[ By: Chauncey DeVega ]
One cannot forget that the contemporary Republican Party was born with the Southern Strategy, winning over the former Jim Crow South to its side of the political aisle, and as a backlash against the civil rights movement. This is a formula for a politics of white grievance mongering and white victimology; a dreamworld where white conservatives are oppressed, their rights infringed upon by a tyrannical federal government and elite liberal media that are beholden to the interests of the “undeserving poor,” racial minorities, gays, and immigrants.

In keeping with this script in order to win over Red State America, the 2012 Republican presidential candidates have certainly not disappointed. Both overt racism and dog whistles are delectable temptations that the Republican presidential nominees cannot resist. With the election of the country’s first African-American president, and a United States that is less white and more diverse, the GOP is in peril. In uncertain times, you go with what you know. For the Republican Party, this means “dirty boxing,” digging deep into the old bucket of white racism, and using the politics of fear, hostility and anxiety to win over white voters by demagoguing Obama.

Scaring Up The ‘White Vote’: The G.O.P ‘Southern Strategy’ Lives at Fox News (PART 1)

Racism is an assault on the common good. Racism also does the work of dividing and conquering people with common interests. While the 2012 Republican candidates are stirring the pot of white racial anxiety, this is a means to a larger end?the destruction of the country’s social safety net, in support of vicious economic austerity policies, and protecting the kleptocrats and financiers at the expense of the working and middle classes.

Here are the top 10 racist moments by the Republican presidential candidates so far.

1.   Newt Gingrich puts Juan Williams “in his place” for daring to ask an unpleasant question during the South Carolina debate. This was the most pernicious example of old-school white racism at work in the 2012 Republican primary campaign. Newt Gingrich, a son of the South who grew up in the shadow of legendary Jim Crow racist Lester Maddox, is an expert on the language and practice of white racism (in both its subtle and obvious forms). He has ridden high with Republican audiences by suggesting that black people are lazy, and their children should be given mops and brooms in order to learn the value of hard work. With condescending pride, Gingrich has also stated that he would lecture the NAACP–one of America’s most storied civil rights organizations–that they ought to demand jobs and not food stamps from Barack Obama.

‘Food-Stamp’ Racism: Obese Newt Gingrich Blows The Racist Dog Whistle

Increasingly Desperate Newt Gingrich Escalates Racist ‘Obama Food Stamp’ Comments

On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, under the Confederate flag, in the state of South Carolina, Gingrich defended his racist contempt for African Americans by putting Juan Williams, “that boy,” in his place. During the debate, Juan Williams had gotten uppity and was insufficiently deferential to Newt.

This dynamic was not lost on the almost exclusively white audience in attendance (nor on the white woman who congratulated Gingrich the following day for his “brave” deed). They howled with glee at the sight of a black man, one who dared to sass, being reminded of his rightful place at Newt’s knee. In another time, not too long ago, Juan Williams would have been driven out of town for such an offense, if he was lucky — the lynching tree awaited many black folks who did not submit to white authority.

The symbolism of Newt Gingrich’s hostility to black folks, on King’s birthday, and the personal contempt he demonstrated for Juan Williams, was a classic moment in contemporary Republican politics. This was the “scene of instruction,” when a black man was a proxy for a whole community, a stand-in for the country’s first black president, as Newt Gingrich showed just what he thinks about Barack Obama, specifically and about people of color, in general. In that moment, white conservatism’s contempt was palatable, undeniable and unapologetic.

2.   Herman Cain, in one of the most grotesque performances in post-civil rights-era politics to date, deftly plays his designated role as an African-American advocate for some of the Tea Party and New Right’s most racist policy positions. Most notably, in numerous interviews Cain alluded to the Democratic Party as keeping African Americans on a “plantation,” and that black conservatives were “runaway slaves” who were uniquely positioned to “free” the minds of their brothers and sisters. The implication of his ahistorical and bizarre allusion to the Democratic Party and chattel slavery was clear: black Americans are stupid, childlike and incapable of making their own political decisions, as Cain publicly observed that “only thirty percent of black people are thinking for themselves.”

Doubling down, as a black conservative mascot for the fantasies of the Tea Party faithful, Herman Cain also suggested that anyone who accuses them of “racism” (ignoring all available evidence in support of this claim) were in fact anti-white, and the real racists.

‘Pizza Candidate’ Herman Cain Claims Blacks Vote For Dems Because They are ‘Brainwashed‘

Herman Cain’s disdain was not limited to the black public. He also argued that undocumented immigrants should be electrocuted at the U.S. border by security fences, and that Muslim Americans are inherently treasonous and should be excluded from government. Perhaps most troubling, Herman Cain advocated for extreme forms of racial profiling in which Muslims would have to carry special identification cards.

Racism and anti-black sentiment know no boundaries. Herman Cain demonstrates that some of its most deft practioners are (ironically) people of color.

3.   Ron Paul argues that the landmark federal legislation that dismantled Jim Crow segregation in the 1960s was a moral evil and a violation of white people’s liberty. Ron Paul’s claim that the rights of black Americans are secondary to the “freedom” of whites to discriminate, is an almost perfect mirror for the logic of apartheid. Ron Paul’s white supremacist ethic is more than a dismissal of one of the crowning legislative achievements of the 20th century: it is the endorsement of a principle that conveniently allows white people to hate and discriminate in the public sphere at will–and without consequence–against people of color. This “freedom” is the living and bleeding heart of white racism.

Ron Paul: Black Males Age 13 and Up are Big, Strong, Tough, Scary and Criminal!

4.   Rick Santorum tells conservative voters that black people are parasites who live off hard-working white people. Santorum’s claim that “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” is problematic in a number of ways. First, Santorum channels the white supremacist classic Birth of a Nation and its imagery of childlike free blacks who are a burden on white society. In addition, Santorum’s assumption that black people are a dependent class is skewed at its root. Why? Santorum presupposes that African Americans are uniquely pathological and lack self-sufficiency, ignores the black middle-class, and directly race-baits a white conservative audience by telling them that “the blacks” are coming for their money, jobs and resources. There is no mention of Red State America’s disproportionate dependence on public tax dollars, or how the (white) middle-class and the rich are subsidized by the federal government.

Hatemonger Rick Santorum Says Obama is Taking ‘White’ Money & Giving it To ‘Blacks’

5.   In keeping with the class warfare narrative, and as a way of proving their conservative bona fides, Republican candidates have crafted a strategy in which they repeatedly refer to the unemployed as lazy, unproductive citizens who would “be rich if they just went out and got a job.” In fact, as suggested by Mitt Romney, any discussion of the wealth and income gap in the United States (and the destruction of the middle class), should be done in a “quiet room,” as such truth-telling stokes mean-spirited resentment against the rich. Conservatives have an almost Orwellian gift for manipulating language. The financier class is reframed as “job creators.” Programs that workers pay for such as Social Security are equated with “welfare.” Americans who are victims of robber baron capitalism and structural unemployment are painted as dregs who want nothing more than to “live off of the system.” Despite all evidence to the contrary, unions are painted as bastions for the weak, the greedy, and those who hate capitalism.

Race is central here: Conservatives seeded this ground with their assault on the black poor. The invention of the welfare queen by Ronald Reagan became code for lazy, fat, black women who game the system at the expense of hard-working whites. The Right uses the same framing in order to attack immigrants as people who want to destroy the country and steal the scarce resources of “productive” white Americans. [ READ: Welfare -- A White Secret ]

Efforts to shrink “big government” are closely related to the Right’s observation that the federal government employs “too many” blacks. The Republican Party refined its Ayn Rand-inspired shock doctrine and disaster capitalism through decades of practice on black and brown Americans. The racist tactics that were once used to justify the evisceration of programs aimed at helping the urban poor are now being applied to white folks on Main Street USA during the Great Recession.

6.   Mitt Romney wants to “keep America America.” The dropping of one letter from the Ku Klux Klan’s slogan, “Keep America American,” does not remove the intent behind Romney’s repeated use of such a virulently bigoted phrase. While Mitt Romney can claim ignorance of the slogan’s origins, he is intentionally channeling its energy. In the Age of Obama, the Republican Party is drunk on the tonic of nativism. From remarks about “the real America,” to supporting the mass deportation of Latinos and Hispanics, a hostility to any designated Other is central to the 21st-century know-nothing politics of the Tea Party-driven GOP. Romney’s slogan, “Keep America America” begs the obvious question: just who is American? Who gets to decide? And should there be moats and electric fences to keep the undesirables out of the country?

7.   Rick Perry’s nostalgic memories of his family’s ranch, “Niggerhead.” You cannot choose your parents (or decide what your ancestors will christen the family retreat before your birth). You can, however, choose to rename the family ranch something other than the ugliest word in the English language.

Rick Perry’s ‘Niggerhead’: Racism is Still The Dirty Little Secret of The Republican Party (P 1/2)

The world that spawned and nurtured Rick Perry’s Niggerhead was none too kind to black people. Jim and Jane Crow were the rule of the land; it was enforced through violence, threats and intimidation. Moreover, Rick Perry grew up in a “sundown town.” These were communities from which blacks were banished by violence, and where white authorities made sure that African Americans would never again be allowed in the area. The whiteness of memory and nostalgia is blinding. While he has finally dropped out of the race, the Niggerhead episode is emblematic of Rick Perry’s obsession with states’ rights, and a broader fondness for the Confederacy and secession. These are traits he shares in abundance with the remaining Republican presidential candidates.

8.   Former candidate Michele Bachmann suggests that the black family was stronger during slavery than in freedom. Her claim is not just a simple misunderstanding of history and the importance of family in the Black Experience. No, she is signaling to a tired, white supremacist, slavery-apologist narrative which opines that African Americans were/are not yet ready for freedom, and could only “flourish” under the benign guidance of the Southern Slaveocracy.

The GOP’s Iowa Vow: African American Children Were Better off During 1860′s Slavery Than Today

In a moment when states such as Arizona and Texas are outlawing ethnic studies programs, and when the Tea Party and its allies are leading an assault on educational programs that are not sufficiently “pro-American,” Bachmann’s claims are part of a broader effort to literally whitewash U.S. history.

When married to her belief in a willful lie that the framers of the United States Constitution were abolitionists who fought tirelessly to eliminate slavery (in reality, both Jefferson and Washington were slaveowners), and a defense of slaveholding Christian whites who “loved their slaves,” Bachmann’s ignorance of the facts transcends mere stupidity and slips over to enabling white supremacy.

9.   The Republican Party’s 2012 presidential candidates’ near-silence about how the Great Recession has destroyed the African American and Latino middle-class. This speaks volumes about just how selectively inclusive the Republican Party?which markets itself as the defender of the “American Dream” and of an “opportunity society“?really is. During the Ronald Reagan-Politico debate, the Republican candidates were asked what they would do to address the gross and disparate impact of the Great Recession on black and brown communities. While whites are suffering with an official unemployment rate of almost 10 percent, African Americans have struggled with a rate that is almost two to three times as high. In addition, the black and brown middle-class has seen its income, assets and wealth gutted by the Great Recession, where in 2011, whites have almost 20 times the average net worth of African Americans. As always, when White America gets a cold, Black America gets the flu…or worse.

In that awkward moment, only Rick Perry chimed in and proceeded to recycle the same tired rhetoric about “growing the economy” as a vague cure for all ills. One must ask: how would the Republican candidates have responded if the white middle-class had been devastated in the same manner, and to the same degree, as the black and brown middle-class? I would suggest that for the former, it would be treated as a crisis of epic proportions; for the latter, it is a mere curiosity and inconvenient fact.

Politics is about a sense of imagined community. The Ronald Reagan-Politico debate made clear that while the African American and Latino middle-class is being destroyed, the Republican Party has little concern or interest in remedying such a tragic event. It would seem that the Republican Party’s “big tent” has no room for “those people.”

10.   The echo chamber that is Fox News, right-wing talk radio, the conservative blogosphere, and Republican elected officials daily stoke the politics of white racial resentment, bigotry and fear. Ultimately, the Republican candidates would not use racism as a weapon if it were not rewarded by their voters, and encouraged by the party’s leadership. An army travels on its stomach; it needs foot soldiers and shock troops to advance its aims. From the ugly, race-based conspiracy fantasies of Birtherism to the astroturf politics of the Tea Party to a news network whose guests routinely disparage Barack Obama with such labels as “ghetto crackhead” to the bloviating racist utterances by opinion leaders such as Rush Limbaugh, to the common bigotry on display at right-wing Web sites that use monkey, ape, gorilla, pimp, and watermelon imagery to depict the United States’ first black president and his family, it is clear that racism “works” for the Republican Party. To ignore the attraction of rank-and-file white conservatives to such ugliness is to overlook the driving force behind the Republican nominees’ behavior.

PLAYLIST: Republican | Tea-Party Racism

   [ ENLARGE ][ Picture - Courtesy of RepublicanDirtyTricks.com ]

   TEA-PARTY/REPUBLICAN RACISM: [ PICTURES ][ VIDEO ]

Roger Simon writes for Politico: It was a new Newt. Gone was the haughtiness and disdain that had marked his previous performances. In the two-hour CNN broadcast, he complained about the debate format only once. Once! And he delivered his lines with steely confidence and a bulldog set to his jaw.

It was as if he truly believed — for the first time — he might actually win the Republican presidential nomination.

It was the most amazing of all the debates so far: A Republican candidate for president said, “Let’s be humane about enforcing the law,” and he was not booed.

“I’m prepared to take the heat,” Gingrich said Tuesday night, explaining that he would not deport illegal immigrants who had been in the United States for 25 years or so and had put down roots. He said he did not want to break up families. [ READ MORE ]

Newt Gingrich Sticks Neck Out On Immigration, Risking Conservative Backlash

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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I am no fan of Newton Leroy Gingrich as evidenced in my postings over the years, but last night, I warmed up to him(a little bit).

Newt took the bull(immigration) by the horns and wrestled it to the ground — expertly and without the clumsiness of Rick Perry(on the same issue) a few weeks ago.

The newly minted “soft” Newt’s delivery was profound and grandiose(as always), and seemingly showed himself to be willing to fight for a principle — making the other GOP contenders look exactly what they are — petty, stupid, uninformed and hopelessly mean-spirited.

But hey, it’s political sociopath Newt, scam-artist extraordinaire.

Tomorrow he might make a 180 degree turn — and ask immigrants to take a bath first before coming to the United States — and/or his new found decency about undocumented immigrants could kill his chances with the hopelessly racist Republican/Tea-Party base.

But, if Newt survives a backlash and maintains the same composure he showed last night during the debate, for the rest of the GOP primary — he just might snatch the nomination from the lying, serial flip-flopping Mitt Romney, thus setting up a titanic trilogy of debates with Obama in 2012.

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P/S — Ex Clinton aide Paul Begala thinks Gingrich pulled a fast one on everyone in last night’s debate:

“……So Gingrich showed real guts in refusing to pander to the most mean-spirited xenophobic tendencies of the far right. I suspect that on careful examination we will learn that what Gingrich actually supports is a netherworld for immigrant workers–neither full citizenship nor subject to deportation. That is far from the DREAM Act–more like a dream come true for any employer seeking cheap labor. [ READ MORE ]

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Newt Gingrich Has Taken The Front-Runner Status Across The Board

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Really, Newt?
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Newt Gingrich wants to fire union workers and hire kids to clean schools. Here’s what he said last week:
“Saying to people you shouldn’t go to work before you’re 14, 16. You’re totally poor, you’re in a school that’s failing with a teacher that’s failing.

I tried for years to have a very simple model. These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work; they’d have cash; they’d have pride in the schools. They’d begin the process of rising.”

Great idea, right? That Gingrich is a real big thinker — let’s fire janitors and hire their children instead. Let’s assign children as young as nine years old to do hard manual labor cleaning up after their more fortunate classmates. Let’s all pretend this isn’t vicious, backwards and wrong.

Please let Newt Gingrich know that his “idea” is outrageous — and then let your friends, family and others know exactly what kind of hogwash Gingrich is proposing.

Sign the letter here

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Bonus Right-Wing Smear News
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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Limbaugh’s “Rhetorical Question”: “When Will The Media Do An Anal Exam Of Obama?”

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Through a series of gaffes, flip flops, somersaults, flat out lies, hypocritical and bewildering statements — Obama’s potential 2012 opponents have clearly demonstrated that they are not ready for prime time — All of Them!!

In the 2012 crop of Republican presidential candidates — ignorance on just about every issue and HATE are being celebrated and glorified — to new heights of absurdity.

The most stupid of the candidates, Perry and Cain, the biggest liars, Romney and Gingrich — are at the top in the polls, while the most sane and balanced of them all — Jon Huntsman, lives at the bottom of the pile.

Michael J.W. Stickings sums up the ignorance in the GOP:

Ignorance and irresponsibility play well in the GOP, after all, particularly with the party’s right-wing base. Think back to Donald Trump’s bullying talk on China — that was hugely popular on the right. Or consider now how all the “foreign policy” talk, such as there is any, among the candidates amounts to oneupmanship on “American exceptionalism” while painting President Obama, who is also knowledgeable about the world and about America’s place in it, as a traitor, a threat to the simplistic hegemonic worldview that passes for foreign policy in the GOP.

The Know-Nothingness Republican Platform For 2012

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ad By Jon Hunstman — Republican Candidate

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Jon Stewart To Herman Cain After Libya Gaffe: ‘I Love You’

Honoring Neil Armstrong, “WEEPER” Boehner cries….Again?

House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t keep it together when presenting a Congressional Gold Medal to astronaut Neil Armstrong on Wednesday. C-SPAN video shows Boehner getting choked up after he handed Armstrong the award.

It’s one of many times that Boehner has gotten emotional in public. Here’s the ongoing list of what has made him cry: [ READ MORE ]

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Bonus Coverage of Right-Wing Hate & Lies
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Defending Herman Cain: Sean Hannity Makes Sexual Harassment A Punch Line

Sean Hannity and Monica Crowley Throw Kitchen Sink Of Epithets At Occupy Protesters

Bill O’Reilly Proposes “More Prisons” To Curtail Undocumented Immigration

Bill O’Reilly: The Occupy Movement Is “A Failure,” “Dead,” “Finished“

References: High Country Extremism

1. Part One: Pioneer Little Europe (“PLE”) Has Brought White Supremacists To The Flathead Valley …

2. Part Two: PLE Plans To Take Over Local Political And Economic Systems To Unleash “Uncontrolled White Nationalist Culture.”

3. Part Three: High Country Extremism: Racial Holy War And “Save The White Race! Earth’s Most Endangered Species”

4. Part Four: Fundamentalist Christians, The “Preparedness Expo,” And “Paradise” In The Flathead Valley …

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Will Perry’s Similarities To Bush Work in His Favor?

NyTimes: Rick Perry is suddenly looming large on the national stage, after entering the presidential race last weekend. He looks like a formidable candidate in part because of his skill at raising money through “bundlers,” leading to inevitable comparisons to George W. Bush in 1999 as he began his first presidential campaign: a Republican governor of Texas, popular with a base of evangelical Christians, adept at raising millions of dollars rapidly.

Will Perry’s similarities to Bush work in his favor? How can he differentiate himself, to woo the swing voters who, in the end, were disillusioned with the Bush administration? [ READ MORE ]

GOP Candidates Gone Wild! (Or, TMI in Ames) — Courtesy Daily Kos

   Michele Bachmann

   Marcus Bachmann

   Rick Perry Was NOT To Be Outdone By Bachmann [ Rumours: Rick Perry is Gay ]

The Foxies Chimed in On Their Candidates With a High Dose of Obama, Immigrant & ‘Black People‘ Bashing:

Fox “Straight News” Cuts Off Obama To Spend More Time Attacking Him

Fox’s Guilfoyle On Rick Perry Photo: “Feast Your Eyes On That Hair Club For Men Shot“

Big Shyster Andrew BreitFART On President Obama: “He’s A Community Agitator Through And Through”

Fox’s Eric Bolling Blames “Mob Violence” On “Obamanomics“

WSJ’s James Taranto On Obama: “This Is A Pathetic Little Man“

Ann Coulter: “Welfare” Creates “Generations Of Utterly Irresponsible Animals“

Coulter: Many In Britain’s “Native Population” Are Now “Animals,” “They Drink, They Screw, They Smash Things“

Limbaugh On A Space Alien Invasion: “Some People Would Say We’re Already Under Attack By Aliens … Illegal Aliens“

The Rush Limbaugh School Of Economics: Sean Hannity Further Improves Unemployment Rate Inherited From Bush

Fox’s History Of Mainstreaming Hate [ READ MORE ]

Bonus Video:

Stephen Colbert To ‘Super PACs’: ‘Back Off, Bitches. I Saw Rick Perry First!’ | Colbert Super PAC – Rick Perry for President. Stephen already licked the Rick Perry for President donut, so all the other Super PAC bitches better back off.

Colbert Report: America’s Credit Downgrade: The credit downgrade reduces Americans to waffle-eating Kiwis who put mayonnaise on their French fries and have a serious Hobbit infestation.

Republican Idiots — Worst Persons: An Anti-Obama PAC, Beck and Lieberman — Learn why a new political action committee — the Campaign to Defeat “Barrack” Obama — and Glenn Beck made the nominees list, and why Senator Joe Lieberman is The Worst Person in the World for Aug. 3, 2011.

The Big Picture: August 12, 2011

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Jon Stewart lists dozens of false statements made by the network. Lies about Obama’s healthcare plan and his connection to ACORN, fear mongering about “death panels” and the war on Christmas and talk of a “government takeover” — are just but a sliver of the numerous lies and falsehoods Fox has been diarrhea-ring for years.

Jon Stewart To Chris Wallace: A “Designed Ideological Agenda” Is “The Soup You Swim In”

We have been documenting Fox’s syphilitic, racist and malicious lying on this website since late 2006. Our “book” is thick with right-wing venom and terrorism.

Since 2004, Media Matters For America has compiled a “Library of Congress” size treasure trove of videographic evidence of conservative crooks, racists and bigots lying, race-baiting and issuing terroristic threats directed at blacks, latinos, Mexicans, immigrants, gays, abortion providers, everybody else they don’t like ….and veiled death threats to President Barack Obama.

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References:
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1. Fox News Sunday Edits Out Jon Stewart’s Criticism Of Fox Exec — [ READ MORE ]

2. Fox Lies About Polling To Claim It Is “Most Trusted” TV News Source — Fox News has been touting an outdated survey in order to falsely claim that a national polling firm says that Fox “is the most trusted television news source in the country.”

2. Jon Stewart Gets It Right About Fox News: Fox News has attacked Daily Show host Jon Stewart for claiming that Fox News viewers are “the most consistently misinformed viewers” of cable news. However, Stewart was correct — Fox News consistently misinforms its viewers, and its viewers are found among the most likely to hold misinformed beliefs about current events.

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