March 30, 2015--GOP Clown Car: The Minstrel Show

Considering that he's been widely featured in the news after becoming the first Republican to officially enter the race for the 2016 presidential nomination, I should probably write something about him. But there's nothing that unusual about Senator Ted Cruz as a candidate--the GOP has a long tradition of welcoming demagogues into leadership positions.

Recall, his spooky lookalike, Senator Joseph McCarthy, who, back in the 1950s, was for some years the nation's most powerful Republican. He snooped around ferreting out alleged Communists who had supposedly infiltrated Democratic ranks, making things up when the evidence was thin, ranting that there were thousands of actual Communists in government whereas there were just a handful.

Like his political alter ego, Cruz played the Red card when by innuendo he accused Barak Obama of being influenced by the Harvard Law School faulty which, he slimed, was substantially made up of Communists while Obama was there as a student.

What is interesting about Cruz is the nature of his demagoguery and his craven pandering to a Republican base which he pretends to represent. It is ironic that he has grabbed this representational mantle for himself considering that he has at least as elite an eastern establishment Republican patina as the president-in-waiting, Jeb Bush. Cruz actually has more elitist credentials--he went to Princeton as an undergraduate and was a top student at Harvard Law School whereas poor Jeb attended only the more utilitarian University of Texas and has no advanced degrees.

It will be quite a Svengali act for Cruz to pull this one off--to fool enough Tea Party folks that he's a man of the people.

As evidence of his bona fides, last week on the CBS Morning News he spoke about his musical conversion (he's all about conversions). With faux sincerity, he told about how though earlier he was a fan of "classic rock," after 9/11 since the "rock community" "didn't stand up," whereas country musicians did, he became and is now a devotee of all things country. I guess he missed all the concerts and benefits organized for first responders by the "rock community." Too isolated in that Harvard cocoon I suppose.

But today I am writing about another familiar Republican presidential archetype--the candidate who is the star of his own political minstrel show where, as a black men, he behaves in ways and says things openly about blacks that racist white Republicans talk about only in private. And by his very being gives credibility to what hard-working white folks in their hearts know to be true about lazy black folks.

He is neurosurgeon Ben Carson who, though barely paid attention to by the mainstream media, somehow still manages to come in sixth in lists of people most admired by Americans. Just below George W. Bush and slightly ahead of Stephen Hawking.

He is best know for leading a team of surgeons in 1987 in a 20-hour operation to separate Siamese twins joined at the head and then in 2013 for appearing at the National Prayer Breakfast and, with President Obama on the dais just ten feet away, delivered a speech in which he criticized Obama's health care and economic policies, dissing him to his face.

The next day he was embraced by Rupert Murdock's Wall Street Journal in an editorial titled, "Ben Carson for President." This based on a 15 minute speech at a congressional breakfast.

From that day forth he has been a Republican darling, and now, having given up his practice and making the rounds as a paid-for-play speaker articulating a vision for American that for all intents and purposes would eliminate our social safety nets and not give away our treasure to people (read of color) who are too lazy to support themselves and their families. He also delivers on rightwing hot social issues, as a "scientist," questioning evolution and comparing homosexuality to beastiality.

I call this a minstrel show because it is a performance pitched exclusively to the emotions of resentful and bigoted whites put on by the very kind of person (of color) who is the butt of the stereotyping.

Dr. Carson is at least the third in a string of such self-denogating African-American Republican presidential aspirants.

First, in 1995, there was Alan Keyes, a give-'em-hell talk show host who was best known for his violent opposition to abortion rights and his untutored ways. This alone would have been enough to excite the William Kristols of the world who at all times have an eye open for people they can benignly promote who speak to the subliminal fears and urges that can be used to manipulate the behavior of the Republican base. No matter Keyes was caught illegally paying himself out of campaign funds. Actually, perfect. This only confirmed that "they" cannot be trusted to responsibly handle money. There is that tendency, isn't there, they snicker, for "them," when money's around, to act "Nigger Rich."

Herman Kane was next and much, much more entertaining. Not only didn't he know what he was talking about when it came to economics (9-9-9) but when it came to foreign policy matters he appeared to be map-phobic. He not only couldn't see Russia from his house, he didn't even know how to locate it on the map. For country-club GOPers he was a living stereotype. "Them" himself.

And now comes along Ben Carson, another token gift to Republicans. He brings race front and center into the "debate." First, who better to excoriate Obamacare, seeing it as basically a program that the doers are taxed to provide for the takers, which he quickly translates into a form of economic redistribution from whites to blacks. To make this point explicitly, Carson frequently likens it and other Democrat-supported social programs to "slavery," with Obama, in this ironic case, the nation's chief plantation owner.

Among other things, a black man--Carson--holding a black man--Obama--who is also a Democrat as responsible for slavery, or its reintroduction, is a brilliant form of racist jujitsu that absolves Republicans of any responsibility for attempting to suppress minority voting rights or roll back Civil Rights legislation.