I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the guy running as a legacy pledge to Bush Kappa Dudebro should probably not be scolding black voters in South Carolina over wanting “free stuff”.
“Look around this room,” a man told Bush, who spoke to a mostly white crowd. “How many black faces do you see? How are you going to include them and get them to vote for you?” asked the man, who was white.
Bush pointed to his record on school choice and said that if Republicans could double their share of the black vote, they would win the swing states of Ohio and Virginia.
“Our message is one of hope and aspiration,” he said at the East Cooper Republican Women’s Club annual Shrimp Dinner. “It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff. Our message is one that is uplifting — that says you can achieve earned success.”
Besides the fact that the phrase “earned success” coming out of Jeb Bush’s mouth should immediately evoke earthshaking howls of derisive laughter, has it occurred to anyone in the Republican party at all that the reason black voters turn to the Democrats 95% of the time is because the Republican party is incapable of seeing people of color as actual people, and that you assume we’re too stupid/lazy/racist/ignorant to see how awesome the GOP is, and that we need your superior guidance and wisdom to be “saved” from our simple, savage, brutish existence of mimosas at brunch, watching Empire, having barbecues and going to Tyrone’s house to play Madden?
Gonna go with “no” on that, at least for the people running Jeb!’s campaign. And no, your message isn’t “division” but it sure as hell is “get in line”, ranging from the soft bigotry of black respectability “pull up your pants and obey police at all times” politics to outright “assimilate to American culture, not your own” nonsense to outright hostility and violence towards people of color across the board.
Bush also expanded on his recent remark that “we should not have a multicultural society.”
“I’m going to be a professor here for a second,” he said when a reporter asked him about it.
“We’re pluralistic,” Bush added. “We’re not multicultural. We have a set of shared values that defines our national identity. And we should never veer away from that.”
Your message that you can simply “achieve earned success” doesn’t work for people who have to work twice as hard for half as much, and neither does your message that cultures should be assimilated into “shared values”. It’s insulting, dude.
Especially coming from a Bush.
debbie
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of those “soft” GOP ads from OpportunityKnocks.com recently. Wonder if they’ve given up on that charade?
WereBear
I love you, Zandar.
In a blog-appreciation kind of way.
Which leads me to wonder… do they really believe the crap they come up with? At least some of them actually do!
And so, all the brain power that in a normal person get funneled into intellect and such becomes a screen to constantly sort reality into the proper shapes.
debbie
Hmm. I’ve lost permission to edit myself. The correct name of the GOP PAC is Opportunity Lives.
opportunitylives.com/
MattF
This is just deadly. I’m reminded of Romney’s ‘quiet rooms’. Jeb!’s efforts to be honest with the electorate are admirable, and I can only hope that they continue unabated.
debbie
Ted Cruz: The gift that keeps on giving.
religionlo.com/fire-pope/
MattF
OT– Great NYT article about Volkswagon’s corporate culture. I had no idea.
hitchhiker
Not in a million years, dude.
OzarkHillbilly
That “free stuff” Bush is talking about? They only resent it being offered when it is to people who don’t look and sound like them.
PaulW
Dear Jeb:
Blacks – and Asians, and immigrants, and women don’t want FREE STUFF.
Blacks – and Asians, and immigrants, and women – want equal protection under the law, they want a chance at good jobs paying fair wages, they want their privacy, and they want their children to grow up having access to well-funded and well-educated schools in safety.
This f-cking paternalistic disdain for the lower income families and ethnics is what passes for empathy in the Republican Party. We as a nation are screwed.
beltane
@debbie: Wow. It’s amazing that someone with an Ivy League education can be so breathtakingly ignorant about everything.
PaulW
@hitchhiker:
True. Jeb* has been a businessman, and a landlord, and a politician pretty much his whole life. He has no teaching experience on his resume – at least not one that I’m finding.
It’s horrifying that this man’s main platform is pushing for education reform when he himself has never worked in that field and has no idea what it actually takes to be a teacher, professor, or school admin.
Belafon
I’m going to do some simple statistics base on the representative samples I have: My coworkers, family, and my small circle of friends. Due to the fact that I don’t go to church, or actively seek friends, I don’t have a lot of black associates, but here’s what I have:
The VP of my division is black
The head of one of the units is black
One of the coordinators at the gym is black
The mom of one of my sons friends is black, and she works while her white husband is retired.
On the other hand, I have lots of lazy family members.
Therefore, by my statistics, all blacks are hardworking awesome people, and a significant portion of whites are lazy bums who want handouts or bet their lives on get rich quick schemes.
Russ
Let me tell you people what you should do…………
Yeah, that’ll work, surefire vote getter.
Belafon
@Belafon: (Actually, I know a more blacks than that, and I left out all the Latinos I know.)
Stratplayer
Could he have picked a more fitting venue in which to speak condescendingly of black people than the East Cooper Republican Women’s Club annual Shrimp Dinner in frickin’ South Carolina?
PaulW
@beltane:
He’s actually University of Texas. BA in Latin American Studies. Not even an MBA.
His career path has been getting hired by Bush family allies. He made his fortune getting in on real estate development in Florida during the 1980s population boom.
He’s had such an easy path in life it’s insulting for him to accuse others of wanting “free stuff”.
Phylllis
“I’m going to be a professor here for a second,” he said when a reporter asked him about it.
Yep, I’d give your ability to last in that profession about one second.
PaulW
@debbie:
Ted Cruz is afraid the Pope will out-poll him.
beltane
Bush would do better to come out and say “Nature made me mediocre in every way. But because both my parents were wealthy, well-connected members of the white Protestant elite, my unworthy ass was showered with free stuff and a free place at the head of the table from the moment of my birth.. I propose to adopt all Americans into the Bush family so they too can know what it means to accomplish nothing and yet posses everything.”
delosgatos
Surreal American
@debbie:
Link is to a satirical website.
However in Cruz’s case, you can always invoke Poe’s Law.
OzarkHillbilly
@PaulW: Beltane is talking about Cruz
JPL
What an ass. The majority of people on food stamps work. The minimum wage is so low, that parents can’t earn enough to provide food for their family. I assume that Jeb doesn’t mind subsidizing companies that provide low wages.
beltane
@PaulW: I was referring to Ted Cruz, a product of Princeton and Harvard Law. They own him.
debbie
@Surreal American:
What! Something on FB isn’t true???
(Sorry.)
Nick
I don’t think this:
the Republican party is incapable of seeing people of color as anything other than actual people
means what you intend it to mean.
debbie
@JPL:
That’s also the attitude that thinks a low minimum wage is perfectly fine.
amk
this from a fucker who is there because of his family name (however much the punk wants to hide it) with billionaires giving him 100 mil fer free.
kc
It really pisses me off that the media have adopted the right-wing term “school choice.”
Surreal American
@debbie:
Since the link you posted was about Ted Cruz, “fake but accurate” applies here. ;)
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
kc
@kc:
Also, note the irony of him boasting about his record on “school choice” whilst talking about not offering “free stuff” to black people.
“School choice” is nothing but a giveaway to well-off people (& private school owners) at the expense of public schools.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Is Ted Cruz aware that, being he ain’t Catholic, he has — and deserves — no say in who gets to be Pope? He gets to call the Pope a tree-hugging poopyhead all he wants, but he has no right to say the Catholic Church should fire the guy. Silly Ted Cruz.
Sherparick
There is also the implicit assumption that most Black and Hispanic people are “just in line to get free stuff” and hence vote Democratic for that reason. Notice that there was no promise to restore the Voting Rights Act get rid of Voter ID laws. Apparently voting, not being discriminated against, and not being under the constant threat of police violence have to achieved “through earned success.”
On side note, one day after Jeb opines in the Wall Street Journal about the “Obama Administration” is creating a “regulatory crisis” and that his administration will do set industry “free to pollute,” economic growth in 2015 2Q has been revised up to 3.9% GDP annual rate, e.g. Jeb is promising to destroy the environment for .1% GDP. Now that rate of growth is not actually sustainable given current demographics and productivity growth, but it is certainly a lot better than what we got under his brother and that Obama’s reforms and regulations may actually be having a positive effect on the economy (correlation is not necessarily causation, but a lot of the estimation on costs and benefits of regulation depends on what you put in and what you leave out. Industry always overestimates the costs, and under estimates the benefits, which in the case of environmental regulations frequently turn out to be huge. smallbusinessmajority.org/pdf/Benefits_of_CAA_100410.pdf
C.V. Danes
I actually quite enjoy the thought of living in a multicultural society, and not one in which everyone is forced to live in some white-bred christian-facist notion of how we should just act and look alike because privilege.
MomSense
And I thought his older brother W “the man with the minus touch” was the dumber and more arrogant of the two. It’s always projection with these a$$hole$.
ETA Didn’t he also say that American workers need to work harder and for more hours?
satby
@Amir Khalid: Ted Cruz is enough of a megalomaniac to think he has a say in everything.
Take care of yourself today Amir, I heard that the air quality is really bad right now in Singapore.
beltane
@Amir Khalid: Even Catholics, except those few who are members of the College of Cardinals, have no say as to who gets to be pope. Cruz’s comment reeks of the type of anti-Catholic lunacy one would expect from a evangelical whackaloon.
S-Curve
Elizabeth Warren would like a word with you …
rikyrah
From Steve Benen with regards to this story:
msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/echoing-romney-jeb-reflects-black-voters-free-stuff
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You can tell Jeb is no politician – he sees the problem but can’t offer any lie so his own people can get around the problem. One can almost hear the ghost of Themistocles laughing.
ThresherK
@Stratplayer: Could gone to Howard U. like so many other rightwing outreachers.
I’m going to be a professor here for a second
Coming from any GOP Prez candidate, that’s a hoot and a half.
MattF
@MomSense: So, Jeb!’s campaigning is leading to a reassesment of W’s political and intellectual abilities. Sigh, and Oy.
Patrick
Does this mean that farmers and oil companies will no longer get free subsidies from the government. Or was that line only meant for African-Americans?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Surreal American:
Wasn’t Cuz arguing for the death penalty because of the “dignity of human life”? I don’t think it’s possibly to parody a statement like that.
Zandar
Fixed it.
Dude pisses me off to the point of double negatives.
danielx
If there is one thing in this uncertain world of which I am tolerably certain, it is that no member of House Bush has ever worked a shitty low pay job with little hope for advancement. What the fuck would Jeb Bush know about ‘earned’ success, any more than his insufferable brother?
I don’t resent people who inherit wealth (okay, Paris Hilton excepted), or those who initially used family connections to attain wealth. I do seriously resent being lectured about pulling oneself up by bootstraps, ‘free stuff’, and similar horseshit by people who have never in their lives known what it means to sweat for a living at anything other than a summer job, worry about paying bills, deal with paying college tuition, etc. “Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple” comes to mind…
Chris
@WereBear:
Yes.
Think of it this way: nobody likes to think of themselves as an asshole. Believing the crap they come up with – that their solution really is the best for everyone, that the problem is with The Blacks (and all these other demographics they shit on) and not them – allows them to believe that they’re the good guys. Which is important for their psychological well-being, if nothing else. Even the crudest abusers always say things like “it’s for your own good,” and it’s for their own sake as much as their victims’.
Then, factor in the fact that they live in a complete echo chamber (“we create our own reality”). Even if they’re aware on some level that what they listen to is spin, it’s not like they have a whole lot of other information lying around them, and their peers would really look at them funny if they started getting their information from non-Fox approved sources.
(Then, throw in the fact that even non-Fox approved sources usually just means vaguely centrist “Shape Of Earth: Views Differ” media outlets that go out of their way not to hurt their feelings, which means they live in a more complete echo chamber than even the more self-aware among them realize…)
Amir Khalid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
As I recall, that the death penalty actually honours the dignity of human life, by making murderers forfeit theirs, is actually an old conservative argument. I myself find it an appalling argument, and I think so do you, but there it is.
Chris
@C.V. Danes:
This to the power of a thousand. And really, in a nation of immigrants, there’s no other way it can work.
SFAW
@danielx:
You sanctimonious so-and-so. Next you’ll be lecturing us about decorated war heroes like Dick Cheney cheerleading for war, and calling him a “chickenhawk.” That shit may work on other lefty blogs, but here we have other priorities.
shortstop
This is a tremendous post.
bemused
No way was Jeb talking to black voters. We know whose votes he was courting.
SFAW
@Chris:
Me! ME!!
Oh, wait – “likes to think of themselves as …” Never mind
shortstop
@C.V. Danes:
I see and approve of what you did there.
Botsplainer
This, a thousand times.
When I described the gun-in-face incident this week to my George Wallace voting, Fox News addicted mother, I made the error of telling her that the asshole was African American. Her response was
I shot that shit right down, right there. Told her that plenty of nicely dressed white Christian clients have ripped me off over the years, and simply weren’t home to greet me with a gun when I hand-delivered a past-due invoice. I said “color got nothing to do with it. The guy is a sociopath and criminal, and that set of character traits cuts across all ethnic and religious demographics in the same percentage.”
I also let her know to not reply with her flippant racist shit since I wasn’t sleeping, was waking up to nightmares of the look on that fat fuck’s face as he was rushing the car and raising the pistol and was within about an inch of faxing a letter of resignation of my license to the bar over it.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
When are you going to learn to spell properly?
On a more serious note: last time I checked, you were still not 100 percent (healthwise), but were improving. How are you these days? (Apologies if this has been covered, my coming here has been sporadic of late.)
debbie
Ted Cruz may not really want to fire the Pope, but Glenn Beck’s blaming the Pope for not ending abortion yesterday.
beltane
@SFAW: Both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz probably like to think of themselves as assholes. It is the mark of a true sociopath.
SFAW
@beltane:
I can’t really argue with that assessment.
shortstop
@beltane: That Turing Pharmaceuticals fiend was clearly enjoying it earlier this week.
benw
Zandar, can I be your friend in RL?
Anyways, I’m glad we’ve figured out that the best way to cover one’s ass after making insulting remarks about people of other races is to split hairs about the definitions of pluralism and multiculturalism.
beltane
@shortstop: Yes, he’s another one. Even a prison sentence will teach him nothing. Pope Francis would probably disagree with me, but some people are truly un-redeemable.
On a lighter note, here are some pictures of Speaker Boehner crying during the pope’s address to Congress: wonkette.com/594248/here-are-a-bunch-of-pictures-of-john-boehner-crying-alcoholic-tears-on-the-pope
PsiFighter37
OT but huge news: Boehner is resigning end of next month. We really have to worry about have a true winger as Speaker now…
Betty Cracker
@MattF:
I don’t think this will be as deadly as Romney’s 47% gaffe because it’s aimed squarely at black people, who aren’t going to vote for Jeb anyway. Romney’s comment about the 47% made him look like an out-of-touch rich dude who was judging less affluent white people. Jeb is merely engaging in the time-honored GOP tradition of race-baiting. I don’t think it will hurt him a bit. In fact, it may help.
shell
Jeb, Jeb, Jeb…were you actually listening to any of the crap your fellow debaters were spewing at the last two pow-wows?
beltane
@PsiFighter37: I blame the pope. Boehner was clearly moved yesterday. Maybe he is not quite evil enough to lead the House Republicans anymore.
dmsilev
Just got a “breaking news” thingy that Boehner is leaving Congress at the end of October. Guess dealing with the howling loons of his caucus just got to be too much for him.
Botsplainer
@PsiFighter37:
Fuck. This is really bad. A true winger as Speaker can create some really ugly circumstances – like weird extraconstitutional governmental shift attempts.
SiubhanDuinne
Boehner’s resigning, end of October!!
Edit — (as several others noted)
shell
Do they still tout Cruz as one of the smart ones?
Chris
@bemused:
@Betty Cracker:
Even when Republicans do go talk to mostly-black audiences (which isn’t the case here), I think they’re still not really trying to reach them, just doing what their white supporters want to see and going to scold the lazy irresponsible darkies.
Yatsuno
OT: the Oompa-Loompa is quitting:
talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-boehner-stepping-down-october?utm_content=buffer75010&utm_m…
EDIT: And y’all are all over it LOL. But I have an article!
MattF
@dmsilev: Resigining from Congress suggests more than just politics, maybe health problems.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hmm, Speaker Cruz. Such a lovely ring to the sound of it.
David Koch
@beltane: Pope made him an offer he couldn’t refuse: sell his interest by the end of the month or else.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@dmsilev: I had email open and got the same notice from NYT. I refuse to blame the Pope, because I like him.
As Botsplainer noted, this is really bad, and concerns me greatly. The AOS, for all his many downsides, at least respected the idea of government. The kind of RWNJ that will likely follow him will not.
beltane
Boehner’s not just stepping down as Speaker, he is resigning his seat altogether. Is his health OK?
Redshift
@Betty Cracker: But given that it followed a statement about how there are states they could win with a bigger share of the black vote, it may add to the impression that he’s a really bad campaigner, which won’t help.
yellowdog
@beltane: He attended those Ivy League schools. I don’t think anyone can claim he was educated at them. Education would have destroyed his beautiful mind.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: Agree with all of this with one exception: the Latino voters Jeb is so desperate to win (and who are simply critical to nabbing the presidency) aren’t going to love this. Some who share anti-black sentiments will nod along, but most are well aware that Jeb’s talking about all racial minorities by extension.
That reminds me of a funny Facebook conversation I had last month that y’all might appreciate. Some Rand Paul-supporting friend of a friend was earnestly arguing that Paul is the only candidate who “polls well” with black voters. If he “continues to do so,” the guy said, Paul could conceivably get half the black vote and “change the course of minority voting history.” I told him the only poll I was aware of in which Paul landed above dismal in attracting black voters was a Kentucky-only effort, and asked for proof of national black support for Paul above a fraction of 1 percent. The guy just kept blathering on about how great it would be when this “trend” played out. It was the most entertaining spectacle of magical thinking I’ve seen all year.
Morzer
To the ‘bagger mind, such as it is, this translates as “Your wives will be forced to swing with Mexican men every night!”
shortstop
@debbie: The fact that he doesn’t serve in the House of Representatives shouldn’t concern him in the least.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Except for the minor fact that Cruz is in the Senate, not the House. But yes, I’ve been wondering which wingnuts are going to fight for the job.
Starfish
@Botsplainer: I did not see your earlier discussion of this incident, but I am sorry that this happened to you.
Booger
Personally, I think “East Cooper Republican Women’s Club annual Shrimp Dinner.” says it all.
bemused
@Chris:
Jeb and money Republicans are very nervous about pissing off the restless, raging, crazy whites more than they already are.
C.V. Danes
@shortstop: Thanks. I felt that was more appropriate :-)
Stratplayer
@ThresherK: Could gone to Howard U. like so many other rightwing outreachers.
Jeb! doesn’t have the stones.
schrodinger's cat
@shortstop:Roger Clegg, a contributor to KLo’s crazy corner has a list for would be citizens
Don’t disparage anyone else’s race or ethnicity.
2. Respect women.
3. Learn to speak English.
4. Be polite.
5. Don’t break the law.
6. Don’t have children out of wedlock.
7. Don’t demand anything because of your race or ethnicity.
8. Don’t view working and studying hard as “acting white.”
9. Don’t hold historical grudges.
10. Be proud of being an American.
It drips condescension.
ETA: Jeb’s tirade was not just for black people. They hate everyone who is not them.
bcinaz
It’s so weird to realize that the other one was the smarter brother.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
British spelling today, British spelling tomorrow, British spelling forever!
I will never be 100% again. That’s why I’m medically retired. However, I’m coming out of a recent bad patch, health-wise, and I’m okay except for this annoying cough I just picked up.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Screw the British and their spelling. BTW I read that Indian Summers the new Downton Abbey like show set in India during the waning days of the British Empire is actually shot in Malaysia.
danielx
@SFAW:
Hey, what can I tell you? I gotta be me. And how dare you bring up Dick Cheney’s background as a cheerleader for wars in which neither he nor his ever heard a bullet go by or had to piss in a ration can? That is SO early-oughts; I thought that calumny had long since been disappeared down the memory hole.
SFAW
@danielx:
I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
What the HELL kind of ‘Murican are you?
Sorry to hear that, I hope you stay as healthy as possible.
Brandon
One of the things I have always wondered about the Bush clan was that why, if Jeb! was the smarter Bush brother did he not also attend Yale? Instead he went to UT-Austin, got a BA in Latin American Studies and never bothered with graduate school. On the other hand, W went to Yale (where he had better grades than Kerry) and then to HBS.
Now that I have had the chance to watch the both of them campaign, I feel quite safe in my conclusion that W is in fact the smarter Bush brother.
SWKELLOGG
@debbie: It’s a misnomer either way.
Debbie
@schrodinger’s cat:
That “not holding historical grudges” is especially precious.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Even the crudest abusers always say things like “it’s for your own good,” and it’s for their own sake as much as their victims’.
Conservatives really are serial abusers.
Whatever is the worst possible response to a perceived problem, which does the most damage and demeans whomever the problem/solution is aimed at, that is always their answer. That and of course their solution has perceived benefits to them which really screws them in the long term as well, by always making the problem worse.
Debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Like that would stop him!
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
What’s interesting is that the Palin family seems to have engaged in a number of the proscribed behaviors. I’m sure Mr. Clegg has chastised them.
Brandon
@SFAW: Not just the Palin family. Nearly every Republican Presidential candidate fails at least 3 or 4 elements of that test.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
To be part of the clan being rich is only part of the answer. A big part to be a full member, yes, but a full member of the clan is not the only level. Now a full member doesn’t really associate with the lesser members but they do understand that the clan very much has needs that only lesser members can/are allowed to perform. The Palins are such lower members. While not encouraged to engage in these activities, they are allowed. McCain’s major mistake here was inviting a lower level into a higher level in the clan without discovering/realizing that they truly are lower level and can’t be allowed to move up a level, as they are not worthy.
Ruckus
@Brandon:
Not in their own tiny little minds they don’t. Conservatives aren’t the party of no ethics and responsibility for nothing.
trnc
“It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff,” said the candidate who was born a multimillionaire.
SFAW
@trnc:
… which he became because of his nine months of hard work. Whereas black babies have a much easier time in utero, which is why they keep expecting free stuff.
ETA: Jeb forgot to mention the “Get Into Jail Free” and the “Get Shot For Free” cards for blacks, and “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards for whites.
brantl
I think it entirely appropriate the Heb! is presiding over a shrimp dinner……