Tag: dog whistle racism

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Is Hillary Clinton the Anti-Christ? Only if You Believe in Demons

I’ve been seeing Facebook posts by Leftists getting the vote out for Hillary Clinton popping up. The first think I thought of as I saw them was, wow, that’s brave. Then it occurred to me that my thinking that says everything about this time in our politics. How the hell did we get to the point where committed, true-believer Left leaders making an appeal against what might be fascism, and on Facebook, a social media platform in which you “friend” people, is brave?

Anti-Clinton forces on the Left have made a lot of important points we should remember when … Read more “Is Hillary Clinton the Anti-Christ? Only if You Believe in Demons”

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When Welfare Was White: What The Fight Over the Safety Net Is Really All About

Much has been written about the fight over the social safety net. Many say that Newt Gingrich calling President Obama the “food stamps president,” and Mitt Romney lying about the President dropping the work requirement in welfare is dog whistle racism meant to gin up a base they’ve spent 50 years building with racist appeals to civil rights backlash.

I agree. But I also think there’s something missing from that argument. We have, it seems to me, become so focused on trying to demonize conservatives as racists that we are missing just how fundamental racism has always been to the … Read more “When Welfare Was White: What The Fight Over the Safety Net Is Really All About”

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Whitewashing History at the Democratic National Convention

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines the word whitewash as,

to gloss over or cover up (as vices or crimes), or

to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data.  

I got to thinking about whitewash, and whitewashing history in particular, during the Democratic National Convention. At the convention, a whole lot of whitewash was slopped around.
But what got me writing was the recent news of a bump in the polls for U.S. Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren. That bump is being attributed to her speech at that convention, and I remembered that speech as very good example
… Read more “Whitewashing History at the Democratic National Convention”
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Harkening Back to a Whiter Time

On MSNBC’s Up this weekend, host Chris Hayes went after the Republican strategy of using nostalgia to rev up their base. He claimed that a reason conservatives long for the past is that, back then, (white) social mobility, the basis of the American dream, was more possible. He went on to feature a robust discussion of the role of race in this messaging strategy, but all tempered by the sense of some panelists that one ought not go too far in crying racism.

I could not disagree with that sentiment more. Republicans are, in fact, manipulating racism, and when leaders … Read more “Harkening Back to a Whiter Time”

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The Othering of Barack Obama and the Growing of a Movement

Liberal political reporting regarding the Republican’s campaign strategy of exploiting racism to defeat Barack Obama is giving me a serious headache.

I’m sure you’ve heard the rhetoric. Romney’s now said that the Obama philosophy is foreign (which is equated with dangerous). His campaign surrogate John Sununu went further, saying that President Obama needs to “learn how to be an American.”

Liberal news makers are calling this what it is – pandering to racism. But by reducing this kind of pandering to a campaign issue (as if the cure for the racism that makes it effective would be to re-elect … Read more “The Othering of Barack Obama and the Growing of a Movement”

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Dog Whistle Racism

Liberal pundits are buzzing over Mitt Romney’s latest strategy of playing the old, “I know you are, but what am I?” game. In response to criticism that he’s too out of touch, not to mention odd, to relate to working class voters, Romney is accusing President Obama of being “out of touch.”

Romney has even gone so far as to suggest that the President spent too many years (three) at Harvard, Romney’s own alma mater (which, BTW, he attended for four years), sharpening the point being made by other Republican candidates in the race that Obama … Read more “Dog Whistle Racism”