Senator Ron Johnson said the blatant part out loud, that he fears black people and not white people. When confronted about his remarks, surprise, surprise, he accused his detractors of playing the “race card.” Mr. Johnson uttered one of the most overt racist statements in recent political history. Johnson recognized and acknowledged the ignorance contained in his statement, by prefacing it with the words, “Joe[Pags] this could get me in trouble.” After his continued efforts to clear a bunch of murderous rioting, bigoted, insurrectionists, racist, he went on to say, ‘had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned,” Johnson said.
The blanket indictment by Johnson of Black Lives Matter protesters—in full disclosure, includes me, is about his racism not his love of country. I have marched carried a BLM sign chanted and I have the t-shirt to prove it. Much to the bigoted surprise of Mr. Johnson I have never gouged out the eye of a police officer, beaten one within an inch of his life, or killed another. I have never erected a gallows on the Capitol grounds, smashed the windows of the representative seat of government, or threatened to hang the successor to the president. What Mr. Johnson is advocating is a return to conservatives choosing not only cultural values but the color of those allowed to participate.
Shut up and dribble…
More than an ill-conceived verbal meme by a Fox talking head, “shut up and dribble” is code for, do what we allow. Sing, dance, jump, dunk, and catch— but black people dare not publicly be concerned about your life or the life of your children. Act, run, tap and shuck, but do not participate in representative elections. The Republican party is flooding the country with anti-voter laws so archaic, a Georgia law proposes that giving food or water to people who have stood in long lines would be considered breaking the law. For someone with a medical complication, such as diabetes food and water could be the difference between life and death. Enough black people have died in Georgia already for the right to vote.
Politics is a zero-sum game
The GOP long ago decided that governing is not as much fun as ruling. How or when a woman gives birth, how or when a transgender boy or girl uses a bathroom, where a gay man or woman lives or works are mantras not governing strategies. Republicans are admitting they cannot win with their ideas. When asked by the latest Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, “What’s the interest of the Arizona RNC here in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?” GOP lawyer Michael Carvin answered, “Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game.”
Fortunately, President Biden has decided that bipartisanship is about pleasing the people not his calcitrant opponents. Mr. Biden has an advantage; his race cannot be used against him in a contrived culture war. He served under former President Obama whose entire presidency was a GOP exercise in cultural-grievance. He has seen the playbook up close and therefore is forcing the GOP to engage in real politics.
Continue to Vote for Change.
