Time and time again, Republicans are getting called out for their Racist B.S. and repeatedly they’ve responded with shock and dismay that someone would dare to say such a thing and besmirch their good name and sterling character.
“How dare you, Sir! I am done with you, now. Good Day Sir, I SAY GOOD DAY!”
This deflection is, of course, intended to distract from that fact that the accusation is absolutely true.
The first example this week was when Jeffrey Toobin called out Kansas Gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach for his long history of voter suppression against people of color.
“Kris has devoted his career to stopping black people and poor people from voting,” Toobin argued. “I mean, that’s been your goal for decades.”
“That’s an outrageous accusation,” Kobach argued.
“It’s completely true,” Toobin replied.
“It is a completely true accusation because, Kris, your whole career — that’s why you had this phony voter suppression commission that was such a preposterous joke, established by the president, that it disbanded because it couldn’t prove your claim that voter fraud is a problem in this country,” Toobin continued.
“Your problem is that some people vote for Democrats and you want to stop that by establishing voter requirements,” he added.
And time and time again this week, the “explainer/complainer/excuser” for these Republican racists — is Rick Santorum.
Just to address the one defense that Kobach brought up which was the African-Americans themselves supporter Voter ID — this is what Gallup says about the basic concern about voter fraud which is the problem that Voter ID is intended to correct.
Concerns About Voter Fraud and Eligible Voters Not Being Allowed to Vote
In this year's election, do you think each of the following will be a major problem, a minor problem or not a problem at all across the country? (% Major problem)
|
Votes being cast by people not eligible to vote |
Eligible voters not being allowed to cast a vote |
|
% |
% |
U.S. adults |
36 |
32 |
Republicans |
52 |
22 |
Independents |
33 |
31 |
Democrats |
26 |
40 |
Whites |
37 |
25 |
Nonwhites |
35 |
46 |
East |
34 |
35 |
Midwest |
34 |
26 |
South |
42 |
32 |
West |
33 |
32 |
GALLUP, AUG. 15-16, 2016 |
Gallup documents that Voter ID does have general support of about 80%, but then so does early voting have the support of around 90%.
Immediately after the exchange between Toobin and Kobach Santorum came on the air and whined about how “outrageous” it was for Toobin to make such a claim and “call him a racist to his face.” [It occurs at 3:45 in the video.]
Technically Toobin didn’t call him a “racist”, what he said was that he had repeatedly implemented racist voter suppression tactics. Kobach doesn’t have to be a racist in order to do such a thing, all have to be is a despicable Republican partisan who realizes that most black and brown people are Democrats and therefore he figured that in order for Republicans to win, fewer Democrats need to vote. That’s not racism, that’s asshole-ism.
And it just so happens that the same day that Toobin confronted Kobach over this, Rachel Maddow had a detailed report on how the county clerk in Dodge City, Kansas — apparently in coordination with Kobach who is still the Kansas Secretary of State — has suspiciously, and without rational justification closed the normal polling place for the entire town and moved to a new inaccessible location outside of town.
And it just so happens that due to a few new meatpacking businesses in the city, the majority of the city now happens to be Latino because they have migrated there to work in those meat packing plants. The move of the polling place was said to be because of “construction” but Maddow sent her producer to the city and found not only that there was no construction there, there are events scheduled at the civic center both just before and just after the day of the election. When they called Kris Kobach’s office about it they said that it was being handled by the local county clerk, when they called the county clerk they referred them to Kris Kobach’s office then they wouldn’t answer any more questions.
There is only one polling place in the entire town, just one. And when the ACLU wrote the county clerk asking her to open other polling places which would actually be inside the town and asked for her help publicizing a helpline for voters to help cut down on confusion she forwarded the email to Kobach and added one comment of her own: “LOL”
After the ACLU objected to Dodge City’s single, out-of-town polling place, the local official in charge of elections forwarded to the state an ACLU letter asking her to publicize a voter help line.
“LOL,” she wrote in an email to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office.
As Election Day approaches, concerns are being raised in Kansas over voting rights and access to the polls. The movement and elimination of some polling places is sparking fears that casting a ballot may be more difficult for some this year.
Nowhere are worries greater than in Dodge City, where residents must leave town if they want to vote on Election Day.
The city has drawn national scrutiny over voting rights since Ford County Clerk Debbie Cox — citing construction — moved its only polling location to a building south of the city limits. The site can’t be reached by sidewalks and is separated from much of the city by train tracks. Sixty percent of the town’s residents are Hispanic.
So, yeah, he does exactly what Toobin says that he does — he blocks minority people from being able to vote.
In addition to this there’s been this ad that Trump posted on his tweeter feed about an undocumented immigrant who ultimately killed to Sacramento County Sheriffs which claims that “DEMOCRATS LET HIM IN” and “DEMOCRATS LET HIM STAY”, then it shows pictures of the what seems like the migrant caravan knocking down fences and being rowdy.
Naturally, the person to defend this racist nonsense is Rick Santorum by whining that “Republicans always get called Racist” — yeah, well, yes but only when they act racist.
“This is new,” Bolduan countered. “That campaign video that the president put out is something we haven’t seen really in decades, in the tone, the tenor, just the racist overtones of it all.”
Santorum immediately melted down, and tried to pivot to “blame the media”.
“Quit doing this, Kate,” he shouted, screwing up his face. “This happens on this network just way too much, that anybody that disagrees on a public policy issue is a racist.”
The gambit didn’t work: in fact, it just made Bolduan angry.
“Come on. You and I have known each other long time, don’t paint me with broad brush strokes like that,” she retorted, visibly frustrated as the former senator continued trying to talk over her. “‘Every time there’s a policy discussion’? I’m not calling Republicans racist. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
The fact of the matter is this despicable cop killer Luis Bracamonte was originally deported on drug charges during the Clinton Administration in 1997. He came back and in 1999 he was arrested on drug charges in Pheonix by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies, then released. Later is 2001 he was again arrested on drug charges and deported again during George W. Bush’s administration. He came back yet again a couple years later and got married. He had been in the U.S. for 13 years before the violent encounter in Sacramento where two deputies were killed in 2014.
How exactly did “Democrats Let Him In and Let him Stay?”
Clinton kicked him out. Arpaio let him stay until Bush kicked him out, he came back on Bush’s watch. He got married on Bush’s watch, he’ stayed first and foremost — on Bush’s watch. He’s now on death row — something that happened on Obama’s watch.
When CNN’s Jim Sciutto brought up the problems this ad had with the facts, Republican strategist Alice Stewart nearly accused him of advocating for cops to be killed.
CNN host Jim Sciutto asked conservatives Alice Stewart and Mary Katherine Ham if it even mattered whether the ad was truthful or if it’s meant to motivate Trump’s base regardless of accuracy.
After calling it “heavy-handed,” Ham said it was absolutely targeted at the base and will likely turn away independent and moderate voters, particularly in suburban districts where Republicans are barely holding on.
Stewart, by contrast, said it was “inaccurate” to call the ad “racist,” noting Trump is simply trying to campaign on border security.
“But does it matter, Alice, if it was factual? Because this guy was deported. Because the implication of the ad is that he was going to be welcomed back into the country after these crimes, when that’s just not factually true?” Sciutto asked.
Stewart refused to answer and instead accused Sciutto of not caring that the man killed a police officer.
Right, the ad is “not racist” and Jim Sciutto doesn’t care about somebody killing cops.
Then this week there was the time that Steve King got called out for his endless rampant racism and of course, he blew his stack.
“The terrorist who committed this crime, he was quoted as saying, ‘they bring invaders in that kill our people, I can’t sit back and watch our people get slaughtered.’ You, Steve King, have been quoted as saying, ‘we can’t restore our civilization with other people’s babies.’ You and the shooter both share an ideology that is fundamentally anti-immigration,” the attendee, a young man wearing a plaid shirt, said before King cut him off.
“Do not associate me with that shooter," a visibly angry King said, pointing his finger at the questioner.
"I knew you were an ambusher when you walked in the room, but there is no basis for that and you get no question and you get no answer … You crossed the line. It is not tolerable to accuse me to be associated with a guy that shot 11 people in Pittsburgh,” King said.
King’s own hometown paper has recently dropped their endorsement of him, because of his support for racists.
“This one’s a no-brainer for any Iowan who has cringed at eight-term incumbent King’s increasing obsession with being a cultural provocateur,” the paper writes. “In his almost 16 years in Congress, King has passed exactly one bill as primary sponsor, redesignating a post office. He won’t debate his opponent and rarely holds public town halls. Instead, he spends his time meeting with fascist leaders in Europe and retweeting neo-Nazis.”
Lastly, we have Trump. Specifically, we have a report from Vanity Fair that Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen has had some reflection on his time with Donald Trump where he repeatedly made racists statements in private before he entered the White House.
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“I told Trump that the rally looked vanilla [full of white people] on television. Trump responded, ‘That’s because black people are too stupid to vote for me.’”
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After Nelson Mandela died, “[Trump] said to me, ‘Name one country run by a black person that’s not a shithole,’ and then he added, ‘Name one city,’” [Name one of those countries that wasn’t dismantled by Colonialism?]
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“We were going from the airport to the hotel, and we drove through what looked like a rougher neighborhood [In Chicago]. Trump made a comment to me, saying that only the blacks could live like this.” [Show me a neighborhood like that that was artificially created by racist red-lining and economic abandonment?]
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During season one of the Apprentice: “Trump was explaining his back-and-forth about not picking [Kwame] Jackson,” an African-American investment manager who had graduated from Harvard Business School. “He said, ‘There’s no way I can let this black f-g win.’” [Kwame has since responded to this statement with: ‘Not today, colonizer!’”]
Not surprisingly it was Rick Santorum who on CNN tried to downplay these comments by questioning Cohen’s motivation and his motives for “suddenly coming out with these statements now, just 5 days before the election.”
Well, Cohen — who is the son of Holocaust survivors — actually explains that in the article because he was directly inspired to speak out as a result of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and Trump’s horrible reaction to it.
...Cohen wanted to express himself in the wake of the tragedy. Shortly after the sun rose on Tuesday, he tweeted, “In honor of those sadly being buried today resulting from #AntiSemitism #PittsburghSynagogueShooting, let’s follow the wisdom and thoughtful words of #RabbiJeffreyMyers ‘it can’t just be to say we need to stop hate. We need to do, we need to act to tone down rhetoric.’”
Like many, Cohen has observed the president’s scorched-earth campaign tactics as the midterm elections approach, and as the prospect of a Democratic House majority beckons, with its attendant promise of investigations and inquiries. He has heard Trump’s constant invocation of the migrant caravan moving through Central America; he’s noticed the president threaten to revoke birthright citizenship; he’s noted Trump’s tweet calling Florida’s African-American gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum, a “thief,” without any evidence. He also watched Trump shirk responsibility after it was discovered that Bowers invoked the caravan in posts online ahead of the mass murder in Pittsburgh, and after one of his ardent supporters was charged last week with mailing pipe bombs to notable Democrats and other frequent Trumpian targets. (The suspect plans to plead not guilty.) On Twitter and during rallies, Trump has referred to the media as “the enemy of the people,” blaming the free press for “the anger we see today in our society.”
That’s why he came out now. Because now is the time.
There are a variety of reasons why people of color don’t generally support Republicans because you have to put up and find some magical way to ignore and blind yourself to bullshit like this in order to support and vote for these guys. It’s not like we have to resort to calling Republicans racists, they actually policies of taking health care from sick people, rabidly polluting our air, streams and rivers for corporate profits and implementing tax cuts that shovel truckloads of cash into the pockets of CEOs and Wall Street fat cats are already bad enough. The blatant foghorn racism they’re engaging in now is just a bonus.
If they really want to get support for black and brown voters — they need to stop whining and deflecting when they get caught and called out, they need to change. They need to do better.
Unfortunately, they can’t because they won’t.