What form would this backlash take, do you think? Would it try to wrap itself up in political clothing?
Alan Keyes is so far to the right of even most Republicans that I can’t imagine a movement against him trying to claim that he’s too liberal, like what is happening with Obama. How would they try to smear Keyes?
Are you hijacking your own OP? They would use Keyes blackness to smear him. Obama isn’t particularly liberal, but that hasn’t stopped the racists from portraying him as some kind of wild eyed socialist. Anything Keyes did, there would be people who would twist it as some proof of some deep seated hatred of whites. If he proposed a new stamp dedicated to Ronald Reagan there are people who would say the proceeds were going to be used to pay slavery reparations.
What you wouldn’t have with a black Republican president, however, is the giant machine of special interests that have mobilized to marginalize Obama. Fox news would not be attacking a Republican black candidate day in and day out the way they attack Obama, and they wouldn’t be playing to their racist base the same way for a black Republican president as they do for Obama. The racism would be there, but there wouldn’t be the money special interests fanning the flames the way we now see.
First of all, Keyes couldn’t get elected primarily because he’s a freaking nut job, which has nothing to do with his race. Less important, but still significant, he’s a black ultra conservative Republican, and there must be something completely out of whack upstairs for someone to eagerly support and cohabit with those who have sought to disenfranchise him and his kind for the last 50 years. And anyway, Keyes could be the best thing since sliced bread and be Republican, and he still wouldn’t make it through the primaries. Most white Republicans don’t know who he is, and about all anyone who does is that he’s black, and all the self hatred Keyes can muster won’t turn him white and get him elected by Republicans.
But okay, let’s engage in the fantasy of a Keyes presidency. Yes, the Tea Party would still exist, but they would be far more subdued than with Obama, because although, yes, Keyes is black, and yes, that would be considered an obvious cause for alarm, assurances would be offered that Keyes was being handled. The Tea Partiers wouldn’t be happy about it, but this would keep them at bay…I suspect.
Wouldn’t Colin Powell be a more realistic black Republican alternative to consider than Alan Keyes?
It’s just an emotional appeal to demonise Obama’s opponents as moral degenerates. If it was Colin Powell they’d be right behind him. People are anti-Obama because of his leftist views & dodgy background with the racist Jeremiah Wright.
They are “moral degenerates”, and in more ways than their racism. Obama’s no prize, but the Right is even worse. That’s a major reason why many of the people who voted for and still support Obama did so despite disliking him; his opponents are just that awful.
What “leftist views”? He’s a right winger. You might as well call Ronald Reagan a “leftist”.
People were against Obama before they knew anything about his views or even heard of Rev. Wright. They knew one thing though; they knew Obama’s skin was brown.
And contrary to the party line talking point, Obama is no liberal.
Welcome to the SDMB, Der Trihs. You seem to be new here.
At the SDMB “left-wing” is a relative term, and simply means the 50% least right-wing of a presumptive antecedent group. A “left-wing Nazi”, for example, was one who wanted to abuse Jews but not kill them. (Our vocabulary here at SDMB does take some getting-used-to. Recently we learned that a “fiscal conservative” is someone who approves of deficits for military spending, but opposes taxes for social programs. :smack: )
There are nutty fringe beliefs about every president, that’s true. (I doubt 30 percent of Republicans ever said Clinton probably killed anyone and another 28 percent said it was possible, or whatever the current poll numbers say.) The reason this stupidity has a hold on people is they believe deep down that Obama is not ‘one of us,’ and that expresses itself as the belief that he’s not eligible to be president, that he’s a potential sleeper agent, a Muslim, and don’t forget the story that he’s the son of Malcolm X. Nevermind that a Google search returns the correct information in 0.2 seconds and that news reports always make it clear the whole birth certificate theory has been debunked; the whole story is so transparently nuts that there’s no reason to believe it unless you already want it to be true, and for most of these people, it’s because they’re pissed off that a black guy is in charge.
They didn’t have any deep seated doubts about McCain’s Americanism. Which is a fancy way of saying they trust him because he’s a white guy.
I think that’s the key - his race is a big factor but it’s part of the larger point that Obama is “Other” - he’s not just black, he’s a Democrat, he’s an intellectual who uses big words, and he’s just not the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with. In other words, he’s the opposite of GWB who was white, right-wing, folksy and someone the Republican-voting base could understand. And once someone is seen as the Other, they are presumed to be capable of anything - being a closet Muslim, promoting terrorism, eating babies and so forth.
Alexandra Pelosia’s documentary Right America: Feeling Wronged presents a nice cross-section of the middle-America right that we DON’T see represented on the Sunday morning talk shows. I think it’s fair that these folks make up the bulk of the conservative base, so the politicians (who don’t have much in common with these people, despite what they may think) that aspire to represent them pander to their misconceptions, delusions, and irrational fears.
You watch five minutes of that film, which is on the whole much more bearable to watch than a Michael Moore film because Pelosi rarely speaks, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
Do I think most of them are racist? No. I just think a good portion of them are very uncomfortable with Obama for reasons that have nothing to do with his politics. They don’t like that he’s “urban”, that he’s “well-educated” and “well-traveled”…which I would think would be good attributes since it’s rare we’ve had a president that we could say these things about. But I don’t think these are “race-based” insults. However, when people say things like “He’s not one of us”, my eyebrows can’t help but rise up a little. He’s not one of us? Like Bush was? “He doesn’t know how it is in the “real” American, in the “country”, around hard-working folk like us.” I didn’t know the country was the bastion of work ethic, and the last time I checked, more Americans lived in metropolitan areas than the “country.” So I don’t think the majority of right-wingers (Tea Party folks or otherwise) are racist racist…but I do think there’s a whole lot of xenophobia and reverse snobbism when it comes to our president. He doesn’t look “American” to them. See, “Americans” can get red necks when they clear the brush. Obama can’t, so that makes him no good.
The film also highlights the overt racists that we have all come to know and love. Pelosi didn’t have to travel to some backwater to find them, either. She just went to NASCAR. And there were plenty of people who unabashedly admitted to the camera that they didn’t trust Obama because he’s a black guy, and there’s no way in hell they’d ever vote for an nigger. Now…what portion of right-wingers feel this way? I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s an insignificant number. I think their honesty makes them special, but their feelings are entrenched in way too many people.
I think the thing that gets me is that I rarely hear any respect from the Tea Party people about Obama. I mean, you can despise a man’s policies or recognize his flaws and still concede that there are good things about him. They could at least be patronizing and say, “While I don’t agree with his politics at all, I think he’s a good role model for young people.” Or say, “While I think he’s way too liberal for my tastes, I do think he’s an eloquent speaker and we need that in a president.” Instead, they turn even his good qualities into bad ones. I can’t count how many times in that film where it is mentioned that Hitler was an eloquent, charismatic figure too. As the film showed, this lack of respect started before the guy even had a chance to prove himself as president. People seriously thinks he’s the anti-Christ! I know liberals were harsh on Bush…but their vitriol didn’t start until AFTER he had shown himself to be a goddamn buffoon. I think that’s a major difference, and that’s why people judge anti-Obama people the way they do. All of it is fairly deserved, in my opinion. When you have people thinking the end of America (and the world!) is coming just because we’ve elected one guy…after we’ve spent 8 years under the worse president evah…then I think calling these people racist is the BEST thing you can call them.
Am I the only one hearing a dog-whistle here? “Urban” has certainly been used to imply “black” in American popular culture.
Similar instances of astroturfing:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=evolution+of+dance&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0
http://www.google.com/trends?q="david+after+the+dentist"&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0
http://www.google.com/trends?q=chuck+norris+facts&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0
http://www.google.com/trends?q="rick+rolled"&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all
So you’re agreeing that the Tea party are a phenomenon that didn’t exist in any meaningful form before Obama took office, just like all those other internet trends appeared suddenly, despite many right-wing claims that the Tea Party groups existed under Bush and campaigned against his policies too?
How good of you to admit it.
Ah, the ‘both sides are just as bad’ fallacy. Never gets old.
Might be trickier than you think.
Democrats are arguably racist in their own way, thinking a black person can be nothing else than a victim, than can achieve nothing because of Whitey’s Oppression, and thus must be constantly helped and assisted.
Ah, a common strawman, insulting to both black people and Democrats. Do you really want to deny that racism against black people denies black people advancement, opportunity, safety, and rights? The way you phrase it that, as well, is contemptuous of black people who have been victimized. Is there something wrong with needing help, especially after hundreds of years of discrimination? Do you think that that kind of racism and hatred disappears with the stroke of a pen?
because it would be self-hating.
Democrats don’t think this. This is pure talk radio mythology.
How dare you. Their best friend’s cousin’s dentist’s veterinarian’s uncle lost a job to someone who was hired because of a racial quota.