Cat Scratch Fever—Is Ted Nugent’s Racism Too Much for Republicans?
from The Progressive:
Cat Scratch FeverIs Ted Nugents Racism Too Much for Republicans?
Posted: February 9, 2016
Frank Smyth
Racism has long bubbled quietly beneath the surface of Americas gun rights movement, even as its well-heeled leaders have wrapped themselves in the cloak of respectability. White Supremacists and neo-Nazis openly hostile to blacks, Jews, and other minorities continue to appear in public at gun rights rallies. But the National Rifle Association, in particular, has long held openly racist groups at arm's length from their conservative but still very much mainstream political organization.
Not anymore.
Yesterday longtime NRA board member Ted Nugent went further into racist territory than any previous NRA directorincluding himself. Nugent posted a graphic on his Facebook page featuring photos of Jewish-American leaders who have spoken out in support of gun violence prevention. The accompanying text states that Jews are really behind gun control and that they really hate freedom. Within hours the Anti-Defamation League denounced Nugent saying that anti-Semitism has no place in the gun control debate.
At the root of Nugents Facebook post is the notion that gun control can lead to tyranny, if not genocide, as Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson posited in his book and on the campaign trail last year. Other Republican candidates including Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have made similar statements. But claiming that gun control could lead to genocide is still not the same as claiming that Jewish-American leaders are supporting gun control to take away Americans rights as part of some absurd racist plot, as Nugentan NRA board director for the past 20 yearshas suggested.
How will the NRA respond to Nugents rant? The NRAs polished leadership, based just outside the Washington beltway in Virginia, has long walked a fine line between extremism and respectability. NRA leaders have tried to mollify gun rights absolutists, including the racist extremists in the base, while maintaining the mainstream respectability that continues to make the NRA Americas most powerful single-issue lobbying organization. To hold this balance, NRA leaders, some of whom could teach Karl Rove the finer points of deflective communication, say different things in public to mainstream audiences than they do behind closed doors. ..............(more)
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http://progressive.org/news/2016/02/188548/cat-scratch-fever%E2%80%94-ted-nugent%E2%80%99s-racism-too-much-republicans#sthash.lLejho1Z.dpuf