GOP Has Greene, No Need For Racist Dog Whistles
The clique of the most radical and dangerous of the far right lawmakers in Congress is no longer using dog whistles to mask their plans; their message is now on the table, no nuances, no grey areas as they promote racism and hatred in the worst tradition of such shameful demagogues as the late Sen. Huey Long, the late Father Charles Coughlin, the late George Wallace and of course, the not late, trump.
In this case, the old southern expression, “don’t that tear the rag off the bush,” fits perfectly. That refers to the most outrageous or unbelievable thing you can imagine and comes from the tradition back in the day, when shooting contest winners were the first to shoot off a rag, draped on a bush as a target.
The latest step into unraveling democracy came with the announcement by who else, QAnon loving, white supremacist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., that she was forming what she called the “America First” caucus, unabashedly supporting American nationalism, white nationalism, Trumpism, social conservatism, anti-immigration, anti-communism, federalism and isolationism.
Call it was it really is, a caucus to promote the most vile white supremacist, neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan agenda. And guess who are the other Republican members of congress on the “America First” bandwagon: That would be the same familiar far right, trump-bootlicking clowns, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who is under investigation for human trafficking; Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who has ties with white supremacist groups including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and Holocaust deniers and who was censured by the House of Representatives on Nov. 17, 2021, and stripped of committee assignments for posting an edited clip of “Attack on Titan” depicting him killing a titan with the face of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and attacking a character with President Joe Biden’s face on social media; Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, rabidly anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, rejects climate change science, foments discredited cures for COVID-19, pro trump border wall, and purveyor of the conspiracy theory that Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol was a set up by Democrats; and last but not least, Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., who like his fellow wingnuts, claimed trump was robbed of a second term as would-be dictator.
Greene announced the launch of the “America First” caucus on April 15, and two days later, said she was canceling the caucus, coincidentally after an inflammatory flyer promoting the caucus was leaked to the political, on-line news site, Punchbowl News.
Of course, Greene said the story in Punchbowl News reflected “a staff level draft proposal from an outside group that I hadn’t read.”
“On Friday, sick and evil POS [piece of s****] in the media attacked me with phrases I never said or wrote,” she said in a statement to Newsweek. “The scum and liars in the media are calling me a racist by taking something out of context.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said the new group “sounds like the Klu Klux Caucus to me.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., mocked the caucus and asked “Will non Aryans be allowed to join?” and “Can we have fried rice and nachos during the meetings?”
Quick to criticize was Rep. Liz Chaney, R-Wyo., the maverick Republican who was isolated from the party after she voted to impeach trump and refused to support the lie that trump was robbed of the 2020 presidential election.
“Republicans believe in equal opportunity, freedom, and justice for all. We teach our children the values of tolerance, decency and moral courage…Racism, nativism, and anti-Semitism are evil. History teaches we all have an obligation to confront & reject such malicious hate,” Chaney said.
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who rarely criticizes other Republicans, declared, “The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln & the party of more opportunity for all Americans — not nativist dog whistles.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., another rare and endangered maverick Republican in Congress, called on party leaders to expel members of the caucus, referring to it as the “White Supremacy Caucus.”
The flyer about the abortive caucus said that “America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”
It proposed ending “mass immigration” to avert “the long-term existential failure of America as a unique country with a unique culture and a unique identity,” abolish unnaturalized birthright citizenship, reject amnesty for undocumented immigrants and reject “federally imposed refugee resettlement programs.”
It further proposed working towards “an infrastructure that reflects the architectural, engineering, and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture.”
The caucus supported “nationwide systemic electoral reform” including an end to mail-in voting, implementing nationwide voter ID and investigating “mass voter fraud perpetrated during the 2020 election.” It supports “exposing deep state actors, shrinking the regulatory state, and eliminating thousands of regulations and indeed entire bureaucracies,” fighting against “Big Tech” whose powers were “weaponized and deployed against conservatives” as they “continue to allow terrorists and pedophiles to organize and publish on their platforms.”
It goes on to call for an end to foreign aid to America’s allies and non-governmental organizations, abandoning America’s “hawkish neoconservative foreign policy” and pushing for “bold diplomatic endeavors (which) must be undertaken with countries such as Russia and North Korea to ensure a more peaceful and stable world.”
“America must remain a free and independent Republic, not a globalist watchdog,” said the flyer. It also supports conserving the environment while opposing international climate agreements, social justice programs, and programs which would “disadvantage the manufacturing sector.” It backs the coal industry and ending “job-killing regulations” and supports construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.
Another priority would be education reform to reject the “powerful left-wing special interest groups” and “progressive indoctrination” and instead support “pride in America’s great history” and “cultural assimilation necessary for a strong nation” to make America “prepared militarily and economically to compete with a peer-competitor” in a “neo-Maoist” China.
While Greene has backed off the new caucus, for now, the voters of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District rewarded the first term lawmaker with a victory in the June Republican Primary. She beat five challengers and is expected to easily win re-election in her deeply red district in November.
The Greene gang is among the most inflammatory when it comes to rhetoric but their positions are in the GOP mainstream. The latest examples were the reactions to the slew of mass shootings, most recently when 19 children and two adults were gunned down at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The suspect, an 18-year-old student at Uvalde High School, was shot and killed by police.
In an all too predictable outpouring of Sturm und Drang, Democrats including President Biden, called for tougher gun control laws while Republicans responded with a call for more guns in schools.
Two weeks ago, an 18-year-old radicalized white man is alleged to have murdered 10 people at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. The alleged killer referred in a manifesto to the so-called “Great Replacement Theory” that has been used in racist and antisemitic killings around the world over the past decade and claims that immigrants are stealing the American way of life from white Americans and white Europeans. Democrats decried right wing politicians and media performers for publicizing and supporting the replacement theory while Republicans lashed back that the Democrats were politicizing the shooting to blame Republicans.
And last week, the House passed a new bill to fight domestic terrorism. Kinzinger was the only one Republican who voted in favor of the bill, which is expected to be defeated in the Senate.
The bill would establish domestic terrorism offices within the Justice and Homeland Security departments, as well as the FBI. It would also require new reports, with a focus on extremists who might infiltrate the military and law enforcement agencies.
Many Republicans have refused to acknowledge the continuing dangers from white supremacists and Republican leaders said the latest proposal was another effort by Democrats to unfairly target Americans for speaking out.
“How long until mainstream Christianity is considered domestic extremism?” said Gaetz, a partner in the “America First” caucus plan.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also complained that the proposed bill would be used to silence protest by Republicans. The Jan. 6 Commission investigating the Capitol riot found that Roy, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had exchanged more than 100 text messages to overturn trump’s election defeat.
“The father goes to complain to the school board, and then the National Association of School Boards coordinates with the Department of Justice to figure out how to target parents — to then tag individuals specifically as to whether or not they’re threatening people by merely going to a school board to register their complaint,” said Roy. “That is what is at stake here. That is why we’re opposing what Democrats are trying to do.”
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said the Justice Department had “targeted and labeled rightfully concerned parents as domestic terrorists for speaking out at school board meetings,” a claim that is patently false.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wis., has promoted trump’s big lie about the election, has rejected the scientific consensus on climate change and has supported misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Democrats can’t even wait an hour before they blame the Republicans for the Buffalo shooting. I think it’s despicable,” Johnson said.
Monitoring the activities of American extremists “sounds terrible” to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a leading proponent of trump’s voter conspiracy lie who objected to the counting of presidential electoral votes and was photographed saluting protestors with a raised fist outside the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by trump supporters on the Capitol.
And the beat goes on.