It’s time to expose those euphemisms used by certain Right-wing Republicans. They are mostly racially biased utterances by politicians and their followers that are seemingly mild, indirect or vague but they act as substitutes for a harsh or blunt underlying meaning that usually serves to denigrate the target of the expression.
‘Obama is a Muslim’ – not a Christian; a divider not a
uniter; he ‘leads from behind’, he is a ‘socialist.’ He was born in Kenya so he’s a foreigner; he’s
on vacation again; another scandal; he should be impeached – or sued.
Strangely enough, this over-use of euphemisms has seemed to
have less success in hiding meanings than in revealing the very worst of who
some Republicans really are in essence.
Their attempts to hide bigotry, scapegoating, demonizing, or racial
superiority have not worked as they thought they would because they haven’t
been able to cease and desist, even when others encouraged them to do so. Let’s have a closer look at this phenomenon.
In spite of a speech to a lawyer’s organization in which he granted
Reagan the green light in making a nomination to SCOTUS in an election year, Republican
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, (and most of the Republican
presidential candidates) asserts that Obama must wait for a new President to be
elected so that person can fill the SCOTUS vacancy with a voter mandate.
In contrast to McConnell's
partisan obstructionist dictum, presidents dating back to George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson have made election-year Supreme Court nominations—a power
bestowed upon the presidency by the very Constitution that America's founders
wrote. In total, 17 Supreme Court
justices have been nominated during election years, though some received
confirmations following November elections. Most recently, Supreme Court Associate Justice
Anthony Kennedy was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on Nov. 30, 1987, in
the midst of more than a dozen on-going presidential campaigns. Kennedy assumed the bench on Feb. 22, 1988,
just 10 days after that election year's Iowa caucuses. (material attributed to www.dailydot.com)
So here we are at a point where the Republicans have already
established that Reagan could send an Associate Justice nomination to the
Senate during an election year, but Obama should not. What is the difference? The
same thing it has been since the beginning of Obama’s election: not birthplace, not religion,
not inexperience, not socialism, not any of the other euphemisms bestowed upon
this President.
It is again why every
conceivable thing has been blamed on President Obama, why everything he does or
proposes is suspect. Why every budget of
his was dead before it even got delivered to Congress. Why
every glitch is a scandal; why he is despised, hated, and vilified. Anything good that he accomplishes has to be
demeaned immediately. It’s why most of his
appointments have been delayed or over-interrogated. It’s why he gets blamed for the economic
problems produced by the Bush administration and why the Republicans blamed him
before the 2010 election for the mess in Washington. It’s why the Affordable Care Act has been vilified and voted on for
repeal over 50 times. Sure, FDR’s New
Deal programs still come in for criticism from the conservative Right, but
mostly surrounding ideological issues not personal vilification; pretty much
the same is true of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Unrelenting repeal votes on those programs
are not in evidence.
So, take another look.
This President alone of all Presidents is told to refrain from nomination of a Justice because an election
is 10 months away (Reagan was 18 months away from an election when he made
three tries and finally got an appointment through during an election year!). It is finally time
to stop the cover-up. The Radical Right should tell us the blunt truth
for once. Say right out loud that you
hate this guy and all he stands for and all he tried to do because he is a man
of color, and make clear in plain English your belief that no Black man
deserves to go down in history as an outstanding President or even as an accomplished one. Not one.
Just say it.
This fatal bias has been there in all its disguised ugliness
for all eight years of the Obama administration. In fact, it has been around from before the
beginning of our Revolutionary War and throughout our history, becoming most
evident in critical manifestations: civil war over slavery, reconstruction of the
South, Jim Crow legislation, segregation practices, the Civil Rights movement
of the 1960’s and now in a reactionary period following the election of our
first African-American President.
All this and more has bedeviled this country for its entire
life and that bedevilment is not over. The
racial purists will continue their attacks even after Barack Obama leaves
office. They cannot allow themselves to
stop, because just as they are now seeking to restrict the President as no
other president has ever been restricted, they are planning what they can do to
destroy this President’s legacy. We know
one thing from what they have already said and done: they will describe his
presidency as the worst; as the most corrupt; as the ‘abominable legacy’ of a
failed President. Don’t believe it? Wait and see.
We might want to remind ourselves that criticism of
particular legislation, policy or program has happened before in our history. But this particular vilification of President
Obama, has been, and will continue to be, of a depth and character that reflects
the worst of our human nature: the need to denigrate and degrade those who are
different.
The perpetrators of division and enmity are fools of course,
but worse, they are destroyers, and fascist-like in their choice of a people to
scapegoat and to annihilate, attempting to destroy one group in total favor of
the inheritors of everything they believe to be exceptional and superior. It is no accident that they use the word
‘exceptional’ to describe the perceived #1 status of this country and its
(white) people. Even when the U.S. ranks
somewhere in the twenties or thirties among nations, they hide that failure and
promote their "exceptionalism" which serves mainly to hide the bluntness of Aryan
‘superiority’ or ‘white supremacy.’
This is a pernicious flaw in the American experience. And when racial bigotry comes out of the
woodwork to once again bring this flaw into full force, it demeans us all. This radical Republican emergence from the
Tea Party Movement has also brought Fascist-like strategies and tactics to our
country’s political process and it has not been pretty. Strange that two strains run together: we
have a sizeable group of white people supporting the election of our first
Black President and another group openly promoting racism and bigotry that
reacts in hate and denial to that very same election, and to the person who
leads the free world.
Now we have Republicans running for President who have allowed
themselves the 'distinction' of sinking to the lowest levels of hypocrisy, xenophobia,
and anti-democratic rantings, supported as always by the Screechers of Fox
network. It just so happens that even as
the President took time from his recent vacation to acknowledge the passing of
Justice Scalia, that a writer of dubious distinction could not restrain from a
tirade of negativity regarding him, his demeanor and his appearance. I put special emphasis on the key words of
denigration just so you can be sure to recognize the not-so-veiled racist talk:
“President Obama’s official remarks Saturday on the death of
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia have been derided as “a mess,” while one website reveals
it followed hours of plotting to maximize the
political opportunity Scalia’s death might provide the president. Kristinn
Taylor, writing on The Gateway Pundit, called Obama’s announcement a “disrespectful
presentation.” “When he did deign to interrupt his Washington’s Birthday holiday weekend vacation,
Obama spoke to the nation from the press filing center in Rancho Mirage while not
wearing a tie with his rumpled shirt collar
open under a suit jacket,” she wrote. “Two-thirds through reading
prepared remarks staged on the lectern, Obama
placed
both elbows on the lectern
and finished the three-minute speech slouching on the lectern”
A lot of stumbling and bumbling by Obama through his obligatory remarks about Scalia. What a mess.
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) February
14, 2016
If you just read what I have bolded, italicized and underlined,
you will have absorbed the distinct flavor of these bigoted and disrespectful
remarks about the President of the United States. He was clearly characterized as a sloppy mess
with a plotting and disrespectful demeanor, just barely deigning to read
prepared remarks that he stumbles and bumbles through in a mere three minutes
while slouching on the lectern with elbows akimbo. If you can’t understand the stereotypical
profile being painted here of the stumbling bumbling, disrespectful, sloppy and
slouching “darkie” characterized as the ‘fool’, then you will have missed the point entirely.
It is a description teeming with salacious characterizations of black folk similar
to the minstrel shows of old.
But perhaps more to the point is that bigots use such terms to indiscriminately
characterize all ‘welfare queens,’ rappers, gang members, the jobless, homeless
and felons, along with Black workers, families, churchgoers, teenagers and this particular President of the United States! Stereotyping, profiling, discrimination,
bigotry continue to fall upon all persons of color, and have by no means gone away. These forces are lurking everywhere in
spite of the fact that President Obama was twice elected President by substantial margins.
Be sure to keep watch, Progressives. While we herald the progressive
accomplishments of President Obama, these Right-wing authoritarians (my euphemism for ‘Fascist’
or ‘Nazi’) will be hard at work attempting to destroy all they possibly can in
relation to this two-term President. They will be relentless in their efforts
to cast a slimy net over all the accomplishments of this administration. They will desecrate and diminish even the
following:
- The undeniable fact that 18 million people who had no health insurance are now covered
- The slowing of premium rate increases, the expansive use of Medicaid for coverage, the increase in consumer protection, and the elimination of private insurance scams such as total payment limits, the drug hole for seniors, the imposition of pre-existing conditions and the unequal treatment of women in terms of their health needs.
- In his first year, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created and sustained 2.1 million jobs and stimulated the economy 3.5%. http://reut.rs/i46CEE
·
Obama completed the massive TARP financial
and banking rescue plan, and recovered virtually all of its costs. http://1.usa.gov/eA5jVS http://bit.ly/eCNrD6
·
He created the Making Home Affordable home
refinancing plan. http://1.usa.gov/goy6zl
·
Obama oversaw the creation of more jobs in
2010 alone than Bush did in eight years, and has overseen an incredible streak
of job creation, lowering of the unemployment rate and increase in
manufacturing rates, including
·
a bailout of General Motors that saved at least
1.4 million jobs, and put pressure on the company to change its practices,
resulting in GM returning to its place as the top car company in the world
· Cutting the deficit by 2/3s since he came to
office
- The elimination of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military
- The successful mission to eliminate the leader of Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden
- The successful use of special ops forces to eliminate more than 30,000 members of terrorist forces, including many leaders of Al Qaida and of ISIS. (On December 7, 2015, the Washington Post reported that since 2001, in five theatres of the war (Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Somalia) that the total number of terrorists killed ranges from 65,800 to 8,600, with the Obama administration being responsible for between 30,000 and 33,000. [222 Wikipedia).
- Treaty with Iran to reduce their nuclear capability and the opening of trade with Cuba
- The end of the original wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
- The agreement on climate standards with 64 nations including China
- Read much more at: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/15/a-long-list-of-president-obamas-accomplishments-with-citations/
The compiler of these accomplishments (addictinginfo.org) has this to say to critics:
“If you’re one of those folks who thinks President Obama is
a “disappointment,” you haven’t been paying attention the last few years. And
those of you who try to draw comparisons with the Bush Administration should
put away the hallucinogens and have your memory checked. If you were in a
coma for the eight Bush Years, I apologize and forgive you. But please join the
real world. So far, this president has done most of what he said he would do if
elected; imagine what he could have done by now if progressives had supported
him and not given him a Congress that doesn’t look at him as if he’s the demon
seed.”
“Not only is he NOT a ‘disappointment,’ he’s pretty much the
opposite. And no, I don’t just say that because he took out Osama bin Laden,
helped Libya determine their own destiny for the first time in a while, and
because he seems able to handle international incidents without starting a new
war. The guy does nearly everything we elect a president to do, and he doesn’t
brag about it constantly.”
In stark contrast to what the denizens of the radical Right
are declaring about the President (too often from a bigoted point of view), let
us begin to proclaim the opposite: that Barack Obama is the epitome of an
accomplished and multi-tested President who should have every opportunity to nominate Justices to the Supreme
Court. With 12 years of teaching
constitutional law at the University of Chicago (lacking in the backgrounds of
most of his radical Republican critics), added to his substantial accomplishments, he
should do it as speedily as he can. After
all, he has already wisely appointed the first Latina woman, Sonia Sotomayor, to
the Supreme Court who had bi-partisan support when President George H.W. Bush
appointed her in 1992 to the District Court for the Southern District of New
York, and when President Clinton appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 2nd District.
A writer for
TruthDig.com brought forward the President’s experience in constitutional law
as it applies to this situation:
“The president drew heavily upon his knowledge of America’s
foundational text Tuesday as he attempted to school the opposition about what
exactly the Constitution spells out for just this situation, as The New York Times
reported:
‘The Constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to
happen now,’ Mr. Obama said during a news conference after a meeting in
California with leaders of Southeast Asia. He said the Constitution demands
that a president nominate someone for the court and the Senate either confirms
or rejects.
‘There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done
on off years,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘That’s not in the Constitutional text.’
Mr. Obama said he understood the political stakes of a
nomination that could change the balance on the court. ‘I understand the
pressure that Republican senators are now under,’ he said. ‘This would be a
deciding vote.’
But the president said the Supreme Court ought to be above
political gamesmanship. ‘This will be a test of whether rules, norms, and fair
play can function at all in Washington,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Obama is doing his part to push a nominee through
the inevitable roadblocks to the nation’s top court by carefully picking
someone who, as he put it, is ‘indisputably qualified’
for the job.”
As for all of us who call ourselves Progressives, we should
take this case to the public and keep the pressure on the Senate to do the
right thing: consider President Obama’s
nominee on the merits of past decisions or votes, the outcomes of community and
public involvement, and the judgment s/he displays. While race, gender, or cultural background
may be important in a nominee, they should not be deciding factors in whether
or not to confirm. Likewise, we must
make the case that it is an entirely specious argument that we should wait for
a Presidential election before anyone is nominated. There is simply no constitutional, legal or
even logical requirement for such a delay.
It is simply one more euphemistic production of the radical Right to
demolish the legacy and legitimacy of this President.
