Having been an unsuccessful and rejected president long ago liberated Jimmy Carter from the illusion that he might have something to gain by making nice to his former colleagues in government. Carter–pious, a scold, and possessed of a blind spot when it comes to foreign despots–is that sort of person whose views are hard to swallow. This is not because they are often wrong, but because despite everything, they are so often right. Last night, he delivered some hard-to-hear news, about which he is absolutely right: “An overwhelming portion of the animosity directed against President Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.” (To see Carter’s comments, click here)
Carter’s reward for his blunt assessment has been a quick and easy dismissal. No no no no, said Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and Maria Bartiromo and Chuck Todd on MSNBC this morning. You can’t tar Obama’s critics with the racist label. It isn’t helpful. It lowers the tenor of the debate.
Nonsense. Telling the truth may not always be the best thing to do, but it’s never the wrong thing to do. So let’s look at the truth.
Not all of those who oppose health care reform are racists. But a lot of the people who are opposing the bill don’t have the first idea about what’s in the bill. They don’t know that personal choice is retained, they don’t know that Medicare is and always has been a government program, they don’t know that the government already provides health care to illegal immigrants in emergency rooms, and they think Washington wants to form death squads that will come gunning for grandma at the first sign of the sniffles. But as they have demonstrated in their rallies, their emails, their placards, they have a firm grasp on one fact: Barack Obama is black.
Now, let’s look at another fact: the elites of the Republican Party have a long record of playing race politics. Sometimes their message is coded, sometimes it’s direct, but seldom is it subtle. There was Richard Nixon‘s southern strategy in 1968; Ronald Reagan‘s decision to launch his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the murders of three civil rights workers, in 1980; the George H.W. Bush campaign’s use of the Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988; and the campaign of George W. Bush using “rumors” of John McCain being the father of a mixed-race baby in the South Carolina primary in 1980. And if they can’t play the race card, the elites are quite willing to employ mob tactics, like the Brooks Brothers riot during the recounts of the 2000 election in Florida. When things get desperate, count of the GOP to get ugly.
And not since the Great Depression has the GOP been this desperate. Repudiated in two consecutive elections, the authors of a war that has disgraced the nation, the evangelists of an economic ideology that caused a calamitous recession, the Republicans have nothing to offer the country right now except guerrilla warfare. Is it wrong to oppose the administration’s plans? Of course it isn’t. But the GOP is not mounting an opposition based on principle, or reason, or even facts. They are mounting an opposition that is based on inflaming animosity and bitterness and, yes, racism.
A summer that began with a debate about health care reform is ending with a challenge to the legitimacy of the first African American president. If you are a Democratic member of the House or Senate, no matter how you think the health care bill is flawed, you must as yourself this question: how can we let these people win?
In his book “Conscience of a Liberal,” economist Paul Krugman argues that Southern, white Democrats had gone along with much of the New Deal’s social policies until the topic of universal health care was broached. Many white southerners, he points out, couldn’t stomach the thought of integrated hospital facilities. So the racial battle being fought here extends far beyond President Obama.
Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to have good health care benefits provided by my employers. You only need to have a nuclear stress test like I had last year to see how expensive medical care is, and how quickly it could send someone into debt and eventual bankruptcy. I think that there a lot of potential entrepreneurs who don’t take the risk of starting their own businesses because they can afford to give up their employer-provided medical care. That alone is one reason why Republicans ought to be favor of health-care reform and a public option.
We’ve already seen how worked-up extremists have led to the murders of health-care providers performing legal abortions. As a kid I remember watching the news and seeing the riots that took after Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. If something happens to President Obama, this nation’s cities will look like Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs.
Sad but true, Hugh.