Quality Race Baiting

The Republicans are masters of using race to stir up white anger and fear to win elections. They play the race card, as it is referred to by hacks, and are more subtle and effective with it each year. “Playing the race card” is just a palatable way of describing their racist bullshit. I don’t know how long the GOP has been doing this, my memory only goes back to Reagan, who was a master at riling up the master race.

In 1980, Reagan gave a campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, during which he said,

I believe in states' rights.

It was obvious to anyone with a brain that Reagan was signaling white racists that he was on their side. After all, he was speaking the city where three civil rights workers were killed in 1964 and any retard knows what "states rights" means in the South.

If you don’t buy that connection, then don’t forget Reagan’s many quotes about a “welfare queen driving a Cadillac,” or his claiming that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South,” or his help keeping Bob Jones University from losing its tax exempt status because of a ban on interracial dating, or his opposition to a holiday for Martin Luther King. Reagan was not just a terrible president, but he was also a straight-up racist asshole.

On July 31st, just days before Reagan went to Neshoba County, the New York Times reported that the Ku Klux Klan had endorsed Reagan. In its newspaper, the Klan said that the Republican platform “reads as if it were written by a Klansman.” Reagan rejected the endorsement, but only after a Carter cabinet official brought it up in a campaign speech.

This was the plan, called the Southern Strategy, encouraged by Richard Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips.

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are.

That’s the plan they have followed, ever since. Bush used the famous Willy Horton ad against Michael Dukakis quite effectively.



Oh, my God! A black man!

But the country has changed. That kind of overt bullshit would not go over well in many places now. I’m not saying it wouldn’t still go over great in many states, because it would. But the number of people it would turn off across the nation would not make the ad effective today. And there’s the new problem: The Democratic candidate is a black guy. That means the Republicans have to walk a very fine racist line. And they are doing it very well, so far.

The John McCain tactic seems to be to create ads most whites won’t consider racist, but blacks will.



That’s obviously a racist ad. It’s subtle, but if you don’t think showing two young white women in an ad with a black man, and tossing the word “FOREIGN” up on screen with the black guy’s face isn’t racist, then you are a fucking moron. Unfortunately, when blacks become upset and claim it is racist, McCain can scream innocence and say he’s a victim of “the race card.” Poor rich, white guy. Sadly, Obama fell right into the trap.

They're going to try to say that I'm a risky guy, they're going to try to say, 'Well, you know, he's got a funny name and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills and, and they're going to send out nasty emails.

That’s a pretty innocuous statement, but just commenting on the ad put him in a negative light, according to polls.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation’s voters say they’ve seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not.

The reason for that is simple; there are more white people than black people. This is about how people relate and most of us don't relate to racism, subtle or otherwise.

In a dispute about race, the McCain campaign knows it will end up with the larger half. For the most part, most white people's experience with race isn't one of racial discrimination. They can only relate to racial discrimination in the abstract. What white people can relate to is the fear of being unjustly accused of racism. This is the larger half. This is why allegations of racism often provoke more outrage than actual racism, because most of the country can relate to one (the accusation of racism) easier than the other (actual racism). For this reason, in a political conflict over race, the McCain campaign has the advantage, because saying the race card has been played is actually the ultimate race card.

Considering McCain is a doddering old fool, who has taken the least popular stance on nearly every position, his only chance to win is by using race. The Republican machine knows exactly what it is doing and they are doing it well. The race is tightening. Obama has stupidly moved away from his base, while Republicans are drawing theirs together. Democrats should be very thankful that McCain is a senile old man.



The debates could be devastating. Don’t forget, Reagan and Carter were tied in the polls going into the final debate, just one week before the election. You can be certain McCain will look horrible in the debates, but the damage may already be done with “the race card.” And Republicans, when you bunch that ballot for McCain this year, know you are supporting racism. Know that you are a vile, filthy person who supports the worst in mankind.

FearTheReaper is a comic, writer and actor. You can read more of his nonsense at his blog, Stop All Monsters.

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