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History's Lesson Concerning the Recent Viciousness of McCain/Palin Rallies
A friend stopped me yesterday to say that the McCain/Palin rallies reminded her of the brown shirted fascists in Hitler's time. I reluctantly agreed.
Hatred unleashed in any era, is ugly. McCain is no Hitler but he and Palin are giving their fervent supporters permission, if not downright encouragement, to express their most base emotions, and they are doing it by whipping up fear. When people are afraid, as they were in the days of the economic chaos in the Weimar Republic in Germany they seek scapegoats. Then, it was the Jews.
McCain/Palin do not go so far as to name the scary enemy as an African American, but Barack Obama is clearly the enemy by implication. When Palin, who is the attack pit bull, at the prompting of the McCain handlers, asks "Who is the real Barack Obama?" they got some unexpected answers. The crowd turned from expressing normal campaign enthusiasm into creating an air of chilling menace. "Traitor," "terrorist, "kill him" and "off with his head," they shouted. He is "not one of us", is the message. He has "palled around with terrorists" (in Weimar days, it was the communists). By repeatedly asking "Who is the real Barack Obama?" this desperate Republican team is hinting that he has a hidden agenda -- an agenda that threatens all of us. By making Obama the Other, McCain/Palin are fueling racial paranoia.
It's downright dangerous. When statements that are politically incorrect suddenly become correct and are cheered into hysteria, no one is safe. Not Obama, and not our democracy.
It is time for McCain/Palin to stop whipping their supporters into a frenzy of hatred and tell them to stop. He did so for one moment, when he countered that there is nothing to fear in Barack Obama and Obama promptly thanked him. But Obama's gratitude was premature because a moment later, McCain was at it again, full force, in speeches and in political ads.
The good news is that Palin's numbers are down from six weeks ago. The bad news is that 39 percent of American voters still think she is "qualified to be president," 55 percent believe she is not. Usually when women express anger or turn negative, they loose support. One reason Palin my not be sinking faster is that she is in fact a pit bull who wears not only lipstick, but also a sweet smile as she hurls her nasty diatribes at Obama.
As expected, white women are coming home to the Democratic side. According to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, married women, usually the most conservative group, (they supported George Bush by 55% in 2004) favor Obama over McCain by 6 points. I always thought that the story line that angry Hillary supporters were either going to stay home or vote for McCain in significant numbers was exaggerated. It turns out a majority of women have common sense. They do not vote on the basis of gender (surprise!) they vote on the issues, they vote on qualifications.
Since 1980 the gender gap has been as high as 10%. In 2008, the gender gap may determine the outcome of this election because women vote in greater numbers than men and women tend to vote in larger numbers for Democrats.
There is evidence that women are more turned off than men by the vicious attacks we've seen in the last week. If all this holds true, women hold the key to this election.
Madeleine M. Kunin is the former Governor of Vermont and was the state's first woman governor. She served as Ambassador to Switzerland for President Clinton, and was on the three-person panel that chose Al Gore to be Clinton's VP. She is the author of Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead from Chelsea Green Publishing.
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But why not also see the obvious in its American historical context. We live in a recently racist country with a history of violence by the right against the left whenever the right fears that it is losing power. JFK was a liberal progressive who directly attacked the steel companies for their price increases on national security grounds. He also suggested a detent with the hated communists. RFK was a liberal who openly courted the middle class and ran on a platform of justice through income redistribution. Carter and Clinton were southern centrists who compromised with the right and were no threat. Obama is the first liberal politician in 40 years who has a chance at the white house. And he is the first black. It will take very little encouragement by the leaders of the right to create a climate where the murderous ring wing extremists think that they are being an order to take violent action. If Obama is not alive on Nov 4 then McCain will win. This is not an unimaginable scenario to anyone to lived through the 60's.
Every politican on both sides of the political spectrum should do as Ms. Kunin has done and denouce this frightening and un-American call to violence by the leaders of the right.
Great piece. But in all fairness, McCain/Palin are not alone in this. In fact I blame right wing talk radio most of all. These people at these rallies listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, Schlesinger, and worst of all, Savage. They have already been told what a socialist-traitor-terrorist-loving-islamo-facist-sympathizer he is and have been frightened in the same way McCarthy scared the population during the Red Scare. Then there's the viral emails and websites. There will always be a part of the population that feeds on fear: fear of the unknown; fear of those that are different from them; fear of those that hold different beliefs. So since these people come to these rallies with a preconceived notion and then they hear Palin say he, "Pals around with terrorists, " or, "He's not like us, " it feeds their fear and invokes these hateful remarks. I'm truly afraid it is going to lead to a riot at some point. I'm also surprised the Secret Service hasn't asked the campaign to tone down the rhetoric. Thankfully it seems enough people have their wits about them (thanks in part to 8 wonderful years of GWB and CO) and aren't buying it.
I am glad someone is starting to give a reasoned and measured explanation as to what is wrong with what McCain and Palin are doing, as opposed to knuckleheads like Robert Zimmerman who stammer and stutter when Lou Dobbs starts shrieking that it's inappropriate to compare John McCain to George Wallace. The fact is, Palin is deliberately invoking words used by George Bush to describe the 9/11 hijakers when she is speaking about Obama. This is no more coincidental than her use of "there you go again" (a Reagan quote) and "White flag of surrender" during the VP debates. At least that's my take...
http://on-neutral-ground.blogspot.com/
http://www.cafepress.com/JAGED1
This shows why no American should vote for McCain (as much as I hate to say it): he has already done a great disservice to this country, and a win by him will always be looked at with a jaundiced eye -some people will wonder whether his win was the product of race-baiting and fear-mongering. Many will decide it was, America's identity, both interally and internationally, will suffer as a result.
"Who is the real Barack Obama?"
Another reason to ask this question:
In his book audacity of hope he plainly states that closing the tax loopholes will have little impact on outsourcing because wages are the biggest savings not taxes. But yet his campaign ads repeatedly tie outsourcing to the tax loop hole.
So what does he really think?
The Palin and McCain galvanizing of a racially fearful constituency may have nothing at all to do with this election and everything to do with the next. This has Karl Rove's slice and dice stink all over it. Once it became apparent that preserving the White House wasn't a reality Plan B became an early seeding campaign, carving off as many borderline voters with racial issues to simmer in a self-victimization stew for four long years along with all the other special interests that fueled the culture wars. Ever the faithful water carrier, McCain’ HAD to choose Palin so the G.O.P could maintain some semblance of propriety and keep the old school big guns Huckabee, Romney, Guilanni,(along with Joe Lieberman) above the fray. There are even rumors that Newt Gingrich is already positioning himself to run again. McCain’s awkward public appearances and occasional moments of clarity suggest some internal dissonance with the mission. Palin’s agenda is as clear. New blood, eager to please, ambitious beyond any sense of self awareness, political, cultural, historical or economic context, she becomes the new poster child that rails against a new racially mixed progressive movement.
The bigger picture strategy for the Dems should be to take her down now, rather than dealing with her later.
If John McCain really is a maverick and really does love his country he will be just the guy to take on Palin from the inside. What Rove, Bush and the neo cons have done to this man is unforgivable.
Governor Palin is an uninformed person in the most dangerous way. She does not know what she does not know and she doesn't care that she does not know. Having been a medical assistant, I can say she is like a medical assistant who thinks s/he can perform brain surgery. Apparently she did not even bother to vett the quotes in her acceptance speech - one of which was from an infamous hatemonger. She seriously mistakes the American love of common sense for a disregard for intelligence. We don't want a simple-minded individual anywhere near the White House. She also seriously mistakes the American tolerance for intolerance. Except for a radical fringe, whether conservative or liberal, we don't like it. Americans stood up to Joseph McCarthy. Americans stood up to the segregationists and lynch mobs. And we are standing up to this nonsense.
Senator McCain has shown himself to be unfocused and unable to give his attention to anything for more than two minutes. Both Senator McCain and Governor Palin have run a campaign of "pot stirring" and fear mongering. Few people other than the base are buying it anymore.
Senators Obama and Biden on the other hand have offered calm, cool, collected solutions in a very troubled time. They offer common sense and intelligence. What a refreshing change!
So what does McCain do when he gets called on the inflammatory rhetoric by congressman John Lewis? He demands that Barack Obama rebuke Lewis for questioning McCain's character! His self -righteous indignation reveals his hypocrisy when it comes to criticizing someone else's character.
I don't believe John McCain possesses either the temperament or intellectual qualifications to be President. Neither do I.
I do believe that he is...or was...essentially a moral man who loves his country. So do I. Sadly, he lately has been unable to reconcile that love of country with something he loves even more: the idea of being President of the United States, for which he has demonstrated he will do anything, and sacrifice anything and anyone.
Mr. McCain has had moments of morality erupt, even in the heat of a badly failing campaign: telling the woman who claimed that Mr. Obama was untrustworthy and an "Arab" that she was wrong.
That moment didn't last long, and he has been unable to silence the nutcake followers that he has permitted Sarah Palin to stir up. The name calling won't stop until politicians and religious and civil leaders in prominence make it pikestaff plain to their followers and adherents, and their sycophantic "surrogates" that this kind of behavior is simply UNACCEPTABLE.
The step from "he's palling around with terrorists" to "he's a terrorist" to "off with his head" to "kill him" and actually picking up a rifle (something the GOP has conveniently made much easier, with the connivance of the NRA) is a very short one.
This election will be over, mercifully, in three weeks. STOP THIS NOW. You're going to have to actually LIVE with yourself for a long time, I hope. You're better than this.
I watch c-span, book tv, msnbc, cnn, charlie rose and read most liberal blogs. Occasionally I watch FOX as I did this morning at 4 am. Watching FOX is like watching an alternate reality channel. This morning was a repeat of last night's Oct 14 o'reilly and brit hume shows. Both shows were all about Obama from the bill ayers, acorn, bills he voted on, liberals, his negative ads to rep. john lewis's remarks. Most shockingly was the cry for Obama to come out against some comic strip making fun of mccain and palin; that he should come out against those hateful liberal blogs like huff post and daily kos. For those two hours both hosts, their panels and guests bashed Obama. Very little information on McCain. Every time I've had the stomach to watch FOX, they have spent more time talking and discussing Obama. So it puzzles me when conservatives say they don't know anything about Obama. Everybody, 24/7 is talking about him. I suspect that they don't want to admit that this afroamerican guy is really cool, and he is what is needed for this country - not their grandpa candidate.
McCain's moment of decency was just that: a moment -- though a welcome moment anyway.
Now he's back to not doing anything about it. He still hasn't issued a proper forceful denunciation, he ignores the fact that they incited it (and side-steps the Jeffrey Frederick reports), claims it's only a few isolated nut cases, and sets up sham equivalencies. Palin won't stop: she's merely replaced the word "terrorist" with a carefully-crafted appeal to "anger."
Which is worse: McCain might be doing this deliberately, or McCain might not "realize" that he's unleashing the basest, most violent instincts? Either way, he's done irreparable damage and is unfit to run the country.
Palin is a mouthpiece for the neo-cons who control the McCain campaign and the republican party. It is high time they get the message that people will not tolerate their smear and fear attacks. We can send that message on Nov. 4th.
on another site, monica crowley called john mccain essentially an ass for his moment of decency. never have i been so sure that it was the pot calling the kettle black.
I honestly don't think he realises what an incredibly dangerous game he's playing. There's gambling and there's.............well, this.
If you have not already heard John loves gambling.
Maybe he thinks like Sarah Palin, when she told Limbaugh she has "Nothing to lose" ...in attacking Barack Obama.
not sure if you read the great article in Time Magazine over the summer about the two men's preferred methods of gambling/card playing.
Very interesting and very telling.
Obama is a poker man - McCane is a craps man
For the record, her last venue was about country (clean air type)-it requires too much clarification for the moment.
"One reason Palin my not be sinking faster is that she is in fact a pit bull who wears not only lipstick, but also a sweet smile as she hurls her nasty diatribes at Obama"-
Well I don't think it is sweet but they should be careful what they would think is "Change" when its more of the same...
I could be fired for visiting these sites-what a concept.
Thank you for writing this excellent article.
Hopefully this helps those that don't understand what is truely going on at the rallies to get a better understanding.
McCain is using his audience and Palin. Although, Palin is just as much to blame.
McCain accepting such bigoted behavior at rallies is extremely dangerous for our nation.
And shows that he isn't interested in the welfare of the entire nation.
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