Ben Carson Is No Herman Cain - He’s far more paranoid.
By Jamelle Bouie
As Ben Carson begins his run for the 2016 Republican nominationhe officially announced his campaign on Monday at a music hall in Detroitits easy to compare him with Herman Cain, the last black American to play presidential politics in the GOP. But other than race, the two men are incomparable. Cain, a businessman and radio host, was a showmana personality whose flamboyant defense of the Tea Party fueled a quick rise to conservative stardom and whose attacks on President Obama carried a racial comparison. The media, he said during his campaign, Are
scared that a real black man may run against Barack Obama.
Carson is far from exuberanthe speaks in calm, even tonesand joins the political stage after a long career in medicine and as a motivational speaker. A famed pediatric neurosurgeon, Carson is an icon in the black community. His book Gifted Handsthe story of his rise from inner-city Detroit to the pinnacle of his fieldmade its way to countless black kids in countless black homes. Carson is a great American success story, writes Joel Anderson for BuzzFeed, a rags-to-riches hero who embodied achievement against long odds. His achievement turned him into an icon of black triumph, a Horatio Alger figure in hospital scrubs.
But while his career was made in hospital wards and inner-city schools, his recent fame comes from his address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, where he criticized Obamacare and offered his own alternative for health care reform. From there, he became a conservative celebrity, so famous that by the end of the year, supporters had founded a political action committee to draft Carson into the presidential race.
Carsons announcement speech was light on substance, but its clear he doesnt stray far from the rest of the Republican pack. Hes opposed to Obamacare, of course; called for an end to social programs that create dependency; and told supporters, Its time to rise up and take government back.
With that said, there is one important difference between Carsons rhetoric and that from the rest of the presidential field: Its in the paranoid style. Throughout his speech, Carson made reference to the assorted conspiracies of the far right. People are afraid to speak up, he said, because the IRS might audit them. The government, he continues, just wants you to keep your mouth shut. Likewise, he says, we cant trust unemployment statistics because, he claimed, You can make the unemployment rate anything you want it to be.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/ben_carson_announces_his_presidential_run_his_political_rhetoric_is_incredibly.html