Has Pointless Racism Driven The Republican Party Mad?

Last night, writing about the need to cope with China's role in Climate Change, Paul Krugman pointed out that "any attempt to make sense of current American politics must take into account this particular indicator of the Republican Party’s descent into madness." Krugman's analysis stands up across a dozen "issues," but it doesn't take into account the bitter and primitive racism and white outrage at the heart of the deranged and persistent drive to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama, a deranged drive that began the moment he was elected. The policy doesn't matter. The nominee doesn't matter. To the hardcore racist right-- primarily unreconstructed Confederates and their allies-- if Obama proposed it, it must be opposed, no matter the cost.

Thursday, Sylvia Burwell as confirmed to be Secretary of Health and Human Services 78-17, the 17 being all GOP racists, eager to disrupt the smooth functioning of government just for the sake of opposing a man they don't recognize as a legitimate president-- no matter what the voters said… and then said again. Their voters, after all did not say so. In fact, on the Burwell matter, the day before, Mitch McConnell led a filibuster to prevent a vote on her nomination at all. McConnell knew he would fail-- as he did, 67-28-- but several of his backward colleagues were happy to go on the record as opposing Obama again. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example, voted to keep the filibuster going and, when that effort failed-- having made the point that… whatever the point is-- voted for the confirmation.

So why the two clips fromRachel Maddow's Thursday evening show? Just another example of the deranged hyper-partisan nature of Republican opposition to anything and everything President Obama wants to do on behalf of the country. And it isn't just a liberal like Maddow who's remarking on this derangement syndrome. Right wing propagandist David Brooks devoted his Thursday NY Times column to it: President Obama Was Right.

Americans don’t have a common ancestry. Therefore, we have to work hard to build national solidarity. We go in for more overt displays of patriotism than in most other countries: politicians wearing flag lapel pins, everybody singing the national anthem before games, saying the Pledge of Allegiance at big meetings, revering sacred creedal statements, like the Gettysburg Address.

We need to do this because national solidarity is essential to the health of the country. This feeling of solidarity means that we do pull together and not apart in times of crisis, like after the attacks on 9/11. Despite all our polarization, we do accept the election results, even when the other party wins. People in New York do uncomplainingly send tax dollars to help people in New Mexico. We are able to assimilate waves of immigration.

National solidarity is especially important for the national defense. Men and women serve in the armed forces for a variety of reasons, but one of them is the awareness that it is an extraordinary privilege to be an American, that it is a debt that needs to be repaid with service.

Soldiers in combat not only protect their buddies, they show amazing devotion to anyone in the uniform, without asking about state or ethnicity. This is the cohesion that makes armies effective.

These commitments, so crucial, are based on deep fraternal sentiments that have to be nurtured with action. They are based on the notion that we are members of one national community. We will not abandon each other; we will protect one another; heroic measures will be taken to leave no one behind. Even if it is just a lifeless body that we are retrieving, it is important to repatriate all Americans.

The president and vice president, the only government officials elected directly by the entire nation, have a special responsibility to nurture this national solidarity. So, of course, President Obama had to take all measures necessary to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Of course, he had to do all he could do to not forsake an American citizen.

It doesn’t matter if Bergdahl had deserted his post or not. It doesn’t matter if he is a confused young man who said insulting and shameful things about his country and his Army. The debt we owe to fellow Americans is not based on individual merit. It is based on citizenship, and loyalty to the national community we all share.

Soldiers don’t risk their lives only for those Americans who deserve it; they do it for the nation as a whole.

…President Obama made the right call. If he is to be faulted, it would be first for turning the release into an Oprah-esque photo-op, a political stunt filled with inaccurate rhetoric and unworthy grandstanding. It would next be for his administration’s astonishing tone-deafness about how this swap would be received… [T]he president’s instincts were right. His sense of responsibility for a fellow countryman was correct. It’s not about one person; it’s about the principle of all-for-one-and-one-for-all, which is the basis of citizenship.

Republicans, almost entirely steeped in hatred and bigotry and brainwashed by Hate Talk Radio, no longer have that sense of responsibility for a fellow countryman-- or for anything else that benefits America or Americans. Nothing gets beyond the hatred and white rage. And there are no lies too outrageous for them to perpetrate in the service of their goals. The Republican Party has turned itself into a party of sedition and madness.