The Scott Walker Racial Rorschach Test

thefederalist.com ^ | Jan. 30, 2015 | Heather Wilhelm

[PROCON]

Some people see a racist inside every head that formerly wore a mullet.

Is it “racially polarizing” to publicly applaud people who achieve the American Dream? If you’re a liberal critic of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s recent Iowa Freedom Summit speech, the answer might be yes.

On Wednesday, Slate writer Jamelle Bouie published “Divide and Conquer,” a guide to “Scott Walker’s divisive message for winning the White House.” If any candidate could “run a rigid campaign of polarization—aimed at winning as many white voters as possible,” Bouie writes, “it’s Walker. His language is already there. In his Iowa speech, he touted voter-identification laws and portrayed disadvantage as a pure product of personal failure.”

This supposed “personal failure” passage of Walker’s speech—Bouie trims it, somewhat tellingly, in his column—goes like this: “In America, it is one of the few places left in the world where it doesn’t matter what class you were born in to. It doesn’t matter what your parents do for a living. In America the opportunity is equal for each and every one of us but in America the ultimate outcome is up to each and every one of us individually.”

So Now Celebrating Hard Work Is Racist

Sounds rather egalitarian, doesn’t it? Aside from Walker’s mention of voter-identification laws—which was a blip in the overall speech, somewhat overshadowed, to be honest, by the section in which the governor described labor protestors threatening to “gut” his wife “like a deer”—you might be somewhat baffled as to how this speech, praising equal opportunity, could be racially charged. The subtext, as Bouie explained to me in a rather interesting Twitter exchange, is this: “The suggestion that there are people who celebrate dependence and refuse to work hard is racially polarizing.”

[PROCON]

Per usual, all non-media approved republicans will be relentlessly accused of various nefarious "crimes" and scandals in order to marginalize them early.

Can you say Sarah Palin?

Screw them, let's win on merit.

[GeronL]

wanting to throw criminals in jail is racist, too.... these people have no shame.

[Paladin2]

Walker is targeting Albinos?

[rabidralph]

In America the opportunity is equal for each and every one of us but in America the ultimate outcome is up to each and every one of us individually.”

And college drop-out Gov. Walker is living proof of that. I hope he throws this back in their faces.

[Steve_Seattle]

Midnight basketball is racist - only liberals are so afraid of young blacks that they would rather have them playing basketball than getting needed sleep for school. No liberal would want his OWN kid playing midnight basketball. The implication is that for young black males, it’s either basketball or a life of crime. Conservatives need to start shoving this race crap right back in the faces of liberals.

[Terry L Smith]

To me, Scott Walker is just ‘Bill Ayers’ing Bill Ayers’!

[CyberAnt]

Poor thing .. she has not figured out that we can tell who the left is afraid of .. just by what they say about them.

and .. this always tells me who I should vote for.

And .. they’re so “racist themselves” .. they still have not figured it out.

[Secret Agent Man]

you know why he didn’t finish his last year, yes?

he took care of his mom who was sick.

jamille bouie would take this as proof walker somehow hates women, given his current article’s illogic.

[jocon307]

Thanks for posting this. The author refers to Walker sitting on his throne of skulls. I think Ace of Spades started that and it’s great to see I’m not the only one it stuck with.

I think it works because it is so incongruous. Walker is a bit of a nebbish and you don’t think of a nebbish sitting on a throne of his enemies skulls, and yet he sits there indeed.

Love it.