*debunked

It does seem like the right-wing consensus will be to just double-down on the original racist dog whistle, rather than shift to one of the others they've tried out since 2007.

I certainly look forward to the Republican primary debate questions about this.

@chilaxe, what sub-culture are you referring to? Why are you assuming that the only factor in hiring political appointees to cabinet-level positions would be cognitive ability? Seems to me management skills, loyalty, and ideological compatibility would matter a lot more, even to politicians I like, than cognitive ability.

In any case, I think you're fundamentally asking the wrong question. Someone working for Kasich must have mentioned that this would be an issue, politically. If it was a matter of Kasich wanting to appoint someone, but wasn't able to find even one qualified non-white conservative to give a position to, then I sorta sympathize with him. He's just a victim of the larger conservative movement's hostility to anyone who isn't Caucasian.

Thing is, he seems to be relishing the fight. Going so far as to respond to a black Democrat who offered to help him with building a more diverse cabinet, he said "I don't need your people." He later released a clarifying statement that by "your people" he meant Democrats, but the damage was already done.

You see, my theory isn't that Kasich himself is necessarily racist. My theory is that he, and the Republican party in general, seek the support of racists. Better still, they seek to portray white people as being somehow persecuted by minorities and their liberal allies.

That's why he pushed back when people questioned him about it. He's not excluding black people, he's just hiring the most qualified people, and obviously that means blacks won't make the cut. If he thought he could've gotten away with it, he'd have made the same bell-curve argument you were hinting at, but that would've been too overt. The dog whistle is only meant to be heard by the people who know what they're listening for, not by normal people who find racism abhorrent.

Now he gets the best of both worlds. The racists can think that he only let a black man in his cabinet because he got pressured by the black community (persecution!), and the rest of the conservatives can go "see, he's not racist, I don't know why those pesky Democrats made such a fuss about it."

It's the state of the art in racial politics. You undermine legitimate claims by painting them as partisan politics, while at the same time you push veiled racist arguments into the mainstream (I'm not hiring a token black guy...because that's all they could possibly be, a token).

It's genius. Evil, but genius none the less.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

"anti-colonial" So many dog whistles for racists out there.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I'm getting sick of the "chosen one" polarizing hyperbole bullshit. My eye rolls are wearing out. He's not the chosen one- but seems to be a pretty good president. Though this particular "press availability" is hokey and fakey as all get-out.

I'm starting to hear "chosen one" and "arrogant" as the redneck dog whistle that it is. For the Neocon Southerner- these two terms are heard as "uppity".

>> ^dannym3141:

Must be some serious fascist downvoting blank's comments there. I've restored the balance.
Maybe it's some sort of washington siftspy. HE'S QUESTIONING THE MOTIVES OF THE CHOSEN ONE. DO NOT QUESTION BUT BLINDLY FOLLOW THE MAN WHO HAS BEEN ENTRUSTED WITH EVERYONE'S MONEY AND SAFETY! DISCREDIT HIM QUICKLY LEST HE TURN SHEEP INTO PEOPLE!

>> ^Psychologic:
Yes, he was being anti-immigrant, but Maddow was trying to imply that the entire convention was supporting overt racism. Honestly, I think they were mostly applauding the Liberal-bashing aspect of it.

I agree that we can't be sure whether the audience was hearing the literacy test dog-whistle. She wants to make sure that the people in her audience who might not have heard it, hear it, and are concerned about how many people in the room got the message.

Mostly, I think you're trying too hard here to make this into a case of Maddow being unfair to poor little Tom Tancredo and the teabaggers for insinuating that they might have understood the racist undertones in a speech given by a racist at a convention of people who've been saying some somewhat famously racist things.

Then again, what would be more disturbing: that people applauded literacy tests knowing what they represent, or that people applauded it not knowing what they represent?

If anything, I think the latter bothers me more.

To people who think there isn't race baiting going on, look up who Tom Tancredo is, and sifted clips of other comments from him.

Really, you just have to understand dog whistle politics. The whole point of it is to say something that could sound innocuous and defensible to the majority of people who hear it, but hits a keyword that's understood by the people it's meant for who you normally would publicly disassociate yourself from (e.g. people who pine for the days when black people couldn't vote). Plausible deniability is essentially the name of the game.

That said, even if you ignore the "literacy test" dog whistle, the "in English" part is pretty transparent anti-immigrant language.

I would agree that the dog whistles themselves aren't really shocking, or even the worst part of what he's saying. What he's really saying is that Democrats don't have a legitimate claim to power, even if they win elections, because he doesn't think the kind of people who vote for Democrats are legitimate citizens in the first place.

There's some muddiness about whether that's because he thinks they're ignorant, or because of their skin color (personally, I think it's clear he means for listeners to hear both aspects), but the message that Democrats have seized power through illegitimate means is the real insidious core message.

That guy sounded like Sean Hannity! You just say something, and say it again, and then say it some more, and then some more again it say, then it again say more some, and and and point your fingers, or,

OR--!!

the special Sean Hannity point-both-fingers-up-and-hold-them-beside-your-face-thing as you say the same shit again and again and again.

I wonder how many of these teabaggers who were calling Obama a socialist back in October when Palin was using the term are now calling him a fascist because someone blew the dog whistle and started saying "fascist"?

^ That's why they're called "morons". There are educated people on both sides too.

There are some violent people on both sides as well, but Obama isn't saying "McCain will start a nuclear war with Russia", he isn't saying "he's going to rape the natural resources of the earth", he isn't saying "he will imprison and torture anyone who he feels like".

He isn't trying to incite our violent tendencies. If anything, he's trying to cool them, and get us to understand that disagreements about policies should not prevent us from getting along.

McCain is sending out Palin and his other surrogates to tell people that Obama is risky, unknown, dangerous, hates America, hates its values, and may be involved in violence against our government. That's not subtle. That's not a dog whistle, it's a fog horn.

These two parties are not being run by the same kinds of people. They're not equally evil -- they're not even remotely in the same category.

She's got everything to apologize for. It wasn't about RFK or RFK Jr, it was about Obama and used as an excuse to stay in the race. For a little context on why browse this.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/02/20/racist-attacks-on-obama-growing-more-heated/

She started the statement off with the argument that this wasn't a long primary. The primary she tried to compare this one to didn't even start until well into March, this one started in the first days of January. The equivalent length for the 1968 RFK one would have taken it into mid August at least, not June. She was trying to say this wasn't a long one by a dishonest comparison to start with then she added the assassination thing into it, topped a lie with that.

She's been in politics long enough and race has been a big enough issue that she's well aware of the history of black leaders when they get too successful, of the fact that Obama got Secret Service protection early in response to already getting death threats, and she's no doubt aware that the threat hasn't dissipated in the slightest as he gets closer to a win. Look at all the concerns we've seen here over time, she's not blind to it either and she knew exactly what she was doing.

It was at best a stupid and callous thing to say and at worst a dog whistle to the supers and others, don't invest too much in this man because he may not be here too long. It wasn't a wish, that much I do believe, just a stupid move from a politician who should have known better and who still owes Obama, his family, and his supporters an apology for it.

Can't you hear that dog whistle, Choggie?