This post has been updated.
Last week multiple Democrats suggested that members of the Republican party were racist, and that it impacts the way the GOP policy approach.
Attorney General Eric Holder last week implied that he is treated a certain way by some Republican lawmakers because of his race. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested that “race” is preventing Republicans in the House from moving on immigration reform.
On Sunday, CNN’s “State of the Union” host Candy Crowley asked Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) whether he felt his Republican colleagues were racist.
“Not all of them. No. Of Course not,” Israel responded. “But to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism, and that’s unfortunate.”
Crowley then asked National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) about Pelosi’s comments on race and immigration reform.
“It’s both wrong and unfortunate,” he said about the Minority Leader’s remakrs, pivoting to Republican-led investigations. “You know, there have been a lot of executive overreaches by this administration. We see the latest with Lois Lerner and the whole IRS scandal.”
Israel then called the investigation into the IRS scandal and the attack in Benghazi “witch hunts.”
“This is not a witch hunt,” Walden retorted. “I don’t want the IRS targeting any group, whether it’s liberal or conservative.”
Watch the full exchange via CNN:
“This is not a witch hunt," Walden retorted. “I don’t want the IRS targeting any group, whether it’s liberal or conservative.”
Jeez, this is so idiotic. If the IRS “targeted” groups from both ends of the spectrum and in between then they weren’t “targeting” any group. They were simply doing their jobs to investigate whether or not groups were engaged in inappropriate political activity. This is all part of the GOP culture of perpetual victimhood, where the IRS doing their due diligence in investigating groups applying for tax exempt status is somehow some plot by scary black president to somehow undermine their freedom.
And just once when someone plays the Benghazi card, I’d like someone to ask them how much investigating this Congress did in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting which resulted in the deaths of 26 people, 20 of which were babies.
Sometimes I think the real America can be found in comments, and not just on Fox, but TPM, WaPo, Atlantic, New Yorker, TNR, etc, where the racist conservatives come out in full racist mode. (You know they’re Republicans because they bash Democrats in the same comment.)
Unfortunately, I think you’re exactly right. I’m glad more Democrats are calling them out on it instead of continuing to pretend this is all ideological when it clearly isn’t. I especially like the fact that it’s white Democrats doing it (except with Eric Holder) because I think white folks are more likely to take these charges more seriously when it comes from white folk.
I wish the calling out would be taken seriously no matter who is doing the calling out, but alas …
But why do you say racism isn’t ideological? I’m not saying all Republicans are racists, but clearly the people who are overtly racist belong to the Republican party. So wouldn’t that make racism ideological, or am I missing something?
I think maybe I wasn’t very clear. What tends to happen all too often is that some of the nastiest opposition to the president is chalked up to understandable, ideological differences when they clearly aren’t. I don’t think racism is in and of itself ideological. I’ve seen on the left what I would categorize not as racism so much, but extreme white privilege (Firedoglake, I’m looking at all ya’ll). I don’t think racism is just for the right. I think there are a few factions on the left that are just as racist but for different reasons. There are some on the left that infantalize black folk the same way that the right does, only it doesn’t come from the same place. It’s not because they think we’re inherently bad, but because they think we’re inherently stupid. A good example is the debate on the left about the drug war. Many of the black men locked up behind the drug war need to be locked up and were terrorizing their neighborhoods before they caught a drug charge. See: Ricky Kelly of Louisville (brilliant, truly gifted sociopath who leaves a graveyard of bodies in his wake).