single positive thing for women that the Miss America Pageant represents?
LAC
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I have been on this earth damn near 50 years and as a black american, I have seen the best and worst there is out there. I was not surprised by the vicious racism exhibited by the dullards in the tea party, a lot of our southern neighbors, and of course, the GOP. 40-50 years is not a long time and it takes a long time to clear out garbage. I take some hope in the friendships I see my 18 year old in and in the friendships and interactions I have with younger folks. But I never thought it would be happyhappy joy joy post-racial world.
I was initially surprised by the asinine rosa tabula racism from a lot of folks on the left. Projecting some Stockey Carmichael/Black Panther angry black man shit on the President. As if that is the only sort of black person they know and that if he is not throwing fits and reading folks all up and down the street, then they voted for the “wrong” black man. I think Obama even said that people will look at him as a blank slate and project what they want onto him. I am no longer surprised, but it did throw cold water on the notion that it was only coming from one side.
Yastreblyansky
@Cacti: Because they aren’t at their desks every day. Other days they do it on the golf course, in the airport, etc.
Mike E
@bill d:
FTFY
raven
@Another Halocene Human: No it isn’t. My mom was from Christopher, that is Southern Illinois, or Little Egypt as they call it.
gvg
I know it’s been a shock to white moderates like myself, but overall the US is NOT racist. Look we elected a black man president and are perfectly comfortable with that. what happened is IMO 2 things. The Iraq war exposed the GOP as incompetant and 2006 saw a lot of former mostly GOP voters leave the GOP and vote democrat. The ones who stayed GOP were no longer as diluted by more moderate and just sane people. What was left was blinder and less in love with competance. Naturally the racists stayed and they are probably one of the most identifiable blocks left. Republican pols still trying to win are afraid to try for new voters or recover former voters in any way that will cause some of what is left to leave them. Bird in the hand versus 2 in the bush. They don’t see that they should try to successfully run some things and erase the bad vision of Iraq/Katrina/financial crash etc.
The 2nd thing is that Obama’s election in 2008 blew away some self delusions the real hard core racists had about the rest of us and political correctness. From what I overheard coming out of their own mouths, the racists thought pc was just not using certain words and being polite in public, not a reflection of what the majority of the public thought was right and wrong. Obama’s election was a huge shock to them and they came out since then. They still don’t get it that many many people just think they are hateful and wrong including many who look like them. They did not and still don’t see that they are in the minority. So they are making a huge public fuss, thinking it’s going to rally a whole bunch of other whites that must really agree with them…and we don’t. I knew Obama would take Florida and several other southern states….they didn’t. Some of them didn’t realize he would take so many non southern states. Frankly we just aren’t that racist anymore. But the ones that are are now super loud.
Margin of defeat needs to get bigger of course.
In addition it’s still possible to win locally with these attitudes flying and most of the pols will never run nationally so they don’t care that the gop can’t win the white house. Selfish fools
Another Halocene Human
@LAC: I was initially surprised by the asinine rosa tabula racism from a lot of folks on the left. Projecting some Stockey Carmichael/Black Panther angry black man shit on the President. As if that is the only sort of black person they know and that if he is not throwing fits and reading folks all up and down the street, then they voted for the “wrong” black man.
Or, quite frankly, Samuel L. Jackson. That was big 2008-2009 and was incredibly tiresome. (Although I did find Key and Peele’s Obama’s Anger Translator skit funny. And of course it’s based on the reality of Obama’s consummate public restraint even when you know he’s pissed off, like the flaps with McChrystal and Petraeus.)
What surprised ME were the lefties who have revealed how very racist THEY are. No wonder extreme lefty spaces seem to be all white spaces. Ugh. I’m getting a little tired of these clowns taking credit for every civil rights advance and spamming facebook with Chavez quotes (Hugo, not Cesar) and trolling about Palestinians but who won’t step out of their bubble and engage African-American activists. Lame.
It all seems so selfish. Show up at the Monsanto rally because you (erroneously) believe that GMO food is poisoning you but not a peep out of you when there are racial incidents at the high school or like when a REAL liberal ran for mayor who happened to be Black. Fuck, I don’t care about your ersatz hippie kumbaya dance because it’s all a lie.
I had fun trolling the Jill Stein table in 2012. The elderly white folk with their Green Party sun visors had no idea that she’d helped put Mitt Romney in office in Massachusetts. Hahahaha.
InternetDragons
@Mandalay:
“A whole lot of older people need to die before there is any prospect of this this country getting rid of racism.”
Oh, really? Interesting comment in light of the fact that I spent part of my morning banning a gaggle of 20-somethings from a couple of gaming discussion boards because they were throwing around the N word with regard to the President, making jokes about lynching, and referring to women as c***s.
Oh, but hey, they’re young. They’re the hope for the future!! Kids will be kids, it’s OK!
You can take your narrow-minded, short-sighted bigotry about age and go to hell.
It’s just astounding to me how some people can be all outraged about one kind of bigotry and then express another in literally the same breath.
Patricia Kayden
@Boots Day: If she’s smart she’ll not say anything about this — otherwise there could be a backlash against her for playing the victim and playing the race card. I assume Allen felt comfortable releasing such an email because he knows that there are no consequences for such behavior among the voters. Like Ms. Harold, President Obama is mixed but that hasn’t stopped the racists from focusing on his otherness.
Another Halocene Human
@gvg: The 2nd thing is that Obama’s election in 2008 blew away some self delusions the real hard core racists had about the rest of us and political correctness. From what I overheard coming out of their own mouths, the racists thought pc was just not using certain words and being polite in public, not a reflection of what the majority of the public thought was right and wrong. Obama’s election was a huge shock to them and they came out since then.
Word. And I hope this whole thing has further marginalized that mean-spirited, kick-down “anti PC” memeplex that was so big in the early 1990s.
I hope that “we hate everyone equally” will no longer be an adequate fig leaf.
I hope we return to real American values like “you don’t hit below the belt” and “you don’t kick a man when he’s down”.
Patricia Kayden
@Mandalay: I was kind of shocked by this revelation. Ms. Deen always seemed like a decent person, although her food looks nauseatingly fattening. Wonder if her brand will be harmed by this revelation. She should have just settled that lawsuit instead of allowing all these nasty allegations to get publicized.
Ben Cisco
@LAC:
Me neither. I’ve got just over 50 years myself, and I knew it would NOT be all sunshine and sparkles.
The garbage from some on the left wasn’t TOO much of a surprise – plenty of people call themselves Democrats down ‘Bama way that have more in common with their GOP counterparts than they do us. Twice as good for half as much indeed.
TooManyJens
@gvg:
We really, really aren’t.
Another Halocene Human
@Ben Cisco: I don’t count those who vote GOP in national and statewide elections.
Another Halocene Human
@TooManyJens: Some are, some aren’t. You have to look at state by state data.
TooManyJens
@Another Halocene Human: I agree, but to say that “we” as a nation are perfectly comfortable with having a black president is just not true.
Tone in DC
It’s worth reading the whole email if y’all haven’t. It’s not that easy to make every single word other than articles and general pronouns sound spiteful, bigoted, illiterate and adolescent, but by dog, this gent has done it. There’s an economy of assholery and cluelessness here that’s quite admirable in its way.
I disagree. It is in no way admirable at this point; only all too consistent. This George Wallace wannabe fits right in with his peers.
fuckwit
@InternetDragons: It’s projection. It’s normal. It’s a problem. I for example have a really bad attitude about religions, fundamentalists, Republicans in general, and religious people, and I feel bad about it. It’s hard to not be bigoted towards bigots. but I really should try harder.
As for the racism/sexism/homophobia, I think it might be the generational pendulum swinging as the culture gets more progressive, but there’s more to it.
There’s always a contingent of entitled, white males who are eager to assert their privilege by throwing around racist, homophobic, and sexist bullshit. Partially as a rebellion, but also out of just rage at their privilege slowly eroding away by demographics and progressive mores. That does not seem to be generation specific or age-specfic! I see it in old people and middle-aged guys as well as in young teens and 20-somethings on reddit and gaming boards and /b/ and such.
The generation isn’t the key factor, it’s the straight white male thing that’s the common thread through it.
LAC
@Another Halocene Human: That reminds me of why I stopped going to Salon.com. I would wade in those “well if (insert legislation/regulation, etc) isn’t perfect, blow it up! Attaca, man!” threads and thanked the Lord Jebus that this was not going on during the civil rights era of the 60’s (still ongoing, in my view). Because if stomping off with your toys and pouting in the corner was political action then, i wouild still be drinking out of a separate water fountain.
Bill White
Yet another angry Republican:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/06/20/2190281/paul-lepage-vulgar/
Chris
@fuckwit:
This.
There’s a category of white guys my age for whom not having lived through segregation or the civil rights struggle (or even the urban crime/militarization of police thing of the seventies and eighties) actually makes it easier to be a racist. They swallow the line that “black people were treated horribly, no question about it, but in our zeal to repair the mistakes we made, we’ve gone too far in the other direction, so now black people have special privileges” hook, line and sinker. They don’t remember the National Review trumpeting white supremacy, Barry Goldwater opposing the Civil Rights Act or the nuances of liberal vs conservative wings of the GOP, so they swallow the “Republicans were the party of civil rights!” line. They don’t remember MLK railing against Vietnam and capitalism, or anything about him other than “he freed black people,” and they don’t remember Reagan saying that he got what was coming to him, so they swallow the line that “he was a Republican, he was all about equality and he would’ve opposed affirmative action.” Their middle class suburbs have a few black people, so it’s easy for them to believe that “see, black people totally can succeed and the only reason all these people in the inner city haven’t is because they’re not working hard enough.” Etc, etc, etc.
Toss in some really thin skin that means that when you point out their privilege to them, they’ll start bawling like babies because you’re so meeean, rather than considering that maybe they don’t know all there is to know about that stuff; the collective amnesia of the white “moderates” in their parents and grandparents’ generation who don’t really want to admit that yeah, we weren’t wild about that dangerous wide-eyed radical MLK; decades of agitprop from conservatives who’ve gotten very good at claiming credit for progress after it’s been forced on them… There’s your next generation of racists.
KmCO
@Chris: No, this was no dog whistle. This was a Dude, no one’s gonna see our private email exchange, so let’s not beat around the bushes about what we really stand for, bro!
Mandalay
@InternetDragons:
Your evidence is purely anecdotal, and proves nothing. Surveys consistently show that old people are more racist than young people. For example: Sociologists have found that racial bias pervades the subconscious of most Americans and that the elderly hold more such prejudices than those who are younger.
If you have any evidence that young people are just as racist as old people then let’s see it. Otherwise STFU.
It’s nothing to do with bigotry. It is fact. Older people are more racist than younger people, much as you want to pretend otherwise.
It’s just astounding to me how you can be so ignorant about the factual link between racism and age, and then feel entitled to be abusive just because you didn’t agree with what I posted.
Mandalay
@Patricia Kayden:
I don’t know her from TV, but she probably is a decent person, and her racism was genteel rather than hateful. My (white) mother grew up in Virginia in the 30’s and 40’s so I am familiar with Deen’s form of racism.
And based on your past posts, you surely know that racism comes in many forms.
aimai
@Patricia Kayden: Really? Paula Deen “seemed like a decent person?” You must be grading on a curve.
KmCO
@pharniel: Get offa my balcony-turned-urban-farm, damned olds.