Kevin Drum (via) on the likely upcoming summer of hate:
July and August of 2010 were a festival of xenophobia and racial rage from the news organs of the right. Among the topics that generated wall-to-wall coverage on a serial basis that summer were (1) the New Black Panthers, (2) Arizona’s new immigration law, (3) the “anchor baby” controversy, (4) the “Ground Zero” mosque, (5) the Shirley Sherrod affair, (6) a new upwelling of birther conspiracy theories, (7) Glenn Beck’s obsession with Barack Obama’s supposed sympathy with “liberation theology,” and (8) Dinesh D’Souza’s contention — eagerly echoed by Newt Gingrich — that Barack Obama can only be understood as an angry, Kenyan, anti-colonialist. Plus I’m probably forgetting a few.
But last summer was pretty quiet. Maybe the right had finally learned its lesson? As it turns out, no. Apparently it’s just that 2011 wasn’t an election year, so there was no point in pushing racial hot buttons all summer long. But 2012 is very much an election year and things are heating up early this time around. I’m speaking, of course, of the latest race-baiting pseudo-exposé on the right: the long-promised video demonstrating just how radical Barack Obama was back in his Harvard Law School days — and probably still is, though of course he’s cannily learned to hide his radicalism from the sheeple now that he’s president of the United States.
[….][I]n early 2010, would you ever have guessed that the New Black Panthers would be feted with a multi-week run on Fox News? Or that something called the “Ground Zero mosque” would suddenly burst into prominence based on the hysterical blog posts of Pamela Geller? Or that we’d spend a couple of weeks talking about “anchor babies”?
The GOP base is not excited about Romney, but after a few months of race-baiting and conspiracy mongering, they’ll be pumped up to turn out in droves this November; they’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more xenophobia.
Democrats need to find a way to make Republicans pay for doing this. Establishment media will play the-both-sides-do-it game, Politifact may rate the claim “it is not clear where Obama was born” as partly true, and remember that time in 2004 when the anonymous MoveOn member drew a Hitler mustache on a Bush poster? But every hate-fest needs a scapegoat group, and if the scapegoats are women or immigrants (as seems reasonably likely), we should be able to make the Two Months Hate backfire the way the war on women has.
I’m almost loath to say I wish a motherfucker would, though, since last time this happened a Congresswoman coincidentally got shot in the head. Anyway, it’s coming whether we like it or not. Get ready.
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