I was doing some shopping Saturday morning when I walked out of Kohl’s in Santa Clarita, California and discovered that a young couple had set up a table at the main intersection of the shopping center. At the table was a very large, distorted picture of President Obama with a Hitler mustache painted on his face. The sign with the picture read: “Impeach and stop World War III”—in dramatic red paint.
I thought, what the hell: now Obama’s being accused of starting a World War? I should have ignored this stupid sh*t—I was confident I could guess this couple’s level of education with their first five words. Instead of being sensible, however, I walked over to them and tried to talk.
“What is he being impeached for?” I said, fighting to stay calm.
“For everything,” a dumb girl answered.
“Wow,” I said, “everything he does is impeachable?”
“A lot of shit,” added the guy with the girl; “he’s gonna be impeached for a lot of shit.”
“Mostly for being black, though, huh?” I said. The two glanced at each other, their expression changing as they became more guarded.
The girl said, “You look like a hostile guy. Are you hostile?”
“Only when I think I see racists,” I said. “Are you two racists?”
Neither one answered. Then the guy said, “I see you’ve got a pony tail. Are you gay?” He said this like he thought I’d find that offensive.
“Man,” I said, “you’re a racist and homophobic! Why does that not surprise me? Come on, man, why don’t you take down the sign. It’s disrespectful. You can disagree with the president without being disrespectful. We can talk together without being unpleasant. Why don’t we try?”
“Why don’t you piss off,” said the guy. “I have the right to freedom of speech. This sign is my free speech.”
I was now at a point where I wanted to kick this guy’s ass or at least go down trying. And yet, I pride myself on being able to exchange ideas with anybody, to listen to their point of view and present mine without showing disrespect. In fact, I have several Republican friends that I enjoy debating with and our relationship is in some ways built on a heated political exchange. Why was I feeling so hostile toward this couple?
I decided that what I had recognized in these two is something that is impossible for anybody to reason with. There is no logic to it and it is not debatable. It is not based on facts and it is not intelligent. If you discover it in a person, there is not much you can do about it. Those that have it are not educable. It will probably last a lifetime. Sometimes it can be controlled but most times it can’t.
I was raised in the South and racism was all around me, in almost every white southerner to some degree. It was rare not to find it. If anybody you knew said it hadn’t touched him or her, you should be wary. When you did occasionally find a person whose soul was not corrupted by it, you almost thought of them as saints.
It is not something you can debate with a friend because it is based on a factor that makes no sense. It’s not logical. It’s not scientific. It is just something a person suffers from. It is a malady that might not appear for long periods of time and then pop up and corrupt at the strangest of times. There are many names for the insanity: xenophobia; prejudice; bigotry; bias; racism.
Why did I think I recognized it in this young couple? You can disagree with a black president and argue against his policies aggressively and still not be a racist. But on the other hand, you might disagree with him and never say anything that could be a reference to his race but still reveal that you’re a bigot.
You are a racist if you make any attempts to caricature our black president as being somehow otherworldly—not one of us—from somewhere else—different somehow from every other American.
If you’re disagreeing with something the president has suggested to Congress and you suddenly stop to note that you believe he was not born in America, but in Kenya, you have a problem. Where he was born is only important if you are trying to suggest that he is not one of us, not acceptable because in some important way, he is different. Oh, yea, he’s different because he is black. And if you say this even while almost all of the world accepts that he was born in Hawaii, you are not only racist but stupid.
If you say he’s not Christian, he’s Muslim; or you depict him as a monkey or a baboon or as a funny looking Hitler, you’re a racist. You might be able to get away with caricaturing him as Stalin, but save the Hitler analogies for conservatives and Facists, not left-wingers. And then, if you keep insisting that he wasn’t born in Hawaii or he didn’t graduate top of his class or he’s really a Muslim Jihadist, you’re too stupid to even realize how racist you are.
I get so angry knowing that nothing I could say or do would make any difference in the young couple’s lives. As we say in the South, they are stupid as dirt and will be like that probably forever.
I am angry at the lies told by Republicans over and over—ad infinitum—and the effect it is having on our country. The news sources are failing to correct their lies and every stupid comment made by Republicans like McCain or Sarah Palin are picked up and blasted over every broadcast without any attempt at correcting the truth of what they said. The news reporters are more concerned with ratings than truth.
The democrats are not aggressively attacking these lies or standing firm with their president; they appear to be trying to tiptoe through the next election, waiting for 2016. They must stand firm! Obama may be low in the ratings, but the Republicans are the lowest ever!
I believe that this country is at a crossroad in its democracy. Never before has an opposing party stopped participating in the administration of the government. It is having a negative effect that, if continued, will destroy our democracy. The only hope now is to somehow take back both houses of Congress in the off-year election. To make that happen, democrats are going to have to turn out at the polls angry and ready to beat the crap out of Republicans and I mean, stomp them!
The words of Lewis Carroll could have been written with modern Republicans in mind: “If I had a world of my own, said the Republican, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”
Because of the lies of Republicans, the world is upside down and inside out. Nothing is what it is, because everything is what it isn't. When Obama deliberates before taking action, Republican Lindsey Graham criticizes this as indecisive; he also believes that when Obama is being thoughtful, it comes off as weakness.
Taking the time to think things through before attacking with the military is considered a fault by Republicans—this is absurd, yes, for most logical-based people. But Republicans are finding that they are being very successful finding fault with anything Obama does—the more absurd and distorted the lies, the better.
Hilter noted in Mein Kampf, that in order to lie successfully, you should tell a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." Republicans have learned to tell the lie, then repeat it over and over, the more exaggeration, the better.
They have changed the rules in how opposing parties should support a president in foreign emergencies and I mostly blame them for the aggressiveness of the Russians in giving the Ukrainian separatists the equipment to bring down a commercial airplane. The unwritten rule for opposing parties used to be, in foreign emergencies, you stand behind your president, supporting, advising and consenting his efforts to solve the problem. Americans used to stand together in dealing with foreign emergencies. Now it is fair game to criticize anything Obama does as wrong. The Republicans have changed the process.
Democrats must attack the Republicans with the same energy and anger that the Republicans attack Obama. That’s the only way to save our Republic. The Democrats must have control of the full Congress in order to put things back in sync. The democrats must get so angry they will turn out like they did for the president’s re-election. They must get off their asses and vote the enemy—the modern Republican party—into the nearest toilet where they belong.
I am optimistic that one day, the moderates in the Republican Party—it is difficult to believe that there ever were such things as moderate and liberal Republicans—I still believe that one day they will regain control. One has to have hope.