DC Trawler

You’ll never guess the real reason behind criticism of Obama’s tax-and-spend policies

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Check out the latest ad from Crossroads GPS, Karl Rove’s super PAC:

If you agree with this, you might as well get yourself fitted for a white hood. That’s according to David Sirota at Salon.com:

Lee Atwater’s claim to fame was his pioneering use of racially divisive imagery in political messages that, superficially, didn’t seem to be about race at all. The most infamous examples, of course, were Atwater ads like the “Revolving Door” and the Willie Horton spots…

Though Atwater made those comments and those ads a generation ago, they are — sadly — not outdated tactics merely for debate among historians. They are particularly relevant this week thanks to a new television ad campaign launched by Atwater’s friend and protege, Karl Rove…

As you can see, like Atwater before him, Rove presents the image of an African-American man as an evildoer, referring to him as the tax-raising “he,” and pitting him against the “we” in classic demagogic “us versus them” terms.

Now before you explain that away as non-racial partisanship against a Democratic president rather than coded racial messaging, remember one additional point: In the ad, almost all of the “we” who allegedly oppose tax increases just so happen to be white people.

Well, so were most of the people at Obama’s campaign headquarters, and so are most of the people in the Obama White House. So are most Obama supporters. But as long as they agree with him on policy, nothing they do or say can be racist.

And if you’ve got a problem with that, if you think it’s ridiculous to reduce every single policy issue to “If you disagree with me, you’re a racist,” Sirota is way ahead of you:

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Come to think of it, that expression is pretty damn racist, ain’t it?

Once again, the only person angrier than a liberal who just lost is a liberal who just won.

P.S. Also Racist Now: Pronouns.

P.P.S. Sirota in action.