Calling Out the Republican Party as a Hate Group

[marmar]

Calling Out the Republican Party as a Hate Group

Tuesday, 24 November 2015 00:00
By Michael I. Niman, Truthout | Op-Ed


In October, about a week before Election Day, a Republican candidate running for a city council seat rang my doorbell in Buffalo, New York, with the hope of securing my vote. Despite a very well-funded campaign coordinated by a seasoned Republican strategist, the candidate, Peter Rouff, was still a long shot. The last time a registered Republican was elected to the Buffalo City Council was over a generation earlier, in 1981.

Rouff seemed like an affable guy. He was a dinosaur, cut from a mold that his party threw away decades earlier, who suddenly found himself transported into the future. He was a liberal New York Republican, a species no one younger than a baby boomer could recognize or fathom, the ghost of John Lindsey or Jacob Javits.

But this is 2015. So, after shaking hands and hearing him out on his concerns for our community, I asked him, "How'd you get associated with a hate group?" The local Republican Party, despite having no power in local government, still maintained an official Facebook page, where they posted Donald-Trump-grade drivel, joking about putting a coal facsimile of President Obama's head on Mount Rushmore, promoted notions of an epidemic of Black-on-white "hate crimes," and so on. Rouff countered that I was using harsh language. It only took a few days for his Republican handlers to prove the accuracy of my language, sending out two racially coded mailers.

After writing a local piece about the Rouff mailers, including the line about association with a hate group, I started getting mail along the lines of, "I think I'm going to use that line the next time a Republican asks for my vote." But this got me thinking. Why not use this line anytime I find myself in the presence of a Republican? Why ignore what has, especially recently, become the obvious? On what grounds can I justify ignoring a racist movement? Because calling out someone's association with a hate group is impolite? Or are we just taking our lead from the mainstream media, which has a long history of being toxically polite in their tolerance for mainstream racists and misogynists? .............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33777-calling-out-the-republican-party-as-a-hate-group

[yuiyoshida]

1. I remember at one time reading on DU that

Eventually the Republican party would collapse or fall apart. I don't know if that prediction will come true or not..but it just seems the so called smart people are abandoning the party leaving the rest to insert their craziness into the political discussion, as if it was legitimate. They truly are blinded by their hate, and things have only gotten worse.

[PatrickforO]

2. After watching Trump's campaign degenerate into what's rapidly becoming

a bunch of jack booted brown shirts that hate everybody, I am ready to consider this.

It didn't used to be a hate group, but people like Limbaugh, Coulter and the rest of the hate-talk radio, as well as Fox 'news,' have made it so. I think it's the biggest wedge that's been driven ever.

[tblue37]

3. KnR for visibility. nt

[randome]

4. Every time Trump or Carson says something bigoted or stupid, we need to not call them out.

Instead, we should refer to their statements as made by the GOP. The GOP says "I don't see any discrimination." The GOP says "Even if waterboarding doesn't work, they deserve it."

If Reince Priebus does not refute these stupid statements, then the entire GOP owns them.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]

[Mc Mike]

5. Yeah. In their schizo and hypocritical world view,

being racist or fascist is all right, reasonable, polite. But pointing out that they're racist or fascist, that's extremely impolite, and outside the bounds of civilty.