Pat Buchanan's Race Baiting

By Tanya Acker
08/31/2009

I spend a fair amount of time sparring with those who fall along various points on the right-wing spectrum, so I should not have been surprised by the interesting constellation of venom in Mr. Buchanan's recent essay, Populist Right Rising. In it, Mr. Buchanan posits an end to the "Age of Obama," that epoch having been abbreviated by a resurgence of white, right-wing rage. It is a rage that has been much on display of late during the town halls taking place across the country, and it is a rage with which, according to Mr. Buchanan, much of America empathizes.

As evidence of that empathy, Mr. Buchanan relies upon a Pew poll, in which he claims 61% of those polled believe the town hall protestors are "behaving properly." This alleged identification with the town hall protestors (who have taken to bringing firearms to presidential events and accusing the advocates of health care reform of genocidal tendencies) is apparently premised, according to Mr. Buchanan, on the notion that the protestors "look and talk just like them." The American public is therefore doing nothing more than showing its loyalty to its own, much as it did during the 1968 Democratic Convention when "the country sided with the Chicago cops" who confronted the antiwar protestors and "gave them a good thrashing." ...

Mr. Buchanan's fluency in the techniques of partisan race baiting is so well known that it deserves no comment here. ... Mr. Buchanan goes on to say that the GOP was not hurt when "by four to one, its senators voted against "Ms. Affirmative Action" (that would be Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in case you were wondering). Such a spiteful reference to the High Court's newest Justice is probably among the more banal of Mr. Buchanan's race-baiting tactics. ...

Full story: http://www.thegrio.com/2009/08/i-spend-a-fair-amount.php