|
From the Blog Tip O’Neil famously said that
“all politics is local”. I’m beginning to wonder whether his quote needs to be
updated to
account for the political strategies being deployed in the
Obama era.
They started during the
Presidential
campaign, with attempts to create racial animosity from
African American Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to questioning whether Obama was a
Muslim, to doubting whether he is a legitimate U.S. citizen. The “birther”
movement continues in spite of clear evidence that Obama is a U.S. citizen and
that it is a hoax.
The attempt to reform the
healthcare system is the latest example of taking perhaps the
most important issue of our time, and reducing it to a fight along racial lines
encouraged by enough mainstream Republicans to keep the insanity movement going.
To believe in this movement, you would have to believe that Obama: a) is a
socialist, communist, and Nazi, b) is a racist and hates white people, and c)
wants the government to make all of your medical decisions for you
You would also have to believe that the health
insurance
companies always put your best interests first, leave medical
decisions to you and your doctor, and aren’t interested in making a profit.
If these are your true beliefs, you need to a psychiatric evaluation,
assuming your
insurance
company doesn’t reject the claim.
So what makes otherwise rationally thinking adults break up town hall meetings
by spewing this nonsense?
According to the
U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, there are significant
disparities in healthcare coverage by race: 14.9 of whites are uninsured, versus
19.7 of African Americans, 16.8% of Asian Americans, and 32.7% of Hispanic
Americans. In listening to some of the specific concerns the protesters have
raised, the common thread appears to be that those who are insured don’t want to
pay for those who aren’t, even when it is estimated that we can cover everyone
from waste, fraud, and abuse savings from the current system.
It is indeed curious why some Americans would rather see rising costs and
excessive profits go to the insurance companies instead of their fellow
Americans who are disproportionately people of color.
No other American President has faced so many direct personal, utterly
baseless attacks on his character than Barack Obama. What is the root of this?
It is hard to imagine that race does not play a role in this. It is hard to see
this happening to George W. Bush, or even Bill Clinton.
But that is not the most disappointing part of the story. There is a small
faction of the population that is racist, and thankfully it has been getting
smaller and smaller over the years. What is disappointing is the active role
some prominent Republicans are playing in giving the birther/deather/socialist/Nazi
movements life even though they know they are born more out of racist attitudes
than facts.
When given the opportunity to vote on specific legislation that would require
them to take an on the record stand on Obama’s citzenship or government-run
healthcare (Medicare), they prove that they don’t believe in these extremist
movements. So it appears that the cornerstone of the Republican strategy for the
mid-term elections and probably the next Presidential election is to foment
racist extremism for political gain.
With the Republicans, all politics does appear to be racial.
More
Blog
stories |
