THIS POST: A Tea Party Study and Funding Bigotry

IF there was anyone out there trying to prove that American conservatism does not equal bigotry, this past week must have been a difficult one. In a year from now, give or take, Republicans will gather for their national convention and inevitably claim that they are a "big tent" party. That will fly in the face of the obvious visuals which will reflect near thorough homogeneity. The Republican party has a low threshold for different people and weeks like this one highlight this oft denied fact.


First there was data presented by two researchers from Harvard and Notre Dame which identified who makes up the Tea Party. The first gratifying reveal was that of those who consider themselves Tea Party supporters, 80% considered themselves Republicans back in 2006 when the original study began. No surprise there. This contradicts the flim flam that the Tea Party is a grassroots, independent, nonpartisan movement (this is underscored by the fact that virtually every elected official aligned with the Tea Party has run on the Republican ticket). If the Tea Party entered a Halloween pageant they would win for worst independent grassroots mask. Everyone knows exactly who they are. 


For the sake of this post though, the even more gratifying reveal from one of the researchers himself (see above video) is that the Tea Party is made up of "the Republicans who are the most skeptical about racial minorities." Anyone who reads this blog knows that his has been an unabashed allegation of mine all along. There is nothing like proof to back up something you feel strongly about. Of course, as you will see later, accusations of Tea Party racism is dismissed by the Tea Party as propaganda which makes no sense. The most likely motivation for that kind of propaganda would be to keep blacks from voting for Tea Party candidates, but Black people already vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate. Who needs to use propaganda? 


Also this week we had the Center for American Progress shedding light on how coordinated the anti-Muslim campaign is among conservatives. They have found that, like the Tea Party, anti-Muslim actions and soundbites are not grassroots or independent. They name several conservative organizations that donate tens of millions to promote such idiocy as anti-Sharia law bills and referendums. These laws are as practical as those that would keep sparrow laws or hula hoop laws from taking over our legislative and judicial systems. Sharia Law bashing has nothing to do with keeping America safe. It has everything to do with keeping the readily frightened in a heightened state of hysteria against American Muslims. Why do they do it? It seems they gotta hate somebody and Blacks have a certain readiness for mobility against such unmitigated denigration. Unfortunately, it seems that American Muslims do not, and to make matters worse, American Muslims seem to be victims of a goodwill gap, due in part to this hysteria.


When New Jersey governor Chris Christie appointed Sohail Mohammed, a Muslim judge to the state bench earlier this year he ran into a cadre of bigots opposing the appointment on the basis of Mohammed's faith. Christie came out swinging against a fringe of his own party who voraciously subscribe to this infantile race baiting. It is sad that there are very few Chris Christies in the Republican party. There may be a lot of people who see eye to eye with him, but they don't speak up because they don't want to draw the ire of the torch and pitchfork crowd who are always frothing at the mouth to run someone, anyone out of town. 


So with this in mind, what will the next Republican National Convention look like? It will look like all the ones past because in the past four years the Republican party has continued to coddle the ugliest members of its ranks. It is not even clear if there is any consensus within the party to do anything about the glaring bigotry problem within. I could warn that the predominant message from the Right is that they are staunch bigots. I think I have laid that case out, but as usual that message would not resonate. One partisan represented that side very well in an online message board in response to the Harvard/Notre Dame study: "Anyone who believes this left wing propaganda should take a brick and smash themselves in the face with it for being so gullible and stupid." Way to recruit, guys. Way to recruit.