Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [60]
McCain, needless to say, is no fan of Pat Buchanan. Back in 1999, he observed, “It is evident to me by Pat Buchanan’s own rhetoric that he has left the Republican Party.”97 Unfortunately, it seems that the Republican Party has left the Republican Party. In 2010, Republicans have nominated a number of candidates whose sensibilities are much closer to Buchanan’s than to McCain’s. McCain himself is running hard against a strong primary challenge from a man who believes that same-sex marriage would lead to man-horse unions.98
“Forced Reparations”
John McCain’s gracious concession speech may have been the last generous word Obama heard from Republicans on the subject of race. In winning the presidency, Obama fulfilled the fears of white racists across the country—and thus fulfilled the dreams of those who prey on such fears. Before Obama became president, the new breed of racists had to distinguish between the perpetrators of reverse discrimination—predominantly white judges and politicians—and the beneficiaries—blacks and Latinos. With a black man in the White House, the perpetrators and beneficiaries of the persecution narrative merged. Where the right used to explain that Democrats favored minorities because the party was beholden to “special interests,” they now assume that Democrats favor minorities simply because the leader of the party is a minority.
Thus, Rush Limbaugh argued in 2009 that Obama’s policies are designed to benefit black people in order to compensate them for centuries of slavery:
The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation’s wealth and return to it to the nation’s quote, “rightful owners.” Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.99
Two months later, Glenn Beck seconded Limbaugh’s reparations theory:
Everything getting pushed through Congress—including this health care bill—is transforming America. And it’s all driven by President Obama’s thinking on one idea: reparations . . . He believes in all the “universal” programs because they “disproportionately affect” people of color. And that’s the best way, he feels, to right the wrongs of the past. These massive programs are Obama brand reparations or in presidential speak: leveling the playing field.100
The reparations theory presents the zero-sum game in stark relief: There is a white team and a black team. Obama plays for the black team. He hates the white team. He wants to take resources from the white team and give them to the black team. “Us” versus “them.” Persecution politics.
A Wise Latina
But let’s not forget the brown team. The pinnacle of race-driven persecution politics was the right-wing response to Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. It is the nature of modern American politics for the opposition party to challenge Supreme Court nominees any way that they can. And when a black president nominates a Latina judge, the obvious route for a Republican challenge is race. But they can’t mention race, not in 2010. Instead, they took the exact same tact that they took against Obama. They called Sotomayor an unqualified affirmative action nominee and an angry Latina.
Pat Buchanan, for example, called Sotomayor “an affirmative action pick” who was chosen because she was Hispanic. He attacked her support for “reverse discrimination against white males” and declared, “Her entire career is based on advancing people of color, which happens at the expense of white folks.”101 Rush Limbaugh said, “She’s not the brain that they’re portraying her to be. She’s not a constitutional jurist. She is an affirmative action case extraordinaire,” and compared her to David Duke, claiming, “She brings a form