Hey, Barack Obama has picked up another endorsement: Halfrican American actress Halle Berry. "As a Halfrican American, I am honored to have Ms. Berry's support, as well as the support of other Halfrican Americans.That would be Rush Limbaugh talking. The same Rush Limbaugh who we are to believe was defending Barack Obama from this mythical claim by Sharpton. Amazing.
In what universe are we to take satire about black people from Rush Limbaugh? Here is the thing--if you made your career crusading against the Veteran's Day, don't expect people to laugh when you make a "satirical" joke about the Army.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Desperation is a stinky perfume. And that lady reeks of it.
I'm baffled that he (or anyone) thought this made any sense. I mean, how can you be in politics, and be so tone-deaf that you don't get that "Barack the Magic Negro" is going to come off really badly?
Is this evidence of some kind of really narrow monoculture within the party hierarchy, where you could just not run into anyone whose immediate facial response to the idea would clue you in that you were about to make a career-ending screw-up? Or perhaps a culture of unwillingness to contradict the pointy-haired bosses?
I'd still like to see Donovan McNabb stand 4 feet away from a naked Rush Limbaugh and see if he could throw a football entirely up his ass. I hope he could succeed at that, and trust me, it's not because McNabb is black.
albatross
Did you not watch the video? The white chick tries to make out like he was wrong to do it but the very last thing she says is that she is defending Rush Limbaugh. To me that says that if she was put in the same position prior to this uproar she would have done EXACTLY the same thing.
She doesn't get it anymore than he does. And don't forget that this same guy defended his actions, he didn't apologize. Now how do you suppose a Republican party with those two people in it will ever learn to reach out to minorities? I know people will come on this thread and claim they aren't representative but I say this, you have Rush Limbaugh who publicized the song who is a well known Republican, you have Chip Saltzman who gave away the CD who might actually be a top figure in the Republican party and you have this no name Conservative chick who is a featured guest on MSNBC and she is defending Limbaugh and the song and she is a Republican.
Sorry but to the average person the Republican party is either racist or clueless and neither one will help them get minority votes.
Huh. I was sure the GOP would be well on its way to "Those people are so easily offended and unreasonable!" by now.
Jesus Base-Jumping Christ. Even when the GOP desperately wants to back away from an insult to minorities they brandish the uppity negro boogie man. Wow.
Oh well, soon they'll get sick of it and go back to Plan A: Keep the brown folks away from the polls.
This whole episode has confused me, but I think you really nailed it here--if the "Al Sharpton said it" is the defense they're gonna use, then they need to show where Al Sharpton said it.
What confused me is that if you look at the transcript, Limbaugh says he's criticizing Ehrenstein's editorial--and he never actually says Barack is a "magic negro".
But yeah, why trust his motives when he's calling Barack "Halfrican", on top of a long career of attacking blacks.
Yay! Tamrin Hall admits that she's an American first and a Texan second, and that the race-baiting that Bush/Rove people did just isn't okay.
So, Rush Limbaugh, great satirist he is, steps in with his acerbic wit to defend Barack Obama against the likes of Rev. Al Sharpton.
To paraphrase a line from Dead Poet's Society (an important movie at a younger point in my life), it's one thing to suck the marrow out of those talking points, it's another to choke on the bone.
You know, I have been trying to get my head around this whole "Magic Negro" thing for a while now. I want to comment on the whole "satire" aspect of this thing, but maybe I'll do it on another post.
But, regarding the "tone-deafness" and "lack of apology," that just fits right into the conservative/Republican meme for a couple reasons. Sorry if this comes off as a bit of a rant.
1. Conservatives, by and large, HATE political correctness (actually, this isn't entirely true as I will point out below) - especially if it involves (certain) minorities, liberals, gays, and certain religions. A lot of them feel that they should be able to tell any bad, dirty joke or make any racist comment without any repercussion. Because...it's a free country, right? If you complain, well if you are a minority, to them you are "hypersensitive" and "have no sense of humor," and if you are a white liberal, to them you are some "PC Nazi" who "doesn't know any black (or whomever) people, and would cross the street if you saw one." They just do not understand why other people would find what they say offensive. They just don't understand why anyone would be offended by someone of a majority ridiculing a minority. They just think that being politically incorrect, in and of itself, is akin to being: 1) tough, 2) straightforward ("see, I am just telling it like it is..."); and 3) insightful; 4) and maybe even funny. The thing is, that is just wrong.
1A. Wait, did I say that conservatives hate political correctness? That is not entirely true. If someone pokes fun at THEIR religion, America, or the white race, they will get their panties in a twist equal to, or exceeding, any true-blue, PC, white, liberal from Berkeley. Read Andrew Sullivan. He thinks it's fine to print cartoons that are offensive to Muslims, and any newspaper that doesn't is a bunch of PC-cowards. If a non-Catholic criticized the Catholic Church in the same way, he goes into a tizzy.
2. Even more than they hate political correctness, they HATE bowing to pressure from liberals. This is part of their "tough guy, tell it like it is," persona. This is, of course, entirely false, but they see themselves as tough. The reason they don't apologize is that to apologize is to give in to liberals, and that is completely unacceptable to them.
The funny thing is that if they just apologized, this whole thing would have blown over by now. Politically, not apologizing is just stupid. Instead, they just prolong, and bring more attention to, this whole episode. It's like a guy who spills water on his crotch and tries to hide it by grabbing his balls. He just brings more attention to the spill.
Fighting Words says: "Wait, did I say that conservatives hate political correctness? That is not entirely true. If someone pokes fun at THEIR religion, America, or the white race, they will get their panties in a twist equal to, or exceeding, any true-blue, PC, white, liberal from Berkeley. Read Andrew Sullivan. He thinks it's fine to print cartoons that are offensive to Muslims, and any newspaper that doesn't is a bunch of PC-cowards. If a non-Catholic criticized the Catholic Church in the same way, he goes into a tizzy."
No, not really. He criticizes the church quite a bit himself, and he wouldn't support the censorship of anti-Jesus cartoons, for instance. But obviously you're right about conservatives in general.
This kinda off topic but kinda on topic
I actually laughed out loud the other day when I read the story about John Boehner begging for any economists who don't believe in stimulus spending packages as a way to stimulate the economy to pretty please contact him. I mean the GOP is supposedly on this whole "We have to learn how to use new media" kick but didn't anybody tell Boehner that EVERYBODY could read that message? Talk about totally torpedoing your own argument before its even made. What rational person is going to believe anything he has to say now when he tries to oppose Obama's stimulus package?
But it just goes to show along with this Barack the Magic Negro situation and along with the other RNC chair candidate who had to give up his whites only golf club membership, just how deep the problems in the GOP are. No matter how many secret meetings, or cruises, or planning retreats they have the Republican party is just fundamentally outdated in just about every way possible. You look around now at the top Republican Governers and all of them are looking at huge deficits in their states thus destroying the whole conservatives are good for the economy meme (Sarah Palin is the exception but she is the governer or North Arabia right now just give her a year or two)
So you have the personality of the Republican party being wrong and you have the economic and foreign domestic policies of the Republican party being wrong, hell whats left? I am sure that there is a tiny percentage of the country that will vote on single issues like abortion no matter what but I think those numbers will dwindle to almost none of Obama gets the economy back on track. The GOP isn't in the wilderness, they are in the abyss and there won't be any quick or easy fixes for them.
What's hilarious is that this episode comes barely more than a month after a campaign where any and all criticism of Sarah Palin was construed as sexist. I mean, look at how hard they tried to milk the "lipstick on a pig" episode and Obama wasn't even talking about Palin. Soooo....saying Palin isn't qualified for vice-president=sexist, Obama the magic negro= harmless satire. Does anyone take these petulant jokers seriously anymore?
Of all the Old School folks, surprisingly enough, Rev. Al has been the most ' cool' with the President-elect. If he has issues with the PE, he hasn't made them public. He hasn't been heard on ' open mic'. He hasn't been out in public 'clowning'. I've been shocked, actually, by the level of discipline of Rev. Al throughout the entire campaign.
So, no, it wasn't Rev. Al.
But, all Black folks look alike to this woman. Only explanation.
I'm so tired of being told by folks that insult me as a Black person, that I'm ' too sensitive'. They will run across the wrong Black person at the wrong time and understand what ' too sensitive' really means. And when they get their ass beat, don't be a bitch about it and whine. Take it like a man. I bet your ass will think twice before trying that #($* with another Black person.
They're mad. They're mad that they just can't insult Black folk willy nilly anymore. They're mad that Black folk can actually say, ' hold up motherfucker. I don't think so.'
MSNBC anchor: So we're going to end on this note, because I don't want anyone to think you're defending him.
Republican spokeswoman: I am defending Rush Limbaugh
Black male guest: Wow
I'm just noting the use of "wow" as an emphasizer here.
It feels somewhat recent. It is very compact, effective, subtle and efficient language. I would have understood it in the 90s, but I don't think it was commonly used that way then.
It has already spread throughout US culture, but does anyone know where it started? Not the word wow, but it's use to say "I don't have to add anything, and don't want to because it would be clumsy but I want to reemphasize the obvious embarrassment the previous speaker brought on him/herself"
Anyone is allowed to do satire, not everyone is any good at. Nor is all satire equally acceptable.
There are some of the more libertarian-conservatives who I think are sincere about the anti-PC stuff and would be good with bashing Christians. For me a big problem with the anti-PC thing is that it's highly dogmatic and full of "accepted words/accepted thoughts." If you see any value or interest in non-Western cultures you're "PC." If you think the Qur'an is morally preferable to "Mein Kampf" you're PC. (Or for some in the secular Right if you think the Bible is preferable to MK) If you believe in preserving American Indian languages you're PC. If you like certain folk musicians you are vaguely suspicious. If you say "African American" at any point you're suspicious. And so on or so forth. You have to be devoted to the superiority of the West in all things or at least avoid any interest in things that didn't originate from European/European-American people. Which besides being stifling is inherently un-Christian, at least to a large extent.
On a different matter I have some problems with the whole concept of "Magic Negro" itself when any side uses it. It's not unusual, in any society, to have a story with a wise character who is somehow an outsider. I'm not sure stories like that are always offensive. I think someone indicated once "To Sir, With Love" a "Magical Negro story", but he was a real guy and it was based on his story. I saw him on C-SPAN and he also is a pretty impressive person from what I could tell. Maybe they did add a bit of schmaltz they shouldn't have, but I don't know enough to say. By the same logic "Dangerous Minds" would be a "Magical Whitey" story and even if that's true does that matter? (I think I heard "Dangerous Minds" was kind-of a cruddy movie, but that's sort-of besides the point of this) I don't actually know, this is an area where I'm probably being ignorant.
TR says: "I have some problems with the whole concept of "Magic Negro" itself when any side uses it. It's not unusual, in any society, to have a story with a wise character who is somehow an outsider. I'm not sure stories like that are always offensive."
I first became aware of the phrase after movies like "The Green Mile" started popping up everywhere. I could appreciate the humor of the phrase in the context of film criticism but when it gets appropriated by a useless fascist like Limbaugh in the guise of "humor" it no longer makes any sense.
On a totally unrelated note I hope someone invites Morgan Freeman and Dennis Haysbert to the inauguration. Because that would be, like, a totally magical photo op.
i have no doubt that Obershain will become a regular guest on Fox News programs or have her own show, just like that Ferraro and other low-profile who spark controversy by defending republican rhetoric at any cost.
I understood the term "magical negro" to apply to fictional characters who literally have supernatural powers. Examples: Scatman Crothers in The Shining, Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile (Stephen King has always had a somewhat stereotypical attitude toward racial and ethnic minorities), Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, the Oracle in The Matrix, Don Cheadle in The Family Man. The list goes on. Ehrenstein was using it in more of a metaphorical sense, and he was applying it to a real person (or, rather, to what he thought was the public's perception of that person).
In the immortal words of Jesse Jackson..."your point is mute!!"...i say that, because my point is mute....but...didn't rush "the magic honkey" call Barack an arab? I vaguely remember a rant about him being "of arab decent...he's not black, he's not african...he's an arab"...not that i expect rush to be consistent or even coherent...
The problem, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Republican Party simply can't quit Limbaugh without antagonizing and probably losing for years a big chunk of its base. It is a huge trap they are in.
In fact, the Obama campaign ran in some Spanish language radio stations a really Rovian ad hanging Limbaugh and the horrible things he's said about Hispanics on McCain's neck. You know, McCain the leader of the pro-Immigration reform camp. But because Limbaugh had made McCain flip-flop in Immigration and because McCain couldn't afford distancing himself from Limbaugh they had to take it without protest.
I'd be lying if I said that knowing this kind of thing would happen helped me make a decision during the primaries. The Limbaughs and Coulters of the world literally can't help themselves. Seeing a popular, black democrat was like playing the first five beats of "Shave and a Haircut" around Roger Rabbit.
Running a black man for president was always going to bring out the worst elements of the Republican party, and thanks to their own efforts they've probably lost the latino and african-american vote for another century or so.
The GOP isn't in the wilderness, they are in the abyss and there won't be any quick or easy fixes for them.
Sg, no party remains in the abyss. Not so long ago, there were books about a Permanent Red majority by people who aren't right wing hacks. The victor in every campaign often mistakenly assumes that the voters have fallen in love with them and their party. They ignore that large chunks haven't abandoned anything, they just hated the person they voted for a little less than the one they didn't vote for. In 1976, Ford was burdened by Nixon and a crappy economy, but that didn't hurt Reagan in 1980.
I am not saying that Obama is another Jimmy Carter, I am just saying voters will change at the drop of a hat and so much is unpredictible and is even out the control of the President.
Hey Rush, RNC, etc.,
Motherfucker, be funny.
Not for nothing do Republicans make bad comedians, anyone listen to Dennis Miller lately?
When will the RNC learn that doubling down on stupidity makes you twice as dumb as before? Personally, I hope never because these ass-hats are becoming the political equivalent of the last buggy whip makers in America.
Speaking in general of satire, why is it infuriating when someone on the right dabbles in satire, regardless of the target segment of population, but it's considered high art when it comes from the left...such as the upside-down crucifix in urine, for instance?
If you're going to be a fan of satire (and whether openly or secretly, we're all children of Twain and Wilde), you have to be able to suffer the slings and arrows, you know?
PS - I'm not water-carrier for Rush...unless you're talking negatively about Neil Peart...then you and I will have to step outside.
Republicans are simply pissed they are no longer allowed to exist in a world where it's socially acceptable to be openly racist. Of course they'll never admit this, instead they'll try and flip the situation around and claim persecution at the hands of "politically correct Liberals."
My boss tries to pull this shit all the time. No kidding, he used this excuse the other month to defend Obama Bucks.
What his ass doesn't know is that I've been passing along his unhinged rants to HR for the past three months.
Scott, last I knew Andres Serrano wasn't running to be chairman of any major party. Try to keep up with the discussion at hand.
Persia,
lol, that's very true. I just pulled that one down as a particularly egregious example that always stood out in my mind. Still, I stand by the question in theme.
Anonymous,
Nobody has the market cornered on overt racism or, racism's stepchild, identity politics. The Dems' own Mr. Dean and, funny enough, their vice-president-elect, have made some unbelievably racist comments over the past few years that, had they come from a Republican, would have started riots. I, and quite a few others I know, left the Republican party soon after 9/11, but it had nothing to do with racism.
Scott,
You're missing the point a bit, I think-- the Republicans have a credibility problem. The "Southern Strategy" served them well for a long time, but it identified them-- pretty damn strongly-- as the party of racists and racism. The Democrats have had their share of assholes too, but it had a lot of good black candidates, and never gained the bad reputation that the Republicans got. When you've got a (well-earned) bad reputation-- in anything!-- you have to work twice as hard to try to prove yourself. And instead, we get "Barack the Magic Negro," which pretty much proves that many in the party aren't trying at all.
What did Howard Dean say? I've followed his career for a long time and don't remember any kerfluffles.
Ta, take this with a grain of salt......
If you let Rush's race baiting get to you, you'll have a heart attack
I'm really much more interested in the sides being taken right now in the GOP. If you look closer, something tells me the "Palin-cans" are the ones defending and the leaderless conservative intellectuals are the ones denouncing
DougEMI
Yes sometimes political parties do go into the abyss Doug. Or are you going to be voting Whig any time soon? Now if America stayed the same demographically then yeah there would be a chance that the Republicans could rise back up quickly and regain a foot hold. But White folks are very soon going to actually be in the minority in this country which means many many elections are going to be decided by which party gets more support from minorities. Even the southern states will be affected by this before its all said and done. The Republican party has no clue how to do minority outreach because they don't have very many minorites in the party. Whats worse is that the few prominent black folks they have in the party act like house niggas because they never want to be seen as a Malcolm X type or be seen as playing the race card. So you have Uncle Tom's like Ken Blackwell coming out saying that the Barack the Magic Negro CD wasn't so bad after all.
So basically the few black people they actually personally know are going to kiss their ass and tell them its no big deal, do you really think white folks in the Republican party are going to be outraged over this? Like I said before, Chip Saltsman didn't apologize for sending out the CD, hell he didn't even acknowledge it wasn't a smart thing to do, he DEFENDED IT! They don't know any better man and its going to hurt them for years to come. Lets not forget there was also a Star Spanglish Banner song on there. And just wait until Obama promotes immigration reform.
Notice that I haven't even mentioned their failed policy platforms yet. It is what it is man. History always does pass some people by. In this case its the Republicans because they have been using smoke and mirrors up until this point anyway.
Im about to post on my own blog about this but I believe this Politico article proves my point about the abyss. I will just give yall the headline.
What about the other 40 tracks on this CD? Other "parody" tunes include "John Edwards Poverty Tour" and "The Star Spanglish Banner." What about the title of this CD - "We Hate the USA."
Looks to me like the GOP covered all the bases...blacks, latinos, the poor. And everyone else who doesn't think this is funny is USA-hater.
Sad.
The death of the Republican party was mentioned in 1992, James Carville announced that he was putting the final nail in the Reagan coffin. Then the arrogance set in; you had Newt take over the House. Since that death of the Republican Party, we had a Democrat pass a welfare reform bill that made what Reagan did seem harsh. We had a democrat deregulate telecom and finance (those same finance deregulators are key parts of Obama's econ team). We have another Democrat today who wants to keep taxes at the level of Ronald Reagan and the democratic party has ceded issues like taxation of capital, gun control, defense spending and the death penalty to the right.
Yes, I can't vote for the Whig party, but we are not living in Pre-Civil War times. The two party system is very entrenched. The closest one party came to being irrelevent was in 1964 with the Goldwater rout. Then, like in 1993, it only took liberals 2 years to screw it all up and within four years, the rotting corpse of Dick Nixon was resurrected.
Don't forget that Nixon started the EPA, and that the Democrats used to be the party of southern racists. The two boxes labeled "R" and "D" seem to be fixed, but what's in them can change radically over time.
M.C.
The racists in the Democratic Party were largely confined to the south and when race finally became a major issue the Democratic party turned on them. Guess who was all too happy to pick them up? It wasn't so much that Democrats woke up one day and werent racist anymore and Republicans woke up one day and were. The Republican Party actively recruited known racists like Strum Thurmond to their party just so they could win southern states. That day has come and gone. Like I pointed out earlier, the demographic shift in this country will make the hitory of political parties moot. Republicans haven't fought for minority voters in the last 20 years and they could get away with it because it was enough to win the white vote. Pretty soon that won't be the case and they are ill prepared to deal with that shift.
I think that sending out this CD was tone deaf and ill advised, but has anyone actually read the article from the LA times? It was equally offensive, and I have not heard a peep about it. Let's assume, for arguments sake, that Rush was actually doing a satire on the Sharptons and the old guard civil rights leaders that said Obama wasn't "black enough" to have his shot at the presidency--well, this was mentioned in the article, as well as the fact that because Obama came out of nowhere he must be a magic negro that was here to cure the guilt of doe eyed white liberals.
Comments anyone?
What really gets me is that the GOP appears to be rallying around Saltsman, at least according to Politico. They quote such luminaries as the heads of the GOP in Maine and Oklahoma.
Now, I can't speak with 100% certainly about either state, but I live in Maine. I have a hard time believing that the chair of the GOP here in my lily-white state knows the first thing about what black people do or do not find offensive. Perhaps I am being unfair, but I have an equally hard time believing that erring on the side of sensitivity would be his default setting. Reading that he thinks it's just a joke, and so expects other people to view it the same way makes me want to pound my head against a frigging wall.
TRW is back, still trying to fight the bad fight!
TRW, this is the problem. If my kid screws up and does something stupid, it is no goo argument for her that "Lindsay did the same thing! What about her?" One of the lamest defenses around is to point to other people who did something else defensive.
Let's also consider some context: the idiotic article was written in March 2007 -- before Obama had won anything. Racist Rush Limbaugh* then plays the idiotic song. Musclehead Chip then resurrects the song AFTER the Dems sweep the congressional elections, Barack wins the presidency going away, and the GOP shows it is simply not competitive among minorities or educated Whites, either, for that matter.
Why you link this back to the LA Times is beyond me; that was close to two years ago and Chip decided to resurrect Limbaugh offensive song; he did not send around a copy of the LA Times article. So, in fact, your defense of Saltsman is to refer to an article that was printed close to two years ago, as if that excuses Saltsman' a-hole conduct now.
Is THAT what the GOP is selling now?
*Let's not kid ourselves . . . I know a racist when I see one and Limbaugh is a racist. He proves it every time he shows that he cannot handle the concept of a Black person being successful at something -- whether it is Donovan McNabb or Obama.
sgwhiteinfla -
Right -- the people in the boxes labeled "R" and "D" changed, as did the times and the situations that required politicians to act. There's no particular reason to think that process has stopped. Indeed, a party that loses big and is having a lot of internal squabbles, or that has a lot of old people about to die off, will probably change faster than the one that currently looks like the place to be.
Who knows what partisan alignments there will be in 20 years. It's anybody's guess. I'm hoping that post-Boomer politics in general is less absurd than Boomer politics, but it's hard to be sure about that yet.
A much, much, much better song is "Rush the big fat dope fiend" by J. Anthony Brown of the Tom Joyner Morning Show. I wish someone would find a link to that song so everyone on this blog can laugh their heads off.
And another thing, TRW:
"Let's assume, for arguments sake, that Rush was actually doing a satire on the Sharptons and the old guard civil rights leaders that said Obama wasn't 'black enough' to have his shot at the presidency"
How can we assume that at all? What evidence do you have that Limbaugh (a) knows any Black people [drug dealers don't count!], (b) cares anything about Black people or their opinions about who is "black enough" to do anything, or (c) even knows what the hell "black enough" means? You are asking us to start out with a first principal that has no factual basis underlying it. it is especially nonsensical to think that Limbaugh was actually critiquing anyone who opposed Obama as being "not black enough" because HE REFERRED TO OBAMA AS A "HAFRICAN AMERICAN"! So why in the world should anyone think Limbaugh ran that song in good faith?
I suspect that Limbaugh played that for a simple reason: he assumed his overwhelming white, conservative audiance would appreciate a little minstrel show song about a Black presidential candidate. Occum's razor, dude: the simple explanation is the best one.
"What did Howard Dean say? I've followed his career for a long time and don't remember any kerfluffles."
I don't know if this is what the poster was referring to, but I remember Dean saying that he wanted to be the candidate of people with a Confederate Flag in the back of their pick-up truck. I'm not sure that qualifies as a racist statement, but it does qualify as an unbelievably stupid statement.
Scott,
Arguably some of the best satire of our time came from those raging lefties who created South Park. I wouldn't call those dudes conservatives, as much as I'd call them libertarians. But, in general, a strict adherence to ideology will always be unfunny. John Stewart may skewer Bush, but that doesn't keep from making fun of Obama. His show is political, and Stewart is, I guess, probably voted for Obama. But if he isn't funny, he won't be on the air. Fuck ideology, as KevDog said above, "Motherfucker, be funny." But maybe I'm the wrong dude to talk here. I've been known to enjoy Larry The Cable Guy.
The one thing I do know about politics going forward is that anyone who can figure out how to speak to a black working class audience and a white working class audience at the same time, without playing either racial games or "oh, poor you," will be able to win elections. Setting the two groups against each other in a zero-sum game is not the way forward.
Obama actually did pretty well there, but it isn't a formula among politicians yet. There's still a notion that you can't play to one group without alienating the other. That may have been true in 1968, but most of the voting-age population has turned over since then. And Strom Thurmond has been dead for half a decade.
Part of the reason that this sucks is, nb. TNC's comment above, they obviously sacrificed comedy to be more confrontational. "Negro" is far more inflammatory than "black man," but "Magic Black Man" works much better as a satirical take on "Magic Dragon" than "Magic Negro." These people don't even seem to know the basic lessons that Weird Al has taught us.
For that matter, Dan, "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" would work far better with "Barack the Magic Negro." I know, because I didn't click on the song and the tune's been in my head ever since this came up.
I bet you're right it was the Confederate flag issue, Kylopod. And a remarkably tin-eared statement it was, but 'I want the votes of people who might be racists' still seems a lot less offensive than 'lolz, Barack Obama's still black' to me.
Persia said, "I bet you're right it was the Confederate flag issue, Kylopod. And a remarkably tin-eared statement it was, but 'I want the votes of people who might be racists' still seems a lot less offensive than 'lolz, Barack Obama's still black' to me."
Seriously. Plus, I guess I see a difference between a tin-eared statement and a planned gift mailed to lots of people. I mean the latter can be a throw away said before the speaker really gives it enough thought -- who hasn't said something that didn't really come out the way you meant it to, or that you wish you could pull back immediately after saying -- while the former requires planning, thought and execution. So there was plenty of opportunity to second guess the message.
If you all haven't seen it yet, check the video of Larry Elder on Anderson Cooper last night...it was painful (and his "defense" of the song as a "joke" was terrible). At one point, Cooper had to tell him that the interview wasn't a commercial for why people should join the GOP.
DougEMI, all of your examples are from when white voters were a larger share of the electorate than today. That share will only shrink. Meanwhile, throughout the entire timeline you outline, the GOP's attachment to bigotry has consistently been very strong. If the GOP doesn't shed itself of its attachment to bigotry, they will be a minority party for the foreseeable future. Latino immigration will likely help make African-American voters + Latino voters + white liberal voters a majority in states like Texas, Georgia and possibly Arizona in the next 20 years. If the GOP loses Texas and Georgia, they lose.
As long as they remain homophobic, racist and sexist, they lose all of New England, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey and the West Coast. Younger Cuban-Americans in Miami don't use hating Castro as their wedge issue for voting, meaning the GOP loses their big card in Florida. A lot of population growth in Red States, such as Virginia and North Carolina, comes from Blue Staters moving there and bringing their values with them.
This doesn't mean the GOP can't adapt. However, Sarah Palin is a wackjob who is hated by women, Bobby Jindal is rather crazy on religious issues as the religious right loses credibility - and Americans are only going to be becoming less homophobic over time.
Speaking of Veteran's/Armistice day.... (as a brief hijack) wouldn't it be great if we moved election day to November 11?