McCain's Last Resort: Hate

With one month to go and no more Hail Marys left in their playbook, the McCain campaign is finally unveiling its Plan B, an all-fronts onslaught of racism and fear the likes of which we haven’t seen since Hurricane Katrina. And don’t you fucking dare be surprised. You knew this was going to happen the minute Obama cinched the Democratic nomination back in February. You said, “This is going to get ugly.” Well, now it’s ugly.

Look up there. A big Drudge Report headline about O.J. Simpson, during the last month of the hottest election cycle in decades, and one of the greatest financial collapses in history? And isn’t there a Britney Spears sex tape floating around somewhere? Hmm. Something’s fishy.

O.J. Simpson, you may be aware, is white-people shorthand for “dangerous negro.” We don’t know if he really murdered his wife or not, and frankly, if he was a white guy, we wouldn’t care.  We just like saying “O.J.” and we hate black people, so it’s a marriage of convenience. To start plastering his face all over your right-leaning news website is no coincidence. We know what you mean.

It gets better. Now that Governor Squareglasses isn’t quite the tonic everyone had hoped for, she’s stepping into her new role as Insinuator General:

“Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo. A deliberate attempt to smear Obama, McCain’s ticket-mate echoed the line at three separate events Saturday.

“This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said. “We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.”

The AP, in moment of uncharacteristic insight, reads this “us versus them,” “the other guy’s a fucking terrorist” talk for what it is: a play on the submerged racism of their base.  It’s unfashionable to hate people because they’re black, but hating them because they’re just plain old different, well, who could blame ya?

But the prize for best overt racism is a split decision between Greg Howard, a Florida Middle School Teacher who decided to do a little “grass-roots” campaigning:

Larry Moore, deputy superintendent for the Jackson County School District, said school officials determined Howard wrote an acronym with an explanation on a dry-erase board in his class Sept. 26 at Marianna Middle School.

 It said, “C.H.A.N.G.E. — Come Help A (N-word) Get Elected.”

and Bobby May, a McCain surrogate who thought that Obama’s platform could use a little elucidation.  His column, which ran in Buchanan County, Virginia, included such gems as:

FREEDOM OF RELIGION: Mandatory Black Liberation Theology classes taught in all churches - raise taxes to pay for this mandate. Put Rev. Jeremiah Wright in charge. Condemnation of homosexuality from the pulpit will become a Class 1 Felony.

THE WHITE HOUSE: Hire rapper Ludacris to “paint it black.” Taxes to be increased to buy enough paint for the job plus spray-paint for graffiti.

NATIONAL ANTHEM: Change to the “Black National Anthem” by James Weldon Johnson. And raise taxes.

Priceless. And it’s only October 6th. Just imagine what’s going to happen when McCain drops below the threshold of a believable comeback, say under 40% in more than one national poll.  If you have “respectable” people in positions of authority fomenting this kind of racial anxiety, what happens? If you’re a student of history you should able to answer this one.  That is, if you aren’t already, you know, curled up on the floor shaking.

Comments

[michael]

ahhh. on olbermann the acronym stood for "can you help a..."

so CYHANGE.

which for some reason seems so much more likely to have been howard's explanation of the word. because he's stupid, see?