Dear Crazy Conservatives, Stop it with the Bigoted Dickery Already

Although I wish it hadn't taken a mob of shrieking racist hooligans to do it, I'm glad that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is now condemning the racial epithets hurled at Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Andre Carson (D-IN).  While I disagree with his political views, he is the ONLY ranking Republican currently serving a term in office to make a blanket statement condemning racist remarks without watering it down by calling these "isolated incidents" (I am looking at you, John Boehner).  Tea Party protesters are now gunning for his seat, and he's on the RINOhunt.net watch list.  Great.  We finally get a Republican lawmaker with the stones to say, "Racial epithets are not a part of conservatism, they're part of bigotry," and the Tea Party protesters want to oust him?  If making a statement like that makes him a Republican In Name Only, then I don't want to know the inner workings of a "real Republican's" mind.

In response to the Tea Party protesters who spewed hate speech at lawmakers on Sunday, John Boehner made the rounds on television claiming that these were isolated incidents.  From Politico: '"Well, listen, there were some isolated incidents on the Hill yesterday that were reprehensible and should not have happened,” the Ohio Republican said. “But let's not let a few isolated incidents get in the way of the fact that millions of Americans are scared to death. And millions of Americans want no part of this growing size of government here in Washington."'

This is both a truth and a lie.  The truth is that millions of Americans are scared to death -- and guess how they got that way?  They didn't just wake up one morning, take a measured and objective look at the facts, and come to the completely reasonable conclusion that they should be scared pantsless.  This sort of over the top, paranoid, violent lunacy is the result of years of hardliner conservatives using hyperbolic rhetoric and shameless scare tactics as their go-to campaign strategy.  It's thanks to the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks and Greta Van Susterens and Sean Hannitys of the news media, who every day tell their listeners and viewers in ominous tones that a terrible communist dystopian future lies just around the corner, and that they have good reason to fear.  It's because the people who have emerged as the voices and faces of the conservative movement seem to be living and reacting as if that communist dystopian future were already a reality.

Boehner's lie is no less a classic political sidestep than his truth.  Isolated incidents, indeed.  The truth of the matter is that the people who make up the Tea Party movement are the same people who bought into the ridiculous "Obama is a secret Muslim" conspiracy that was tossed around during the 2008 presidential campaign.  They are the ones who jumped on board the "birther" conspiracy train in the hopes that it would make President Obama ineligible to hold office.  They're the ones who swallowed Palin and McCaughey's tall tales about "death panels."  Many think he's racist.  Most believe he's a socialist, a communist, a Marxist, a fascist, or some combination therein.  A significant number believe he's doing "many of the things that Hitler did."  And -- get this -- a full 24 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama "may be" the Antichrist.  This is not a mentality that lends itself to isolated incidents.

So here is the Tea Party as it stands today.  It is a large and loosely organized band of United States citizens.  They are predominately white, middle aged men.  There are Tea Parties in every state, but red states contribute a disproportionately higher number of Tea Party members.  They are very, very conservative.  They want Congress to take its collective hands "off my Medicare!" because they have no concept of irony, or of how to do basic research. Thanks to Glenn Beck's crazy revisionist history lessons, they're convinced that socialism, fascism, and communism are all interchangeable.  They make death threats against members of Congress who vote contrary to what they want.  They make death threats against the children of the members of Congress.  They fax pictures of nooses -- of nooses -- to black members of Congress, knowing full well the atrocity that is the history of lynching in America.  They spit on black members of Congress as they walk past.  They shout ni**er as black members of Congress walk by, knowing the tumultuous history of race relations in our country and in particular the despicable and dehumanizing background behind the use of that word.  They call one of the few openly gay members of Congress a fa**ot -- perhaps not knowing that the history behind the epithet is a direct reference to burning gays alive -- revealing, once again, the Right's deep-seated and entrenched homophobia.

Before Rick Santelli's infamous televised freakout launched the movement that would provide paranoid, violent bigots a legitimate voice in the public arena, I viewed Fox News as the Republican news station.  After the Tea Party movement really got going, I had to stop and reconsider.  Fox's opinion news is decidedly conservative, and despite what Roger Ailes says, their regular news programs have a distinctly conservative slant to them as well.  But when Fox and Friends hosts compare fictive liberal death threats against Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to the very real threats against Democratic lawmakers on their show, and an article on the Fox News website calls into question the veracity of reports that Tea Party Protesters hurled racist and homophobic epithets at Congressmen Sunday, and even accused Barney Frank (D-NY) of inciting it (of course, blame the feisty gay man), it is clear that they are not the mouthpiece of the Republican party, but of the lunatic fringe Tea Party.  It is inescapably clear that they are incapable of even attempting to provide balanced news coverage, as evidenced by the infatuation Fox News hosts have with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), former Republican Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, and racist "let's bring back the literacy tests" former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, to name a few.

So much for the "loyal opposition."

A final thought.  Representative Devin Nunes, I get that sometimes it is necessary to play to your base.  I really, really get that.  I've been paying attention to the messy and complicated games you politicians play for years, and I understand that occasionally you lot will make statements to shore up support from the constituents who voted you in.  You have to toe the party line, or be firmly behind it.  But really, Congressman.  Was this the battle to pick?  Of all the ways to pander to the Tea Party vote, you chose to defend their right to call John Lewis and Andre Carson ni**ers?  This is how you want history to remember you? 

It is your great privilege to be able to serve in Congress with John Lewis and James Clyburn.  These men are heroes of the Civil Rights movement.  It is thanks to their contributions, and the contributions of thousands of other men, women and children, that segregation of the races is no longer lawful or tolerated.  It is thanks to them, and others like them, that "separate but equal" is no longer the standard in this country.  Whether you agree or disagree with their political views, the fact of the matter is that their victory was hard won, and fought not only on their own behalf, but on mine and yours and our entire nation's.  You owe them not only an apology, but your thanks.

Sincerely,

Bibliovore

Sources:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100320/pl_mcclatchy/3457015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/tea-party-protests-nier-f_n_507116.html
http://www.salon.com/news/lindsey_graham/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/03/25/graham
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34763.html#ixzz0jD3OnfsU
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-22/scary-new-gop-poll/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsL3
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/22/tea-party-protesters-dispute-reports-slurs-spitting-dem-lawmakers/
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/rep-nunes-on-epithets-when-you-use-totalitarian-tactics-people-act-crazy-video.php
http://chattahbox.com/us/2010/03/21/teapartiers-ignore-reality-seek-truth-from-beck-and-fox-news/
http://blogs.alternet.org/notsohumble/2010/03/22/racism-homophobia-dominates-tea-party-protest-over-health-care-bill/
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/02/17/surprise-tea-partiers-mostly-rich-white-christian-guys/
http://www.truthout.org/racism-homophobia-dominates-tea-party-protest-over-health-care-bill57855
http://current.com/news/92337052_clyburn-racist-faxes-image-of-noose-were-sent-to-office.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/health/policy/25health.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/23/849747/-Rep.-Louise-Slaughters