It was the year 2008 and the Presidential Election cycle was in full swing the Democratic Party had just made history by making a black man it’s standard bearer. This was unprecedented for either political parties. The only other non-white male person to come close to the Presidency was Democratic nominee Geraldine Ferraro a Queens Democrat in 1984 as running-mate to Walter Mondale.
Republican War Hero Arizona Senior Senator John McCain would be the man facing off against the young upstart Africa-American Senator from Illinois the state of Abraham Lincoln. There was a general air of expectancy in the air . Barack Obama burst onto the scene with a campaign message of hope& change. His message was particularly resonant with young Americans of all stripes , many of whom would potentially be voting for the very first time in their lives.
The Country had been through two terms of Republican President George W Bush during whose presidency the nation experienced the tragedy of September 11th 2001 when Terrorists struck demolishing the Twin Towers and parts of the Pentagon. Thousands of Americans lost their lives on that fateful day. The Country was deeply immersed in a war in Afghanistan when American troops entered that country in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda which was reportedly responsible for the September 11th carnage on American soil. Additionally President George Bush and his Vice President Dick Chaney took the Country into a second war of choice alleging weapons of mass destruction in the nation of Iraq. This horrible lapse in judgement and Presidential leadership has had catastrophic consequence for the world since and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
John McCain was a seasoned well respected Senator who many argue has incredible experience in Foreign affairs. John McCain spent 5½ years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam. For decades that war history has insulated him from harsh criticisms even when his judgement calls have been woefully lacking. Of course this was pre-Donald Trump foray into Politics which we will get to.
Despite the rhetoric of the past about experience and judgement this was John McCain’s big moment. The first test, the first window of what the decision making of a president John McCain would look like. That question centered on McCain’s choice of a running mate.
McCAIN CHOSE SARAH PALIN…
McCain could have chosen any Southern Governor to shore up his less than stellar hard right credentials . In fact many believed that former opponent Mike Huckabee the former Arkansas Governor would have been a good pick if McCain wanted a true died in the wool Bible thumping Conservative as a running mate.
Instead John McCain chose little known first term Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin. This was a shocker to most political watchers , none of it made political sense.
Sarah Palin was a first term Governor of Alaska and was hardly know in the lower forty eight states.What exactly did Palin bring to the McCain Campaign that he could not find in any Governor or Senator in the lower forty eight states? Frankly at the time I never quite thought much of the McCain campaign. I was not enamored with the “bomb,bomb, bomb Iran” narrative. Of course I am biased I was solidly in support of then Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy.
John McCain’s decision to chose Sarah Palin unleashed a brand of racially polarized politics no one in my generation or younger had ever seen before .
In a document titled Partisan Polarization and the Rise of the Tea Party Movement Professor Alan I. Abramowitz Department of Political Science Emory University wrote .
The Tea Party movement has attracted enormous attention from journalists, candidates, and elected officials since it first appeared on the U.S. political scene in early 2009. However, there has been considerable disagreement among political observers about the numbers and motivations of those participating in Tea Party protests, the prevalence of racist sentiments among Tea Party activists, the role played by wealthy individuals, conservative groups and media figures in fomenting these protests, and the potential long-term impact of the movement (Judis 2010; Crabtree 2010; Parker 2010; Scarborough 2010). A key question raised by the spread of Tea Party protests and the emergence of Tea Party candidates in numerous House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections is whether this movement represents a new force in American politics or whether it is simply the latest, and perhaps the noisiest, manifestation of the long-term rightward shift of the Republican Party — a shift that can be seen as part of a larger trend toward increasing partisan polarization in American politics (Abramowitz 2010; Bafumi and Shapiro 2009; McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006; Weisberg 2010; Williamson, Skocpol and Skoggin 2011). Political analysts aligned with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party have tended to criticize the Tea Party protests as a largely top-down phenomenon driven by well-funded conservative interest groups and media figures (Waldman 2010). It is clear that right-wing organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works have provided important logistical support for the movement and that conservative media figures, mainly associated with Fox News, have played crucial roles in publicizing and encouraging attendance at Tea Party rallies (Bedard 2010). However, these efforts could not have succeeded without the existence of a large, receptive audience among the public. Any successful social movement requires both leadership and organization and a grass roots army of sympathizers to respond to those leaders 2 and organizations and the Tea Party movement is no exception (Garner 1977; Wood 1982; McAdam and Snow 1997).
It was during the election period of 2008 and the introduction of Sarah Palin onto the American political scene that the filthy racist underbelly of America’s race problem came to the fore. For the first time a certain segment of the American population believed that the citadel of white supremacy they built was about to be taken over by a black man with a funny sounding name.
Whether McCain was pushed to select Palin a rabid divisive racist we may never know. Whether McCain knew just how rancid and corrosive her rhetoric would be toward the African-American Democratic candidate we may never know either. But note the time the Tea-Party rose to prominence and judge for yourself.
I believe those old enough to remember the 2008 Elections doesn’t need a reminder of the Xenophobic, ignorant, Racist campaign Sarah Palin waged on behalf of John McCain’s candidacy.
Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s alleged Kenyan birth and his supposed Manchurian candidacy. Obama’s supposed Muslim faith. A cartoon caricature of Barack in Muslim regalia and Michelle Obama decked out with bullets across her chest and an automatic rifle slung over her shoulder were just a few of the disgusting imagery and narrative forced into the political discourse.
The new normal of outright racism has not dissipated in the six and a half years since Barack Obama won two Presidential Elections in the United States beating John McCain and Mitt Romney decisively. In those six and one half years the United States Secret service reported that threats issued against President Barack Obama is unprecedented and far exceeds threats issued against any other President. In that time Sarah Palin has ran out of juice like a battery operated toy revealing to those who believed she had something to offer that really she was a mere unsophisticated semi-literate imbecile.
More ominously however the Tea Party continues to be a force in Right wing politics forcing out once moderate candidates from the Republican Party and replacing them with Xenophobic neo-nazis types who do not hide their feelings .….
Mark Potok Senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote in 2013 that .…
Capping four years of explosive growth sparked by the election of America’s first black president and anger over the economy, the number of conspiracy-minded anti-government “Patriot” groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012, while the number of hard-core hate groups remained above 1,000. As President Obama enters his second term with an agenda of gun control and immigration reform, the rage on the right is likely to intensify.
The furious reaction to the Obama administration’s gun control proposals is reminiscent of the anger that greeted the passage of the 1993 Brady Bill and the 1994 ban on assault weapons supported by another relatively liberal Democrat — Bill Clinton. The passage of those bills, along with what was seen by the right as the federal government’s violent suppression of political dissidents at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the early 1990s, led to the first wave of the Patriot movement that burst into public consciousness with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The number of Patriot groups in that era peaked in 1996 at 858, more than 500 groups fewer than the number active in 2012.
For many, the election of America’s first black president symbolizes the country’s changing demographics, with the loss of its white majority predicted by 2043. (In 2011, for the first time, non-white births outnumbered the births of white children.) But the backlash to that trend predates Obama’s presidency by many years. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of hate groups rose from 602 to more than 1,000, where the count remains today. Now that comprehensive immigration reform is poised to legitimize and potentially accelerate the country’s demographic change, the backlash to that change may accelerate as well.
While the number of hate groups remained essentially unchanged last year — going from 1,018 in 2011 to 1,007 in 2012 — the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) count of 1,360 Patriot groups in 2012 was up about 7% from the 1,274 active in 2011. And that was only the latest growth spurt in the Patriot movement, which generally believes that the federal government is conspiring to take Americans’ guns and destroy their liberties as it paves the way for a global “one-world government.” From a mere 149 organizations in 2008, the number of Patriot groups shot up to 512 in 2009, jumped again to 824 in 2010, and then skyrocketed to 1,274 in 2011 before hitting their all-time high last year.THE YEAR IN HATE AND EXTREMISM.
It is absolutely no surprise then that that climate would bring to the fore a new monster representing the most racist forces of the Republican party.
Xenophobic. Racist. Misogynistic. Crude . Loud . Disrespectful and dangerous those are just a few of the adjectives which define Donald Trump.
Of course it’s easy to dismiss Trump as a (carnival-barker) as Obama labeled him awhile back , you may even dismiss him as a clown as I have characterized him years ago. What we do at our peril is dismiss the evil that this Fascist brings to the electoral process.
Of course he has drowned out all of the other candidates vying for the republican nomination.
Unfortunately for the party and the country the tactics of the republican candidates represents a mad race to the bottom. Each and every candidate vying for attention and recognition is doing their darnedest to show just how evil they can be. Naturally the targets of their ire this cycle are immigrants. The crowds which turn up at Trump’s rallies are not saying they want change. They are not showing up because they are tired of politicians as the main stream media wants the public to believe, they show up because they harbor the same feelings Trump does.
Making America great again means making it all white, that’s what this immigration fight is about.