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You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
- Anne Lamott
What do you get when your lust for political power trumps the Constitution you purport to revere and hold Holy? What happens when your desire for that power drives you to embrace a “divide and conquer” strategy, even at the risk of unleashing forces that might lead some unhinged souls to engage in random, thoughtless acts of violence? What’s the (all too predictable) outcome of whipping the ignorant, the easily frightened, and the intellecually malleable into a foaming-at-the-mouth Two-Minute Hate directed at the bogeyman of the moment?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to answer those questions, because we’re seeing the answer on a daily basis in New York City and increasingly nationwide. The short answer is that you get Republicans creating a wedge issue in order to scare voters and drive their base to the polls, where they’ll (once again) vote against their interests. Republicans understand that voters, when properly motivated (i.e.- scared witless), can be directed to do most anything. Reacting out of fear and rage certainly is far easier and more satisfying than engaging in sober reflection…or, as I’ve said many times before, voting Republican is a helluva lot easier than thinking.
It’s easy to hate “The Other”. It can feel good to look down on those we fear, don’t understand, and/or disagree with. We like feeling morally superior. Whether that smug self-superiority has any basis in reality is beside the point. In this case, today’s bogeyman happens to be Muslims. In other circumstances, it’s Gays and Lesbians. Or Liberals. Or…[insert name of despised class of people here], ad infinitum, ad nauseum…whatever, and whoever, it takes to get the job done.
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I can’t say with authority that fomenting hatred is an explicit, planned-out GOP strategy for this election cycle. That hardly matters, though, because politics is a results-oriented business…and Republicans know that fomenting hatred and sowing division works. It’s a short-term solution, because hatred, once loosed, is a genie difficult to force back into its bottle. Nonetheless, short-term solutions are generally what win elections.
Personally, I’m going to lay this at the foot of Richard Nixon. While he certainly wasn’t the first Republican to recognize the power of properly harnessed and focused hatred, Nixon’s particular brilliance was in manipulating the fears and apprehensions of the American Sheeple. Nixon was the master at whose feet studied the likes of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater. These soulless acolytes carried Nixon’s dirty tricks, unethical and illegal behavior, and fear-mongering forward, passing it from generation to principle-deprived generation. Nixon’s Southern Strategy continues to be the model that Republicans use to this day. Fanning the flames of hate and fear-mongering worked in 1968 and 1972…and it’s still working today. Granted, no one’s tying ribbons to the tails of rats and then setting them loose at an Edmund Muskie rally; today’s tactics are far more subtle and rife with plausible deniability.
Pundits like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Michell Malkin, Ann Coulter, and so many others can engage in all manner of hate speech, then feign disgust and deny responsibility when the violence that so often results is traced back to their words. No, you can’t PROVE that they’re fomenting violence…but neither does it take a Ph.D. to connect the dots.
Today’s Southern Strategy can be seen on a daily basis- on Fox Noise Channel, at Tea Party rallies, on Right-wing blogs. Rare is the pundit who comes out and explicitly calls for violence, but the skillful use of code words can be both vague and disturbingly effective.
I’d like to think that we’re better than this, but I fear that events are proving me wrong. For a country founded by people fleeing religious oppression, we’ve done a damn poor job of honoring that history. The only saving grace, if this can even be considered something to be proud of, is that at least America hasn’t cornered the market on racism.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
