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The Archie Bunker 2010 Trap

by: Dean Barker

Sat Apr 24, 2010 at 08:24:16 AM EDT
The new, lawful demonization of brown people in Arizona absolutely must be responded to on a federal level.

But at the same time, we ought to be fully aware that this will mean another victory for the modern GOP's short term strategy of bringing out reactionary Archie Bunker voters to the mid-terms.

The worst president in the history of the Republic, George W. Bush, was in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.  So was the last Republican nominee for president  before he lost the final shreds of his integrity.

When and if President Obama and the Democratic congress make the Arizona situation a national focus (as they probably should), and to the exclusion of a climate bill (which most defintely should not happen), it will serve to energize the most extreme perceived victims of GOP identity politics.

FOX and Hate Radio are going to have a field day with this. The storyline will be of a brown president helping illegal brown people.  This is less of a racist narrative than of the aggrieved Archie Bunker, watching the world he once knew slipping away from him.

Mid-term elections are reaction cycles, and the GOP is doing everything it can to stir up as reactionary a voting bloc as they can.

This is an absolutely disastrous long-term strategy for the Republican party.  But it might very well be successful for this November.

Adding:   Our state is not ethnically diverse; the identity politics game is defined for Archie Bunker voters more in the imaginations of Hate Radio hosts than in real life. And so, the implications of Arizona on New Hampshire are not good, I suspect.  
Dean Barker :: The Archie Bunker 2010 Trap
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The Archie Bunker 2010 Trap | 19 comments
The continuted March off the Righward Cliff of Obscurity (4.00 / 5)
apparently continues unchecked.

On a national level, the GOP is doing a fine job of chasing even socially conservative Hispanics of Mexican heritage out of the party with these barely even hidden racist actions.  They can say goodbye to at least half the mountain west.

But let's not think for a second that this is just a national or southwest issue.  We have had police chiefs right here in NH declare that they would check for immigration status and arrest suspected "illegals" as "trespassers."

I wonder of having a last name like LeTourneau or Maisonneuve or LaChance would be grounds for interrogation in New Hampshire or Vermont?

Several years ago I was pulled over in Swanzey by an officer who insisted that my 19-year old black daughter get out of the car, even after I objected and told the officer she was my daughter, and demanded to know why. She was asked a number of questions before being 'allowed' to get back in the car with me.  When I complained in the days that followed, an insider familiar with 'the system' explained that they were simply making sure I wasn't pimping her.

I can't imagine that the Arizona fallout will be any less of a circus.

Big Bill's (4.00 / 1)
old song may have to change.

In AZ the new second line is now, "if you're brown, get out of town".

Ol' Sheriff Joe is really gonna have to expand his tent city now.

Tough luck for those folks whose families have lived in the same place since the time when AZ was just northern Mexico, awful hard to tell them apart from those criminals sneaking in every day to do work that nobody else will do for the wages paid.

They all look the same to Joe and Archie.

most of you remember the story (4.00 / 5)
about the police chief of New Ipswich, and his decision to arrest brown folks for "trespassing." http://www.boston.com/news/loc...

Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain became the hero of the NH Bunkerites for a time. Dean is right - the implications for NH are not good.

We, as a society, apparently lack the intellectual sophistication to discuss the issue of immigration seriously, and look at where the problems stem from. There is never any talk about how the US policy for decades of  shoring up corrupt Mexican leaders may have impacted the Mexican economy. There is never any talk about how the phony war on drugs creates violence that causes people to flee their homes. This is reflected in the media, of course. Fox News lacks any sort of intellectual sophistication. Their goal is to manufacture, and fan the flames of anger and hate.

The dialogue has become a very streamlined version of the kind of talk we first heard coming from the wizened lips of Ronald Reagan. "Welfare queens driving Cadillacs" have morphed into "illegal aliens stealing your job, collecting welfare, and getting free health care."

I found the words of evangelist Jim Wallis particularly moving. Jim Wallis is an evangelical, who was involved with the civil rights movement in the 60's. While I don't share his theology, I think what he's saying is important. This is part of his statement:

The law signed today by Arizona Gov. Brewer is a social and racial sin, and should be denounced as such by people of faith and conscience across the nation. It is not just about Arizona, but about all of us, and about what kind of country we want to be. It is not only mean-spirited - it will be ineffective and will only serve to further divide communities in Arizona, making everyone more fearful and less safe.

This sort of plea to our collective conscience is something that has been missing from our national dialogue for a long time. Those of us who are old enough to remember the civil rights movement remember a time when we were encouraged to be better - not just to spend more.

I find myself thinking about the great poet Langston Hughes this morning, and his poem Let America Be America Again:

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!




member of the professional left  
Related Piece (4.00 / 1)
TPM's Muckraker had a piece on RNC Chairman Steele's being criticized for calling out the GOP's southern strategy.

From Steele's speech at DePaul University

"For the last 40-plus years we had a 'Southern Strategy' that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, 'Bubba' went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton."

One blogger at RedState wrote: "Steele's job is to make TODAY'S GOP attractive to voters, not to declare that we haven't pandered enough to any group."

And the conservative economist Bruce Bartlett told the Washington Post's Dave Weigel:
I think it's too bad that Steele gave Democrats reason to believe that their distorted vision of how Republicans came to dominate the South is correct. It may be his biggest gaffe so far.

Dean's correct that this strategy, while not a viable long term one, may work in 2010. And that's all the Republicans are concerned about.

advenae non sequitur (4.00 / 1)
the Maverick:

It's the drive-by that -- the drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway. Look, our border is not secured. Our citizens are not safe.

How's that again, John?

(apologies to Dean for the Latin fracture)

I'm happy to glue it back together. (4.00 / 1)
But what is it exactly you are trying to say in Latin?

birch, finch, beech
[ Parent ]
Well, (0.00 / 0)
the non sequitur part is the Maverick's incoherent mumble, regarding the advenae (aliens,immigrants, visitors, etc.), as in the Latin Vulgate, Deut. 24:17 "non pervertes iudicium advenae et pupilli..."

So, I was probably making as much sense in Latin as John was in English. Mea culpa (I do know what that means; Father Quinn saw to that).

[ Parent ]
Ah. (4.00 / 1)
How's this then?

De barbaris cum Johannes Mendax loquitur, non sequitur.

or

When John The Mendacious speaks about non-citizens, it doesn't follow.

birch, finch, beech

[ Parent ]
That works, (0.00 / 0)
and I like the way it scans. Very poetic.

Even so, Johannes would do well to consider the "non pervertes iudicium" admonition...  

[ Parent ]
Bill Richardson (4.00 / 2)
said on tv last night taht with his bear skin color and name...he would need to carry his papers in Arizona because he would most likely be stopped for an 'illegal' check.

6 days till election day
Have you knocked on doors today? Have you made calls ? Have you talked to your neighbors ?  
Society's child...they call you 'chico' instead of your name (0.00 / 0)


6 days till election day
Have you knocked on doors today? Have you made calls ? Have you talked to your neighbors ?  
*beard (0.00 / 0)


6 days till election day
Have you knocked on doors today? Have you made calls ? Have you talked to your neighbors ?  
Gandi (4.00 / 2)
This is crazy stuff, even lower than we might expect from right-wing Republicans

In the great Richard Attenborough 1982 movie Gandhi with Ben Kingsley, we see a scene early on where Gandhi visits South Africa and must show his papers to authorities.  We all know of what eventually happened to apartheid, and how the world views Nelson Mandela -- his courage and his leadership.  It's just amazing it took so long to change a horrible policy.  

We have to ask our fellow Americans -- and that includes all Republicans and Tea Partiers and others who say they love liberty:  Is THAT what we want America -- home of the free and the brave, a beacon of liberty -- to become? Is THAT what our United States Constitution is all about? Is THAT the image we want, the country about which the Declaration Of Independence is written? Is THAT what we think about when we cite the Pledge Of Allegiance? Is THAT what Americans of all kinds -- young and old, gay and straight, men and women, of many religions and nationalities -- have fought in wars to protect? Is THAT what our Star Spangled Banner is about? Is THAT what Jesus would do?

We need immigration reform so that we will have a better process, and Congress needs to continue to act on that.  But we don't need a knee-jerk political reaction that finds more ways to punish families and human beings who don't seem to look "American" enough. The Arizona law will cause neighbor to call police on neighbor and people to be suspicious of one another, until one "proves" he or she belongs. Very crazy stuff -- and un American by its very nature.  Quite disgusting, really.  

What conservatives have been very good at is getting (0.00 / 0)
Democrats to do their dirty work for them.  Clinton pushed through NAFTA.  Clinton promoted and enforced welfare reform.  Clinton and Gore "reinvented government" and made the Pentagon produce a war machine that could invade other nations with impunity.  Clinton enforced sanctions on Iraq that caused a million children to die.  Clinton agreed to the incorporation of depleted uranium into munitions, making every bomb and missile a deliverer of death and congenital malformation for eons.

Bush/Cheney were just the cap-stone.  The deprivation of 99% of the population was not a happenstance.  It was intentional.  Greenspan said that the equity people had accumulated in their homes needed to be "liberated" for the market.  The removal of the capital gains tax on the sale of homes was designed to promote that.  And realtors made sure that the housing that replaced the free and clear homestead put everyone in debt.  Keeping wages "under control" helped propel people into debt.  And then they were accused of being irresponsible.

[ Parent ]
Agreed (4.00 / 3)
This is scary stuff -- allowing police to stop (only brown-skinned) people on suspicion that they are here illegally?  How do they do that?

Immigration is an economic issue.  If Republicans really wanted to stop illegal immigration, they would back massive penalties on imployers who don't check for alien status.

But they will never do that -- employers are disproportionately Republican.  And, besides, who else would clean their houses for slave labor pay?

Yes! (4.00 / 2)
No one ever talks about the number one way to stop illegal immigration:

Stopping the non-brown people from hiring undocumented workers so that they can skirt paying employee taxes and a fair wage.

birch, finch, beech

[ Parent ]
You always know the bad guys in the old movies (4.00 / 1)
They're the ones asking for your "papers."  Alas.
Seth Meyers (4.00 / 1)
NH's own Seth Meyers quipped seriously on that tonight on weekend update...
"Nazis get royalties whenever someone says, Do you have your papers?"


6 days till election day
Have you knocked on doors today? Have you made calls ? Have you talked to your neighbors ?  
[ Parent ]
weekend update link (0.00 / 0)
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-ni...

6 days till election day
Have you knocked on doors today? Have you made calls ? Have you talked to your neighbors ?  
[ Parent ]
The Archie Bunker 2010 Trap | 19 comments

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