Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Romney Carrying the Banner For White Male Supremacy

At a recent Romney campaign rally a white male had a shirt that stated put the “white back in the White House” A Romney victory does not bode well for women of any nationality, immigrants, minorities or same sex couples. With Romney comes the worst of America that showed up to greet John McCain in 2008. Unfortunately, that t-shirt represents a huge reason for Romney even being this close in this race.

It was good to see President Obama score a tko over Mitt Romney. Not just for his own campaign but for the good of the nation.  

In the first debate, President Obama learned what most incumbents including George Bush 1 and 2 and Ronald Reagan had to learn, namely that they should not assume the nation is aware that their opponent is an empty suit. Last night Mr. Obama showed that Mr. Romney is an empty suit.

While kudos was given to Martha Raddatz at the vice president’s debate, the reality is that it was a narrowly focused set of questions that did not call into question the nature of our nation. Not one question about immigration, voter suppression, and the question about abortion couched in the context of Roman Catholicism was quite pitiful.  Like Romney, her performance was more about style than substance. 

As sane Americans mourn the death of former Senator Arlen Spector, the question that should be asked of Mitt Romney is why does the republican party seem to produce as well as welcome racial, xenophobic and gender animus as it did in 2008 and again in 2012. 

What is at stake here is as important as the issues discussed during the debates and goes a lot deeper with potentially more tragic consequences than reporters such as Martha Raddatz, Joe Scarbrough or even Jim Lerner realize because of their lofty position within society.

In 2008, the Obama victory signified an America that is moving closer to a more perfect union. Even the optics of his campaign and subsequent victory was quite extraordinary in that it showed a religious, racial, economic, sexual oriented diversity of people.

Given what he inherited, his accomplishments are quite good even with having to deal with one of the weakest house speakers in history.

America is now creating jobs instead of losing them, the immoral war of Iraq is over, thirty million more people are now insured, the auto industry is thriving again, women have been given a tool to ensure equal pay with the Lilly Ledbetter act, bin laden is dead and America is coming out of Afghanistan and the budget deficit is shrinking. It’s a record that any republican candidate would run on.

What has been quite disturbing but under reported is the ugly head of white male supremacy through the absurdity of Donald Trump, Franklin Graham, John Sununu and others who despite their dislike and disdain have chosen Mitt Romney to be their standard bearer not for America but for white male supremacy. Mitt Romney in his desperation to occupy the oval office has allowed his campaign to be used for that purpose. While his father George Romney was a man with integrity and a soul, he would probably disown his son for the campaign he has run.

This issue of white male supremacy has raised its ugly head through the antics of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich in their use of southern strategy rhetoric during their primary season and the ignorance that stems from it  has been confirmed through people like Todd Akin with his comments about rape and Paul Ryan who has tried to come across as a likeable guy while clearly showing an inability to even know when pots are dirty or clean. 

It was seen in Rush Limbaugh’s immoral attacks on Sandra Fluke. To this day it is hard to understand why American males and white males in particular didn’t rise to the occasion to defend Ms. Fluke from Limbaugh.

It has been seen through the birther comments of Senatorial Candidate Tommy Thompson’s son. Even Mitt Romney’s son Tagg, whose partnership with people involved in a Ponzi Scheme has escaped media scrutiny, has used the birther issue.

The GOP has even used its version of Mantan Moreland namely Herman Cain in an attempt to legitimize this form of political theatre.

Conservatives have figured out they cannot use the “N” word despite Rick Santorum almost using it before catching himself so they call him a Muslim which in itself is offensive because it assumes that being a Muslim is a negative. 

The arrogance of white male supremacy was evident as Romney tried to appear as a benevolent overseer standing before the NAACP and his alleged brownface appearance at the Univision Forum not to mention his demeaning demand to redo his introduction to show that Latinos like him.   

Even Ann Romney’s use of the term “you people” as she spoke to Robin Roberts concerning her husband’s taxes shows a sign of displeasure of having to lower herself to the common person. 

There is no doubt that Mitt Romney in that now infamous 47% comment showed an elegant, eloquent, articulate and passionate disdain for half of the nation. One could even argue that it was his most passionate comments over the last 18 months. Romney is a man who marched against those who protested against the Vietnam war and then fled to France to recruit Mormons while American soldiers lost their lives. He has shown himself to be morally repugnant given his willingness to use the death of the death of Ambassador Stevens for political points.

Even columnist George Will’s absurd commentary about America not wanting to fire the first African American president shows woeful ignorance of the fact that even in 2008 most white Americans did not vote for Barack Obama.    

Another example is John Sununu, the corrupt former presidential chief of staff for President George H. W. Bush who in 1983 threw Israel under the bus and had to pay back the  treasury for private trips made with government planes who made comments about the President being lazy. 

Unfortunately there are very few who will deal with this issue.

The right wing church is incapable of this kind of honesty given their propensity to celebrate people like Franklin Graham, Rev. Mike Huckabee or Tony Perkins who says his kids could never be gay because of how he raised them. Many black mega churches can’t do it for fear of being shunned by their white colleagues even as they find out, as Pastor Fred Price did, about how racist some of their mega church colleagues really are.

Don’t expect the mainline church to be much better as it seeks to offer platitudes about things the late James Brown might define as talking loud and saying nothing. 

With exceptions, reporters/commentators will not or cannot effectively deal with this issue for fear of being rejected by their social circle as they skip off to their Hampton weekend. 

Ultimately, Americans are making a choice about the nature of this nation.

On the morning of November 7th, America will either celebrate a country that is continuing to move closer to a more perfect union or it will see a nation gearing up again to fight against the worst of America.

The fact that this race is a dead heat does not speak well for the character of this nation. What it says is that perhaps the nation hasn’t come as far as some would have hoped. 

A large segment of America will vote for a secretive morally corrupt man who disdains almost half the nation and is willing to trample upon the memory of American hero’s for political points over a man of color who saved the nation from fiscal calamity, ended a war, saved an industry and killed our number one enemy. 

The nation has an opportunity to not only continue its road to a more perfect union but to say once and for all to the extremely xenophobic GOP that their ways must change or face political irrelevancy.  If Mitt Romney wins he doesn’t come with clean hands or clean heart but with a consortium of right wing zealots who wish to turn this country back 50 years. 

To paraphrase the hymn Old Little Town of Bethlehem all our hopes and fears are on November 6th.