What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or foster like a sore—
and then run? …
Though GOP proposals, such as they are, would just bring us back to President George W. Bush’s disastrous policies, their actual words show that they want to go back much further. Their entire plan, as Mitch McConnell summed it up, is “to get rid of Obama” and their favorite bumper sticker is “100% Anti-Obama.” This for a president who — against all odds — finally got Osama bin Laden, took us out of Iraq, saved the auto industry, ended “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” steadied the economy, and gave us a universal health care program modeled on Mitt Romney’s!
Republicans in 2012 are sentimentalists yearning for the “good old days” — the days when women kept their proper place in the kitchen; when blacks belonged in the back of the bus; when illegal immigrants would do our nasty work for a pittance and shut up; when gays stayed quietly in their closets; and when our children scored higher than Korea’s in math and science.
Of course, they can’t say it that way — but the right-wing jokes that roll through the Internet all have this “Remember when?” nostalgia. On the mildly humorous side, a description of newspaper readers (“The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country,” “The New York Times is read by the people who think they should run the country, and are very good at crossword puzzles,” etc.) is circulating online. The real kicker, though, pointing to the nasty fervor in Republican gatherings — “You lie!” — is this one:
“The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure there is a country or that anyone is running it, but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions, if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, illegal aliens from another country or galaxy, provided of course that they are not Republicans.”
This stems from the kinder, gentler Republicans, needling one of America’s loveliest cities. OK. But millions of Americans are serious about it. They’re sick of “those” people, and their symbol is President Barack Obama. For starters, no matter what his economic or social policies are, Obama is never going to carry Senator McConnell’s Kentucky or Senator Jim DeMint’s South Carolina. Race is a difficult subject to talk about, but it hangs over our election like a mushroom cloud.
In their attacks, Obama is the “other”: he’s where the Civil Rights Act has led us, he with his “Kenyan, anti-colonial” program, to quote one of Newt Gingrich’s craziest assertions. Crazy maybe, but when he says things like that, or “food stamp president,” the white crowds in his audience raise their collective fists and go bonkers. They still don’t recognize Obama as American: a popular Internet blog is his foreign birth certificate.
Less amusingly, the “Bowl-O-Bama” website shows — “based” nearby in Clearwater! — a bowling alley with a photo of a smiling Obama, in which the huge white teeth of the president of the United States get knocked out by the bowlers. The nastiness of this and other websites doesn’t stop them from being popular, anymore than Obama showing his birth certificate stops talk of his “foreignness.” Republican leaders, when asked about it, say either, “I don’t know anything about this,” or, at best, “As far as I know, he was born in America…” Never have I heard one say, “Of course he’s born in America, knucklehead!”
Unacknowledged racism has been a key to right-wing politics since President Nixon’s successful 1968 Southern Strategy, which pulled masses out of the Democratic party as punishment for the Democrats’ push to end legal segregation in 1964. With the world’s cameras on us, Obama’s election in 2008 seemed like a racial turning point (we shall see) — but it was close, with 60 million Americans voting against him.
Dear readers, in 2008, nine states, perhaps driven by the possibility of a Sarah Palin vice presidency, changed from Republican to Democrat, propelling Obama to victory. However, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana didn’t change. They’re not going to change this year, either. Be honest: what do you think is the driving force here?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it just explode?
—Both quotes from “Harlem” by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.