Yesterday, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump had decent, respectful, non-inflammatory things to say about the murders in Dallas, unlike the Texas DA who apparently is intent on inflaming the situation into an open race war by suggesting that Black Lives Matters was responsible for this.
I think it’s just possible that Newt Gingrich has had a soul conversion on this matter based on some newly acquired morality (that would be a first for this thrice married, lying, cruel philanderer, but anything is possible). I don’t believe it he’s suddenly developed a moral conscience or actually recognized and regrets his, and his party’s role in racially polarizing America.
His conversion stinks of fear.
For three decades the GOP has thrived by subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) stoking race hatred. Donald Trump represents not just the natural outcome of this is the highest possible practicioner of the art of creating new groups to hate. It have done this mostly, although hardly exclusively, using code words and dog whistles. The point of this was to stir up the white base, and get them to vote. They did: and they all voted Republican. The racists and bigots which used to inhabit both major political parties ford to the GOP, where they found a congenial home.
The only difference between the GOP party elite and the Donald is he doesn’t bother with code words or dogwhistles. When he throws raw meat to the base, it’s fresh.
They now dominate the party. The elite, which was so happy to cater to their nonsense, bigotry and hatred, with no intention of ever really giving them what they wanted (race wars are really bad for business) is learning the hard way that the inmates have risen up and are now in control of the prison.
But the stirred up white base wasn’t content with just voting, it wanted action. Guns. Militarized cops whose purpose was mostly to extract money out of the black community, often for inconsequential things like broken tail lights, the threats backed up with guns, and with implicit permission to execute anyone who doesn’t comply.
And the GOP wanted more guns, open carry, and no background checks. The NRA pays them for this. They got it, but they forgot to ban African Americans from getting guns.
Enter a lot of African American dead people, judicially murdered by a police force secure in the belief that their brother boys in blue would rally around, help concoct cover stories, seize any incriminating video (or thoughtfully allow their body cameras to fall off) and perjure themselves. They got away with until decades, until every cell phone in America had a camera.
Thank you, Apple.
Finally, an aggrieved Army reservist and veteran who served in the killing cauldron of the Middle East, and who we will likely come to learn had some serious untreated mental disorders, picks up a legally purchased and open carried long rifle, the kind the NRA says every American ought to have, and begins murdering cops.
Instead of seeing this for what it is, the efforts of a lone madman–which they were more than happy to do in the case of Charleston church murderer Dylann Roof– they perceive this as a threat to their cozy white hegemony.
They are afraid. The should be. But they’re afraid of the wrong damned thing
Maybe it will be close enough.