Dec 29 2008
“Real Conservatives” Are A Lost Cause, How The Dems Can Succeed
Updated
I tell you what, the conservative movement is now totally destroyed. Some idiot running for RNC chairman took a sweet child’s song and twisted it into an ugly, racist, turd of supposed humor:
The sending of a Christmas greeting by Chip Saltsman to the members of the Republican National Committee that includes a recording of the so-called parody, “Barack the Magic Negro” is not only offensive, it is shocking and saddening in the extreme. It flies in the face of America’s deeply held hope for a new era in which common ground and mutual respect characterize the exchanges between our national leaders.
I and my co-writer of “Puff,” Lenny Lipton, have been eagerly awaiting an end to the mean-spiritedness, outright disrespect and bigotry that was commonplace prior to this last presidential election. What might have been wearily accepted as “the way it was” in the campaign, is now unacceptable. Obama is not a candidate. He is the President-Elect, and this song insults the office of the Presidency, the people who voted for him, as well as those who did not — and taking a children’s song and twisting it in such vulgar, mean-spirited way, is a slur to our entire country and our common agreement to move beyond racism.
Ideological idiots. Obama is very popular and now respected, and this stunted adult goes off in a fit of 3rd grade thinking and tarnishes the brand of conservatism that Reagan and the Bush’s had turned into a respectable political movement. With this muck sticking to the word ‘conservative’ I will not be associated with the movement anymore. I have limits to what I will tolerate and this is well beyond it. This guy needs to be marched off the public square.
It would seem the GOP and its extremist wing have a generation of growing up to do before they are ready for prime time and leadership again. I see no path to salvation with the current crop of haters. From the obsession with Obama’s middle name to this scum-duggery, the right has completely self-destructed. Unless the GOP treats haters like this (and Savage, and Levin and others) like their close cousin David Duke and disavows them their tolerance for what is wrong is just intolerable for most Americans.Â
Now, with the GOP and the extreme conservatives basically a lost cause, here is how the Democrats can gain lasting control of the political stage in America. Basically shed the liberal and leftist demons and come clean, and you will have the center of America for decades to come. Here’s my list of actions the Dems could take to push the right out of play for a long, long time:
- Accept Iraq as a hard fought victory. Give up on blaming Bush for having tough challenges and a determined enemy. al Qaeda declared Iraq the prime battlefield of the war with the West and lost. Noe only militarily but it lost the hearts and minds of the Muslim Street. In 2001 al Qaeda was the future of Islam on the Muslim Street. Today it is the Enemy of Islam. Build on this.
- Accept Al Gore is a scientific idiot. The world economy is in a shambles. Much of this was predicted as the Baby Boomers go from producers to consumers as they transition into retirement. The world cannot afford to invest trillions into crack pot mumbo-jumbo about Global Warming. We will have decades of economic challenges as the US market contracts with the retirement wave of Boomers. Give up on Global Warming and move to real issues, like saving the Rain Forests and Whales, etc.
- Forget about soaking the rich. We all want to be rich. Reduce the burden of government because we are going to be taking on a huge burden of aging Boomers. Make room by cutting government.
- Don’t allow factories of young humans to be harvested for spare parts. Realize that the Adult Stem Cell options are outperforming Embryonic Stem Cell path (which has produced zilch so far – unless you count tumors and cancers). Show respect for life while preserving the right of parents and mothers to decide their own medical issues.
Really, four simple adjustments away from the liberal fringe and the center-left could hold for years and years. Especially given how bankrupt the right has become. One thing the left cannot afford to do is become impotent. That is what destroyed the conservative coalition. Years of getting nothing done (but plenty of screaming and blaming and demeaning comments) was the death knell of the conservative movement.
America surely doesn’t need more than that. For the sake of the people and this country I hope the Dems, with their newly acquired control, make things better. But to do so they need to moderate their own extremists. The current economic stress will not support radical liberal policies. Best to dump those ideas right now.
Addendum: I have to expand on this because of the lame excuses I have been reading in the comment section about this crap. Some are trying to claim this bile is OK because some racist liberal started the theme in the LA Times. Sorry, that is a load of crap. From what I am learning once the theme was established Limbaugh and one of his small-minded racists friends decided to expand on the theme and make the full up parody, with the excuse that the LA Times piece gave them license to be as idiotic as the LA Times.
Here’s the difference between Repulse-icans like Limbaugh and his KKK ‘song writer’ and me. If I had read the LA Times piece I would have been just as disgusted and repulsed as I am now. I would not see one racist schmuck’s efforts as a green light to let out my own extended version of racist muck. If Johnny jumps off the bridge could all like minded jerks please follow!
These excuses, that the bad behavior is OK because someone on the left behaved badly, are pathetic. All these faux patriot, who love and respect America more than any others, can’t seem to muster any of their love and respect for the President-elect. You don’t have to support him or even like him. You do have to respect the office and this country.
This is so over the line I am ready to shutter this website. It is just beyond the pale. The mentality surrounding this is that of an electronic mob, where all boundaries of civility, maturity, responsibility and respect have gone out the window and have been replaced by hate. How far a jump is it from the electronic mob to a real mob, and all its threats to life and liberty? How far is the jump from any form of mob-think to lynch mob-think? If all the rules of decency and respect are gone, how long until the rules of law are thrown out as well?
The more people try to excuse this crap the more they repulse me. There is no excuse. There is no way to tolerate this. All I see is a bunch of insecure whities trying to keep ‘the man’ down by playing on Obama’s race. President-elect Obama has enough challenges to face and personal limitations as it is. Race is not one of them – not in my book.Â
I am sick of how this sewer rot spoils the image of Americans, Caucasians, etc. I thought we had moved beyond this. Clearly, some insecure schmuck’s have not.
I see no reason to defend the parody. I agree that the candidate for the RNC chair should have left the parody to Rush. But the parody itself is fine. Just as all of the parodies by the left about Palin, etc., were fine. And this is not why conservatives are losing ground. We tried republican-lite and the country chose the real deal. Nothing to do with anything conservatives did or said. It was the love affair with PEBHO by MSM. And AJ leaves the republican party about every other day. His love affair of Palin surprises me. She is about as conservative as they come and AJ, by his own admission, likes the middle.
No Peak,
You are missing the point. It is a low brow, disgusting, immature, racist piece of crap.
And no whining will change my mind. Live with sewer rats if you wish – your choice.
Meanwhile, Tina Fey wins an award for her parody of a backwoods, know-nothing, beauty pageant contestant, governor, vice-presidential candidate.
Sorry, I can’t get all worked up over Shanklin’s parody of Al Sharpton and the LA Times.
You’re doing a heckuva job, Sue. But please keep it up – I think there might be another 6 or 7 Independents out there who aren’t 100% convinced yet that the GOP is filled with racists.
I find it simply hilarious that you cannot figure out what the issue is here. The song itself (while juvenile and mildly offensive) is not the issue. Rush Limbaugh is not the issue. In fact, if the song had ONLY been played on Limbaugh’s show – then there is no issue at all.
(Also, it amazes me that you can’t see the difference between Tina Fey, an entertainer, doing a parody (which she did with Sarah Palin on the same show, btw) — and someone who is actually running for the RNC Chair putting this kind of song on their gift CD. Get back to me when Tina Fey starts working for the Obama administration, okay?)
Yet another reason the GOP is becoming politically irrelevant – the people runnings things are imbeciles, and the rest of you Simply. Don’t. Get it.
The guy who wrote the original piece for the LA Times is half black himself. It was a dumb move by the RNC, because the only ones who can talk about race are blacks and “progressives”, every one else will be perceived as a racist. It’s the perception not the reality that counts.
I have no idea why Obama would have a better chance of brining this country together then George Bush did. Off the top of my head I can’t think of one idea Obama has put forth that I think is good for this country in the long run. But then on many issues I have heard mostly blather, and nuance, so that in the end he can say anything, and say “as I’ve said before” we will bring the troops home in 16 months, nuance, he also said once, I will confer with the commanders on the ground.
I think the fact that he is black is good for the blacks of this country in ways a white person could never understand. Maybe it is also good for black haters, it makes them feel like they turned a corner. However, the fact that he has never done much in his life is not a good thing for this country in my humble opinion.
[…] Hot Air, Political Punch, Riehl World View, The Strata-Sphere, Jezebel, JammieWearingFool, Michelle Malkin, Blogs and Stories, BrothersJudd Blog, Commentary, The […]
Guy, for the record, republicans could keep doing this sort of thing for the next 50 years and STILL NOT catch up to the global socialist democrats and their VILENESS toward a SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. I would be quiet if I were you. You really don’t want to go there, do you?
Ok, so if a newspaper publishes something that amounts to bigotry and I call attention to that bigotry through parody, I am now the bigot and they are off the hook. Is that what the message is here?
Guy Fawkes,
You should go back and read what I wrote. Or not. I really don’t care one way or the other. But I find it equally hilarious that you can read what AJ wrote and then claim I don’t know what the issue is here.
I think that Paul Mirengoff at Power Line sums up this “controversy” the best:
The song’s title came from an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by David Ehrenstein. Saltsman is therefore arguing that the criticism of him represents a double standard, inasumuch as Ehrenstein’s piece did not produce a controversy.
Ehrenstein’s piece was not scandalous. As he explained in the op-ed:
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. “He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist,” reads the description on Wikipedia. . .
He’s there to assuage white “guilt” (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.
Shanklin’s parody was not scandalous either. His concept of “the magic Negro,” presented in the context of a mock rant against Obama by the decidely non-magical Al Sharpton, was basically the same as Ehrenstein’s. By ciriculating this recording, Shanklin was not displaying racism.
But Ehrenstein, Shanklin, and Rush Limbaugh (who played the recording on his show) aren’t running for RNC head. So we are left with the question of whether it’s a good idea for Republicans to be led by someone tone-deaf enough to circulate a recording called “Barack the Magic Negro.”
To me, the self-evident answer is “no.” Media double standards (if that’s what we’re witnessing here) are a reality the next RNC head (indeed, the next dozen) will have to deal with. Republicans need a chairman with the maturity and judgment to avoid subjecting himself, and by extension our party, to easy shots by our enemies. The RNC chair we need would have responded to Shanklin’s parody with, at most, a private chuckle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So it is worth noting, but not worth a high level of outrage.
GuyFawkes, all that and you are defending Obama’s lying. or don’t you ‘get it’?
I am not commenting about the parody, I haven’t heard it, nor do I want to hear it. Anyone using it to make any point is misguided.
The conservatives lost in the last presidential election because there was no conservative in the election. As someone above said, in a race between democrat and democrat lite, it is to be expected that all dems want the dem and no one wants the dem lite.
Tinian:
“Media double standards (if that’s what we’re witnessing here)”
there is no such thing as media double standards, dems=good and pure, Reps=evil. they are very consistent.
The point is that the RNC is tainted with it. Of course the liberals are hypocrites. Of course they used regional snobbery all the time. They use class warfare, they claim that Republicans are bigots {as if a mere 40 years ago most Dixiecrats were not in fact Democrats} and of course some moron liberal started this. The point is the party should have stayed away from it.
I did not and would not vote for Obama. But he is the President and this is stupid. I would like to see him be a one term president, but this will not help make that happen.
Guy, spare me the moral outrage.
Redteam:
I am not defending Guy. I never agree with him. But then again, the idea that the Republicans lost the last election because McCain was not more conservative is not true. Conservatives need to start winning elections and convincing people to vote for them before they whine about losing. McCain was the nominee because Republicans voted for him, Palin was the VP because he picked her.. If conservatives can not manage to get someone they can tolerate as a nominee in the Republican party what makes you think they can win a national election?
They blew it. They complain too much and they can not get out of their own damn way.
I haven’t heard the parody either nor do I want to. But what is all this. Republicans have to make nice and be above all bickering and heckling? That is what I have against the republican party. They rise above all this stuff yet their opponents use every trick in the book to win by hook or by crook mostly by crook. Now we have a half black president and if we say anything against him we will be called racists. How convenient. Yet the libtards called Bush every name in the book and hated him virulently and accused him of every disaster even a hurricane that the feds were on the scene before it happened but were not allowed to bring supplies to victims. We have had 8 years of this and now the libs want us to co-exist in peace. Let bygones be bygones. In other words, they want their own way as usual.
I don’t hate Obama but I am deathly afraid of what he and the dem congress will do to this country. I didn’t even hate Clinton. I had no respect for him but that is a different story. Probably the parody should not have been used since even conservatives don’t like dirty tactics. Most of them don’t like to get their togas dirty. But me, I wish the republican party could find a pair and fight back if not on their terms at least fight back a little bit..
P.S.
Let’s not forget that this kind of thinking let Obama get away with Rev. Wright and led McCain not to mention it.
The point of AJ’s post is not a candidate for the RNC chair made a stupid mistake. The point of AJ’s post is the entire conservative wing of the republican party is bigoted. Limbaugh, being a full fledged member of the KKK, or something, and his racist parodist, and those of us who found it funny, are whiteys or something. Instead of attacking the idiot who doesn’t know parody belongs with Rush, et al, AJ attacks all conservatives as being extreme. Simply because we found the parody humorous, when it was Rush, not a leader, or potential leader, of the RNC using it.
But remember, Obama is popular and therefore deserves, though he has done nothing but win an election, our respect. Or something. Uber-cool is the phrase of the day. Hats on backwards everyone.
Keep in mind this man ran Huckabee’s campaign. Full of bigoted remarks towards Mormons. But tarnish the entire conservative wing of the republican party with Huckabee’s man. I think I’ll pass on excepting blame for one man who might be a bigot with an R after his name. Or he might just be an idiot not a bigot.
Wow. This whole post has nothing to do with conservatism. AJ, I’m disappointed that you have fallen into the media vortex. I suggest you need to quit listening to all media for awhile and relax a bit. To become so unglued about what, at the time, was a spot-on and quite humorous parody as some kind of reflection of a politcal party is way out of line. You’ve fallen into the media’s trap. Get out while you can still be saved. Rush Limbaugh has been doing great parodies for almost 20 years, and this one’s not much different. It (they) point out the hypocrisy and absurdity of the left and their media enablers in a very humorous way. (Some one has to do it!) Your ‘violent’ reaction to it is almost as absurd as the current state of the MSM today. You bought into their trash hook, line and sinker and are spreading it along the blogosphere as well. Relax.
Dear AJ Strata;
Welcome to the fight. I’ve been writing about these yahoos for months now, only to be maligned, insulted, and castigated.
Keep up the good work.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
P. S. I am determined that these people are leaving the GOP, not me. I’ve had it.
Mark For Senate – I did not read about this in the media. I don’t need anyone to lecture me about right or wrong. You want to hang out in the sewers, be my guest. Just don’t get all bent out of shape when people point out you stink like the $hit you swim in.
Like I said – the insecure racists who laugh at crap like this can count me out. I am not their ally.