GOP Congressional Caucasian

There's nothing like the Midwest, aka, the flyover states, aka the "real" America, where folks are folks, where the moral compass always points to our true north, and where white supremacy remains not-so-hidden below the surface, just like the "surprise" in the region's Chicken Alfredo casserole. 

N.B. I'm half Minnesotan and spent 4 years in the Midwest at college (M Blo Gue!), so I know something of which I speak.

Okay, back on topic...Representative Steve "Chicken à la" King (R-Iowa) has based his entire political career on bringing out the surprise in our national noodle zeitgeist. The New York Times recently published an interview with him, in which he wrapped himself in the bloody flag of white angst and victimhood to bemoan how the language of hatred and exclusion had "suddenly" become so unfashionable and verboten in public discourse. Clearly, this same language caused involuntary urinary discharge in their lower haberdashery of many members of the GOP leadership, causing many of them to go onto the airwaves, furrow their brows, and speak very sternly about how King's pronouncements had no place in their party's vision for this nation. 

Really?

Mind you, they have no problem whatsoever with actual substantive policy objectives that this language would promote and defend. This is a blog and not a historical essay, so I won't be able to provide the exhaustive account of the GOP's efforts to rollback the civil rights and other social reforms that were initiated in the 1950s and 1960s even before the ink on them had begun to dry. Suffice it to say that the Richard M. Nixon's Southern strategy was the beginning of the political legitimization or normalization of white supremacy. Before politicians and garden variety yahoos had no need for such niceties as nuanced political strategies and messaging. They simply strung the dad gum (censored) up and had themselves a good ol' lynchin'. 

Thanks to the deviant minds of folks like Pat "America First - and Second, and Third" Buchanan, Lee "Willie Horton" Atwater and Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove, somehow the GOP was able to bridge from its core of plutocratic elites to working class Americans, the so-called "Reagan Democrats," by appealing to their collective sense of grievance, which has been suppressed by the brief moment of progress towards racial equality. From the late 1960s onward, the GOP milked the pus from America's foundational wound of racist genocide even while it did everything in its power to prevent the wound from ever healing properly. They pursued policies that shredded the social safety net, rolled back hard fought gains in civil rights, and promoted mass incarceration of mostly people of color.

Now lest folks think, "There he goes again, bashing the GOP." Let's also remember a few important facts. The Southern strategy was a response to the legislative juggernaut that was Lyndon Baines Johnson. He both destroyed the Dixiecrat-dominated Democratic Party and re-created it into one that stood for prosperity for all, racial equality, and protection of the most vulnerable with greater access to better quality public services. However, it wasn't long before his successors in the Democratic Party leadership, after getting smacked in the mouth a few too many times at the ballot box, began to adopt a "Lite" version of the GOP's strategy, all to win back the Reagan Democrats. 

They gave us Slick Willy Clinton's "Ending Welfare as We Know It," Hilary Clinton's law 'n' order dog whistle about "Superpredators," and Obama's tough guy "Deporter-in-Chief" shtick, all to prove that they could outdo the GOP in appealing to whites' anxiety about losing their status in our increasingly racially diverse society. At the same time, the Democratic Party began to rely more on corporate donors and less on its union and other movement-based allies for campaign support and policy ideas. Indeed, if you follow the money ("He who pays the piper...), it's been pretty difficult to distinguish between the two parties with the main difference being the Democrats' capability to speak out of both sides of their mouths: reassurances to military and corporate elite that they would maintain an unjust, militaristic status quo while weeping crocodile tears to the masses about feeling their pain. 

Anyway, back to Congressman Noodle Head, his biggest mistake was to rip off the frayed smiley face sticker that the GOP (and many in the Democratic Party) have slapped onto their sordid policy agenda of white supremacy and ever-greater economic inequality. I guess he crossed a line and, as a result, is no longer considered useful by his party's leadership. He'll have to content himself with eating a casserole of his own making: crow.