Posted on 07/15/2014 12:44:02 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Those whove found it difficult to connect with the racial history of post-Civil War America when Black Americans were stripped of the citizenship rights they gained right after that conflict should pay special attention to the national political arena now. Because the conservative movement, in its desperate mania to destroy Barack Obamas presidency and neutralize the growing political clout of Americans of color, is dramatizing how that betrayal and the construction of a post-slavery racist society was accomplished.
The trickedup claims of voter fraud by state legislatures in order to deny Blacks access to the ballot box. Federal court and Supreme Court decisions that justified state and local governments violations of Black Americans rights. Declarations that Whites were being victimized and enslaved by laws that expanded democracy to those whod been excluded. White racists claims that elected Black officials were acting in lawless fashion. (In that regard, search the phrase Obama and lawless on the Internet and note how often now and during the past six years GOP party officials and pundits have used it to describe Obamas actions.)
All these were part of the victorious racist reaction to the Civil Wars ending Negro slavery 150 years ago that made the U.S. an apartheid state for the next century. And all are part of the conservative movements playbook today.
That current reaction is reaching a new low point with right-wingers increasing calls to impeach the president. GOP politicos and their echo chamber of conservative pundits and talk-show jockeys have been dropping heavy hints about this for at least two years. Last week, however, its bubbled up to the surface of the cesspool that is Republican politics these days with Sarah Palins call for Obamas impeachment.
Perhaps that is as it should be; for no other single individual offers a more instructive comparison of what the Republican Party has become vis-à-vis Obama. Completely ignorant of and uninterested in learning about American domestic and international policy, Palin was rapidly exposed as the worst vice-presidential candidate in U.S. history. Then, she abandoned her post as Alaskas governor for the lucrative, no-work money trail of no-substance speeches and reality shows.
Meanwhile, her GOP confederates were trying again and again to wreck the Obama administration and the country. But their congressional policy of obstruction hasnt worked. Their government shutdown tactics havent worked. Their tolerating a vicious anti-Obama racism among their officeholders and supporters hasnt worked. Their state legislators enacting sham voter ID laws in an effort to block Democratic-leaning voters from the ballot box in 2012 didnt work. And their two attempts to find two just two Republicans to form a credible presidential ticket hasnt worked. So, now theyre trying to splash more political filth on themselves and the American political tradition and the American people.
Of course, true to form, Palins cry was all about her: Shes desperately seeking attention in order to prop up her celebrity status and to maintain her influence among the GOP base, and thus on the party itself. The GOP establishment despises her, not least because of the outsized contribution she made to Obamas defeating John McCain in 2008.
But dont be fooled by Speaker of the House John Boehners terse I disagree when asked about Palins remark. He knows that raising the specter of impeachment now which would make Obama the second consecutive Democratic president the Republicans have sought to impeach would threaten to alienate both moderate Republicans and independent voters the GOP needs to re-gain control of the Senate in the November elections. If they do, the right-wing calls to impeach Obama will explode, and Boehner and the rest of the GOP leadership will start whistling a different tune.
But it also should be clear there are two other targets of the GOPs impeachment gambit.
The first is Hillary Clinton. The impeachment gambit is part of the sniping campaign to undermine her extremely likely candidacy in 2016; for the GOP knows that if they lose the White House that year, their future as a credible national party will be dim and dimmer.
The other purpose of the impeachment gambit continues what has been part of the GOP playbook from, literally, the night of Obamas 2009 inauguration: to erode the desire of Democratic-leaning voters to participate in politics; to make them so disgusted with the relentless obstructionism and meanness the GOP has made its true party platform that theyll give up.
But Democratic-leaning voters have to continue as the national black electorate did in 2012 and as Black Mississippi voters did last month to follow the words and the spirit of the old civil rights anthem whose signature phrase was: aint gonna let nobody turn me round!
*****
Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His latest book is Last Chance: The Political Threat to Black America.
Geez. Mrs. Daniels’ little Lee Lee really needs to lighten up. Being a communist really isn’t all that great. BTW: The race card BS is getting old too. It’s been overplayed during the Era of Barack and has lost all of its luster.
Truly, people who are this ignorant and easily led by the nose should not have the vote, no matter their color. That’s why the USA was founded as a republic and not a democracy.
The Democrat massa’s want their blacks to stay on the plantation.
If our black citizens ever woke up to the way Democrats treat them as slaves, as Democrat property, it would make a world of difference in the nation’s politics.
Lee Daniels is not a journalist. A race-baiting flack, maybe, but certainly not a “journalist”.
Need to wear waders for this article!
A race-baiting flack who is now using this premature impeachment talk to rally the black base. Just what we need.
Stop TALKING about impeachment until after November, then JUST DO IT. It’s only 3.5 months away, don’t take the left’s bait.
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