Rancher Cliven Bundy gestures at his home in Bunkerville, Nevada April 12, 2014. U.S. officials ended a stand-off with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert on Saturday, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally gra
attribution: REUTERS

The GOP's most recent grassroots hero
It would be funny if it weren't so disturbing. Republicans, their propagandists and their enablers have been whining about Republicans being called on their racism. Which was particularly revealing in the context of attempting to defend having accused President Obama of racism. All of which was the opening act to Republicans falling all over themselves in gushing support of a locked and loaded, ostensibly anti-government deadbeat social welfare recipient, who just shockingly—shockingly!— turned out to be a frothing racist. Now, to be clear, as DCCC Chair Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) recently graciously admitted, not all Republicans are racists. But Republicans do continue to pursue racist political policies. And Republican leaders do have a problem confronting the overt racism festering within their party. And Republicans do continue to make systematic efforts to prevent black people from voting. Whether it's using the zombie lie of voter fraud as an excuse to legislate disenfranchisement or the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority gutting the Voting Rights Act to make it easier to legislate disenfranchisement or whether it's straight up voter intimidation, Republicans use every available means to try to prevent African Americans from participating in representative government. Republicans use every excuse to prevent immigrants from becoming citizens.
But this is about so much more than policy. It's about who these people are. It's about values. It's about projecting their own lack of humanity on others, and attempting to use their historical and institutional privileges to enforce it. No matter their excuses for their racist policy positions, they reveal themselves by their repetitive habit of what too often are excused as verbal gaffes, too often excused with half-assed apologies and almost always excused as isolated incidents that are emblematic of nothing. But they are not isolated instances. They are part of a repetitive pattern. They keep happening. And they reveal the real animus behind the policy positions that do not but coincidentally hurt minorities.
Join me over the fold for more. Much, much more.