Doubling Down with the RNC

I can see no reason why the benefit Obama might have derived from white guilt shouldn’t be a legitimate target of political satire. However, “Barack the Magic Negro” has that sledge hammer subtlety that has always caused me to find Rush Limbaugh so profoundly unfunny. As everyone probably knows, the song was part of a CD distributed by Chip Saltsman to boost his candidacy for Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The title of the CD is “We Hate the USA.” Apparently, Saltsman wants to bet the Republican Party’s future on the Sarah Palins and Michelle Bachmans who think that the only “real” Americans are people who share their vision of the world. Perhaps it was Saltsman’s service as manager of Mike Huckabee’s unsuccessful campaign that convinced him that pandering to the prejudices of the far right is much more promising than trying to take the high road.

I was particularly fascinated by Larry Elder’s attempts to turn the table on Democrats. Appearing on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN, the conservative Black talk show host noted that it was the Democratic “party that was opposed to the 13th, the 14th, the 15th amendment. The party that founded the Klan.” According to Elder, “If you want to go over the history of the party, the Democratic Party is a party, historically, that has been antithetical to black history.” What Elder failed to mention was how Ronald Reagan stole that mantle for the Republican Party during his 1980 presidential campaign by announcing his support for “states’ rights” at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi; the scene of the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers.