Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:29 pm
Today on his radio show Rush Limbaugh claimed that Barack Obama is making white people the new oppressed minority. He said, “How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration, by hating white people.” Rush seems to have forgotten that 8 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices are white, and that Obama himself is half white.
Here is the audio from Media Matters:
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Limbaugh said, “We have made progress in civil rights, but now with this. How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration, by hating white people, or even saying you do, or that their not good, or whatever. Make white people the new oppressed minority and they are going along with it, because their shutting up. They’re moving to the back of the bus. They’re saying I can’t use that drinking fountain, ok. I can’t use that restroom, ok. That’s the modern day Republican Party, the equivalent of the Old South, the new oppressed minority.”
After saying that race doesn’t matter, Rush called Sotomayor a racist, “I care about whether she’s qualified, and I think she’s disqualified herself. Not only does she lack the often-discussed appropriate judicial temperament, it’s worse than that. She brings a form of bigotry or racism to the court. I don’t care — we’re not supposed to say it, we’re supposed to pretend it didn’t happen, we’re supposed to look at other things, but it’s the elephant in the room. ”
This is such a preposterous argument. Rush is complaining that white people are an oppressed minority because only 7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices will be white if Sotomayor is confirmed. Notice how, Limbaugh is throwing a temper tantrum because the Republican Party is not following his advice. Senate Republicans aren’t going to go down the racial path on this one. They may vote against her based on philosophical opposition, but they don’t think that she is a racist.
Limbaugh’s whole argument is based on the warping of Sotomayor’s wise Latina quote. There is no evidence that she is a racist. Rush’s notion that the GOP should be the party of white rights is a continuation of what we saw in the 2008 campaign. The advocates of the white rights strategy seem to forget that Obama is half white himself. They show their own racism, when they project racist motives on to the president.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
