Welcome to the New GOP, and to the New America. It’s not your father’s GOP, it’s not your father’s America. It’s your grandfather’s.
Let’s take a quick walk through American history. Not the American history that will be taught in Texas’ schools, and many other schools in the U.S., now that Texas has removed Thomas Jefferson from its history books, and replaced him with a religious leader. Not the American history that includes core American values, like separation of church and state — because in Texas, that will no longer be taught.
This American history does include, however, Strom Thurmond. You remember Senator Thurmond, and his protege, Trent Lott? Trent Lott (R-MS) was forced to resign his Senate Majority Leadership post in 2002 after making this racist comment at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday:
“When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.â€
“All these problems,” of course, means “all these problems” with African-Americans. Thurmond was a Dixicrat, and ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform. That’s what “all these problems” meant. And today, “all these problems” with African-Americans includes Barack Obama, America’s first black president. It’s driving some folks crazy.
Today we have a new breed espousing old, bigoted beliefs. Under the guise of the health care reform debates, the past year of town halls and tea parties empowered them. They were there all along, but had the good sense to stay quiet. But, thanks to Michelle Malkin, Michele Bachmann, Fox News, and the Internet, the Tea Party — the latest incarnation of the GOP — has brought them all out of the closet. Time was, it was OK to quietly call someone a “nigger,” or a “faggot.” Then, America, for a time, grew a bit more mature, and those bigots had to segregate themselves and their beliefs. But those days, it seems, are over.
Today, it seems, it’s OK to yell, “nigger” at members of the Congressional Black Caucus, if you’re a Tea Partier who was just riled up and stirred up by the Republican Leadership (even when doing so is “kind of fun,”) as Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) experienced this weekend. It’s OK to spit on a black member of Congress, as Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) experienced this weekend. And it’s OK to be called a “faggot,” as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) experienced this weekend.
Those were attacks by a (mostly) faceless mob. That’s what the Tea Party essentially is — a mob. In fact, they are proud of that. On Twitter, they often sign their most threatening tweets with the hashtag #iamthemob — “I am the mob,” as if that’s a good thing. (The man who spat at Congressman Cleaver was arrested but the Congressman refused to press charges.)
But we’ve also seen equally offensive behavior from members of Congress. Recently, at the President’s address to a joint session of Congress on the health care legislation, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted at the president those now infamous words,”You lie!” And again this weekend another verbal assault within Congress. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) shouted at Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MO) “Baby Killer!”
Yes, Baby Killer.
The following day he admitted it, but claimed he was referring to the health care bill, not the Representative. But no one in the GOP admitted to the booing — massive booing — just minutes earlier when President Obama’s name was mentioned on the House floor. Bigotry, to the GOP and the Tea Party is acceptable when they all do it. Or when they can’t get caught.
Some, like The Nation’s Melissa Harris-Lacewell, go back a little bit further, and suggest this is not your father’s or your grandfather’s GOP, but, perhaps your great grandfather’s GOP.
Commentators and observers need to move their historical lens back a little further. The relevant comparison here is not the mid-20th century civil rights movement. The better analogy is the mid-19th century period of Reconstruction. From the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the unholy Hayes-Tilden compromise of 1877, black Americans enjoyed a brief experiment with full citizenship and political power sharing.
During this decade black men voted, held office and organized as laborers and farmers. It was a fragile political equality made possible only by the determined and powerful presence of the federal government. Then in 1877 the federal government abdicated its responsibilities to new black citizens and withdrew from the South. When it did so it allowed local governments and racial terrorist organizations like the KKK to have the monopoly on violence, force and coercion in the South for nearly 100 years.
As I watch the rising tide of racial anxiety and secessionist sentiment I am not so much reminded of the Bloody Sunday protests as I am reminded of D.W. Griffith’s Birth of Nation. This 1915 film depicts the racist imagination currently at work in our nation as a black president first appoints a Latina Supreme Court Justice and then works with a woman Speaker of the House to pass sweeping national legislation. This bigotry assumes no such government could possibly be legitimate and therefore frames resistance against this government as a patriotic responsibility.
There are historic lessons to be learned. But they are the lessons of the 19th century not the 20th. We must now guard against the end of our new Reconstruction and the descent of a vicious new Jim Crow terrorism.
The New York Times’ Bob Herbert, in “An Absence of Class,” today adds,
It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
The toxic clouds that are the inevitable result of the fear and the bitter conflicts so relentlessly stoked by the Republican Party — think blacks against whites, gays versus straights, and a whole range of folks against immigrants — tend to obscure the tremendous damage that the party’s policies have inflicted on the country. If people are arguing over immigrants or abortion or whether gays should be allowed to marry, they’re not calling the G.O.P. to account for (to take just one example) the horribly destructive policy of cutting taxes while the nation was fighting two wars.
Today, as I write this, I am watching Barack Obama, our nation’s first black President, sign historic health reform legislation into law. Yesterday, David Frum acknowledged that Jim DeMint’s cry of “Waterloo!” backfired and became a self-imposed sentence.
Yet, on Frum’s own site, in “Tea Party Racists Steal the Spotlight,” Noah Kristula-Green misses the wider slice of past and present. Discussing Congresswoman Maxine Waters being booed at a healthcare rally Sunday, he writes, “Whether the fact they are African-American makes the booing easier is hard to know, people at the rally booed anyone who supported the bill irrespective of their skin color.” It’s not hard to know. Perhaps, just hard to accept. He continues, “The main goal of the rally was not to target representatives based on their skin color or sexual orientation, it was to get vulnerable and targeted House members to change their votes.” I’d have to call that hard to accept. Kristula-Green then writes, “Several members of media have chosen to focus in on the racism and homophobia of the Tea Party.” Because, as Keith Olbermann, in “GOP Self-Destruction Imminent,” commented just last night, it is at their very core.
But the tide has turned. As President Obama just uttered, “All the overheated rhetoric of reform will confront the reality of reform.” The Democrats, the liberals, the progressives, as a whole have, literally overnight, grown a backbone. And I see everywhere a new sense of pride, and a new sense that the Republican stranglehold on America has slipped even more. Decent Americans, to paraphrase Bob Herbert, all of a sudden, ARE rising up against this kind of garbage. Many ignorant and mis-informed Americans are about to realize the bigots and bigotry that created the Tea Party and today’s GOP are just plain wrong and immoral. They will move away from these relics. Some already have.
Our job today is to keep fighting the good fight, to keep the truth in front of us, and realize that America is too great to go down in flames of hate and bigotry. Let’s use today’s success to spur momentum for more: repeal of DADT and DOMA, enactment of ENDA, and equality for all.
For an extensive report on the latest bigotry we saw this weekend, visit The Joshua Blog.