The events of the past few weeks are not only mesmerizing, they are historic. In the middle of a country already tasked by a pandemic and unemployment, the casual murders of black people kept mounting up at a rapid pace, as an unarmed jogger in Georgia was killed by vigilantes, then nine bullets were pumped into a young medical worker, in her home, when cops executed a no-knock warrant. And the straw that broke the camel’s back was the summary execution of a mild mannered security guard, George Floyd, on a street in Minneapolis, for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. That wasn’t the crime he was executed for. He was executed for having been born black in a racist country. Even Mitch McConnell tied the incident to the “original sin” of slavery. If McConnell’s social conscience is awakened, you know something of seismic magnitude has taken place.
And seismic magnitude is precisely what this is. This is what GOP pollster Frank Luntz says.
In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply. We are a different country today than just 30 days ago.
The consequences politically, economically, and socially are too great to fit into a tweet.
This is big.
This is ‘Beatles on Ed Sullivan’ big. https://t.co/Zn5j8byaxW— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 8, 2020
This is quite a change and my God, it’s not like enough people didn’t die already to make it happen. While the rest of us breathe a sigh of relief and hope that this sea change will manifest as a change not only in the White House, which is a must-have, but also a change in the Senate, so that we can get our country healing from the double toxins of racism and Trump, the Republicans are going out of their minds. This is their worst nightmare, America saying enough is enough to racism, make no mistake. Michael Tomasky, Daily Beast:
And what do Donald Trump and the Republicans think of it? They hate it. Don’t kid yourself. Some of them pay lip service to embracing this change. I applaud Mitt Romney for joining the marchers last week. He’s behaving quite admirably these days, even though, as the 2012 presidential candidate, he kowtowed to the very forces that gave us Trump four years later (indeed, he kowtowed to Trump himself).
As individuals with consciences and hearts (a category that may not necessarily include their leader), most of these Republicans, I’m sure, were shocked at George Floyd’s murder. But what’s in their consciences or hearts isn’t what matters. What matters is how they behave as elected officials.
And how they’ve behaved as elected officials ever since, say, the rise of Newt Gingrich—until Trump, the most poisonous public figure of the last 50 years—is clear to anyone with eyes and ears. Cheat black people of their proper political representation. Curtail their civil rights. Slash programs that help minority businesses and poor people. Invent phrases like “race-neutral” to hang a veil over rank discrimination. Reintroduce school segregation, now rampant in this country thanks to their phalanx of reactionary judges. Move heaven and earth to make it as hard as possible, and in many cases outright impossible, for American citizens to vote. And at election time, dog whistle dog whistle dog whistle, so that you can be sure the white voters get the message while you turn to the media and say, “Who, me? How dare you!”
What’s happening now terrifies them because they all know one simple thing, which they’ll never admit: If the white middle class rejects en masse racially discriminatory behavior and racially coded messages, they’re cooked. Mind you, as heartening as these last few weeks have been, that’s still a big “if.” Let’s not declare victory here. But we are seeing historic breakthroughs. Polls suggest a good two-thirds of the country will not buy that GOP hoodoo juice anymore.
The Republican party has been a corrupt and rotting husk for some years. They didn’t sink to the level of putting a tabloid headliner, reality TV scam artist at the top of their ticket overnight. It took a while. But make no mistake, the road was paved for Trump by legions of GOPers past. Trump is the inheritor of the racist throne that the GOP has perched upon lo these many years. And he’s not handling it with the finesse that other Republicans before him have handled it. He’s downright clumsy. And the idiocy that comes out of the White House, “MAGA loves black people,” and teargassing citizens was “beautiful” is cringe worthy — and the Republicans are cringing. And well they should. America has had enough and if even their own pollsters are confirming that we now live in a different world, then the GOP had better do some serious soul searching, after the house cleaning that the electorate will do in November.
Let it be so.
Trump was always the logical conclusion to what Nixon’s Southern Strategy began. The problem is that the “hoodoo juice” Tomasky noted is all they got left on the shelf. Everything else they allegedly stood for has long been used up. The time for fear should have been long before now. Now that they’re caught in their own trap, it’s too late for sorry.
Agreed: sorry is too late, but it is also far too little. They’ve been on the wrong side of history since Obama came into office; now the history is biting them in the ass.
Carroll,
You could say they have always been on the wrong side of history.
They glued themselves to Himself, and now they can’t undo it.
They made the wrong decision again by refusing to impeach trump, and scolding the house manager’s for doing their duty. Their faux outrage at Adam Schiff for daring to present the stark truth about themselves was also a huge mistake. That was their chance to cut him loose. Now they are scrambling and scared, with what, 18 weeks left to go?
Give or take, Cmae. “Pity comes too late,/Turn around and face your fate,/An eternity of THIS/Before your eyes.”–Andrew Lloyd Webber, Phantom Of The Opera
They threw everything they had at Joe Biden already, all failures.
And their lead off, they had to go to freaking UKRAINE to make happen. It’s all failed because none of it can possibly make Biden look as bad or worse than Trump.
The problem for them is that, whatever his faults, Joe Biden is a good man. Trump is an empty evil one. Uncle Joe is the Calm. Trump is the 911/Katrina disaster on steroids.
I have never seen as many political ads in one election season as I have seen just so far third year. Even more amazing, nearly every ad writes itself.
They have too much hatred to pretend to do the right thing for others, in order to save themselves.
That’s an interesting observation. Every time I get a right winger saying something about what I wrote they always jump right in there with I am full of hate and my racist reply takes the cake. What you just said fits the pattern on them.
Thanks for your take, Ursula. I’ve been wondering just how much importance can be given to the protests. They appear to be epic, global. God willing, they won’t just fade away from our hearts.
Lord and Lady, may your last sentence be so, Dina.
Oh, don’t worry. These morons can’t help themselves. Haven’t got the details yet. Bot there’s been another shooting down south I think. Seen it little while ago.
I do disagree with Daily Beast on one point: It IS indeed a matter of conscience and heart. “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh” — and the hands acteth….
Republican consciences are dead and their hearts are black and selfish. Not all of them, probably; but most now.
Elected Republicans have showed neither heart nor conscience, much less leadership or accountability or interest in governance, for years, but especially the last four (as led by Mitch). THAT is why they must all GO if the USA is to be salvaged, much less enforce civil rights for all.
Although I am grateful that the time has finally arrived, or appears so, still there is a weariness that will set in as our enthusiasm and hope are met head on by the days we have to go until November.
I am white, of proud Irish extraction, so I know of the strife my own ancestors had to deal with thanks to an aunt who was a very successful genealogist; but I am married to a wonderful guy, with the double whammy of having African- and Native American genes, and over the years I’ve seen up close and personally what he has had to endure just while he went about the business of living his life. As he is a university professor, he has had many, many white folks in his orbit who have witnessed the personal and career BS he has dealt with. Ditto his students on occasion. And it is folks like these, white mostly, who also have friends, neighbors and family who look like my husband and they too understand deep in their own bones how impossible racism is to navigate.
Once you see it it becomes impossible to ignore. Unless one is a Republican scurrying away from the microphones to answer some phone call or to eat lunch. And unfortunately for all those who are terrified? There are more of us than there are of them.
The Republican Party needs to go ! We don’t need them .
People of wealth and/or great privilege in this country and even in Europe where the bulk of our ancestors came from have for the most part always possessed an “I’ve got mine – if you don’t have yours shut up and go away” attitude. Perhaps more importantly they have substantially fallen towards the conservative side of the political continuum. They might give lip service to fairness and advancement into the upper/ruling classes on merit but they don’t want to share and conservatism in the form of resisting any changes to the system that has so richly benefited has been the driving philosophy for the lion’s share of such people. For every FDR or JFK that was born to wealth and privilege but got into politics and advocated actual fairness of opportunity there have been countless conservatives (at one time many were Democrats but that all changed starting with the Civil & Voting Rights Acts & Nixon’s implementation of the infamous Southern Strategy) who carried the “I’ve got mine” attitude as if it were literally part of their genetic makeup.
I’m glad you brought up Gingrich because it was with him the “I’ve got mine – if you don’t have yours shut up and go away” attitude developed and then hardened into “I’ve got mine – fuck off you loser!” attitude that Trump epitomizes. He was raised to believe that of course. He didn’t come to it after he became famous. However as with his refusal to talk in the carefully crafted GOP dog whistles on racial matters he has even more openly spoken openly in the I’ve got mine – fuck off you loser language. He might not be book smart but he’s savvy enough to know how well conservatives have pitted average and poor people of all racial backgrounds against each other and he played it for all it was worth. All those MAGAts out there believed long before Trump that they were just one small break away from striking it “rich” (a relative term – I’m talking jumping from 20-30k a year to six figures) when the reality is and always has been that the odds aren’t much better than a Little Leaguer becoming a Major League baseball player. Remember “Joe the Plumber?” There are tens of millions more of him out there that have been and continue to be suckered by the GOP’s bullshit.
Telling them they are suckers (which they are) and that no, they aren’t just “one small break” from achieving their dreams, and that the best they can hope for is a real, fair chance to succeed with lots of hard work isn’t exactly a winning political message. However, I think our side has continually and for decades missed the mark by allowing the GOP to trash us as wanting redistribution of wealth with an implied, although sometimes overtly stated addendum of taking money from those who have “earned” it (somehow I don’t think being born into family money and/or connections is earning one’s wealth and privilege) and giving it to the undeserving – and that’s where a LOT of the racial dog whistles the GOP has so devastatingly utilized comes into play.
Now? IF (and I agree that while there’s actual hope it’s still an if) the racial aspect is being redefined and in a way that the GOP has fought so hard to keep from happening in less than a generation white working class folks will increasingly start having the scales fall from their eyes. For the moment I’m just hoping the GOP stays knocked off balance through November enough to blunt the massive voter suppression (and even fraud) they were set up to implement this fall. A blue wave still seems too much to hope for but even if it happens 2022 is just around the corner and 2024 will come along soon enough. Even without the Covid-19 crisis and it’s devastating impacts on our (and the world’s) economy repairing the damage wrought under Trump was going to make things difficult for us in subsequent elections. One of the negative consequences of the internet age is that the desire for instant gratification has been steadily getting massive doses of steroids.
One election isn’t nearly enough to get things done. Obama tried to tell us all that on election night during his speech in Grant Park. Not nearly enough people paid attention, much less took it to heart and we all saw what happened in 2010. Make no mistake – those same never Trumpers in the Lincoln project are our TEMPORARY allies until November. I can promise you that if the GOP gets its ass kicked (not just Trump but the Senate, House and more statehouses & legislatures swinging our way) we won’t even make it to the Inauguration of Biden before they have turned right around and attack the Democratic Party for “over reaching” with the same type of devastating adds they are currently aiming at Trump and the GOP for letting Trump spoil all the decades of work they and their ilk put in setting the GOP up for the last decade.
And yes, if the momentum for truly addressing racial inequality continues through the fall they will be hard at work with subtle messaging to sow division again because that’s the only way they can rebuild their old GOP.
We need to be ready for that so we can counter it.
There is no rebuilding the old GOP, Joseph. A new one shall have to take its place, one that speaks this century’s language.
Beneath everything, though, is the pathogen that gives rise to racism. It’s always been there, and it will be very difficult to change.
What white men are afraid of is that the black “race” is, will be, superior to the white race. They’ve seen it come true in sports and then in the meticulous President Obama.
They fear the advancement of ‘Black’ and anything that allows it to happen. They fight it in every way possible. They create false arguments and teach their vulnerable base to use these arguments to back them up so they can strip the rights away from black people. To “keep them down.”
They are afraid that Blacks will become better than they are. And white men, arrogant white men, won’t give up their present hegemony throughout the world. They can’t stand it, and will commit every atrocity they can to keep this from happening.
Two centuries ago, a rather extraordinary opinion piece expressed a similar white fear regarding the Chinese. Calling the Chinese folks already here “castoffs” and other lower class derogatories, it speculated with horrified fascination what would happen if the “better classes” of China got a toehold here.
Speaking as a white man, I have no such fear of a black ascension. What I’ve seen of the white men who considered themselves my betters has long filled me with unbearable loathing. While I have enough empathy to wish for this next generation of black kids to go places too many of their forebears never could, I confess that watching people I consider my mortal enemies lose everything to be a just revenge.
Yes, fear. If white supremacists really believed whites were superior, they would not have to do anything to suppress the blacks. The blacks would flounder on their own.
I see it in my own family. They had no particular overt racism when I was growing up. My mother taught us to “respect everyone equally.” What I have since learned is that was an easy platitude because my mom believed blacks were inferior anyway. So my mom and I are on the outs these days.
In one respect, acquitting Trump & leaving him on office may have been the most beneficial Bad Move ever made by a political party, because simply ousting Trump isn’t enough. As Ursula so rightly observes, the “corrupt & rotting husk” that is the GOP must be voted out of Congress before any real healing or advancement can occur in this suffering nation. Replacing Trump with Pence would have let Moscow Mitch & his stooges continue regardless, but with a claim to moral high ground for dismissing an impeached president. Better that the Trump administration & the criminals in Congress carry on showing their true, evil character right up until 3 November.
You know, Jarvis, you might even say the pandemic is the perfect metaphor for Trump himself: a horrific disaster that exposes the horrible rot already present in the system.