I just listened to Newt Gingrich's victory speech in South Carolina. I must say I have never heard a political speech as transparently vile, and indeed un-American, as this one.
Gingrich framed the message of his campaign around the theme of "Americanism" -- constrasting it with Barack Obama, whom he all but explicitly called un-American. He repeatedly accused President Obama of governing based on a "radical leftist" anti-American ideology, which he personified in the figure of Saul Alinsky.
Gingrich went even further. He explicitly said that all four of the remaining Republican candidates would run "American" campaigns, because they come from such diverse backgrounds and this reflects American values -- the idea that anyone, no matter what kind of background they come from, can run for president. Then he immediately segued into rhetoric about how Obama is not American enough to be president.
I wonder why that is? Perhaps because Mr. Obama is black? Perhaps because his father was a foreigner? The Republican candidates have diverse "American" backgrounds, but somehow Obama's background cannot be celebrated in the same vein? Really, Mr. Gingrich? Could you be any more insulting? Could you be any more... how shall we put this... UN-American?
People talk about racial "dog whistles" in politics. What Gingrich did in his speech tonight was more like a bullhorn.
You can't get up and make a speech about how great it is that the people running for president come from a wide diversity of backgrounds, and that this is an example of what makes America great, and then turn around and in the same breath accuse the President of the United States of not being American enough -- a man who, in his very DNA, embodies the multi-ethnic, immigrant American ideal.
I am no fan of Barack Obama's presidency. I think Obama is too conservative and too establishment on most issues. I am currently undecided on whether I will even bother to vote for him again. But let me say this: If Newt Gingrich is the Republican nominee for president, I will absolutely vote to reelect President Obama. Why? Because Newt Gingrich is running as the virtual reincarnation of David Duke.
If the Republican Party chooses this man as their nominee, this party deserves an absolutely crushing, humiliating loss. Newt Gingrich for president may turn out to be the last, very ugly gasp of old, white, Southern, xenophobic and yes, downright racist, America. An America that is not "exceptional" except in its exemplification of the disgusting tendency of human beings to fear and despise people who aren't like themselves.
Newt Gingrich's kind of "American exceptionalism" is not the kind that we should be celebrating in this country. Barack Obama, the man, is -- regardless of what you may think of Obama's policies as president. And if Republicans can't see that -- if they can't even see their own president, a man who grew up from humble origins, whose father was an immigrant, and who is half black -- as a personification of a very American life story -- then perhaps they have forgotten what America even is.