Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:07 pm
On his radio show today Rush Limbaugh upped his race baiting rhetoric by claiming that Barack Obama is promoting racism, “He is promoting this, just as he is ACORN, just as he is Van Jones. He is racism.”Of course, in Limbaugh’s mind Obama is promoting racism by being black. The racism in the GOP is not an Obama conspiracy.
Here is the audio courtesy of Media Matters:
Limbaugh said, “Let’s return here to the subject of race. What’s really going on there’s two things going on, well there’s multiple things going on, let me focus on three. The first thing is that this page one of the Democrat Party playbook and they’re replaying it, and they are doing this because they are losing on everything. They’re losing at everything. This is a tantamount admission that are in disarray and they are flummoxed as to what to do next. What they are trying to say is the whole conservative movement is racist. That conservatism equals racism. This is their point. I mean they could go and they do routinely, they can trash black, brown, yellow conservatives day and night, they’re never accused of racism. We question a president who is black, we’re racists automatically.”
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Rush launched into his Obama conspiracy, “This is all manufactured. It is intended to discriminate and distract, and I believe it’s coming right out of Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod’s office. I think it is a tactic, its page one of the playbook. The press goes right along with it. The New York Times today, as race debate grows Obama steers clear of it. B.S., he’s behind it. He is promoting it. He is permitting it. He is allowing it. He likes it. It’s chaos. It’s distracting. This is exactly what he wants, and it’s his modus operandi since he has been in politics. Obama has his hacks go out and do the dirty work while he pretends to be above it.”
After blaming Obama for Jack Ryan’s sex scandal in Illinois, Limbaugh said, “This stuff preceded Carter. Obama did nothing about it. He declined to answer questions on it. He is promoting this. Just as he is ACORN, just he is Van Jones, he is racism. He is behind this. It’s his administration. You can not get away with the president of the United States staying above the fray, steering clear of it, when the whole operation is orchestrated from his White House.”
Limbaugh is charging that all the racism on the right is being trumped up by Barack Obama. Rush is blaming the victim. This argument is along the same lines as saying that a woman deserved to be raped if she dress seductively. In essence, Limbaugh believes that racism against Obama is a secret operation being run out of the White House designed to make conservatives look bad.
By the way, I can’t recall a single person on the left ever saying that conservatism is racist. Not all conservatives are racists. What Limbaugh is doing here is trying to make the racists feel better about their racism, which is not some giant Obama conspiracy. The racism is a byproduct of the core of the Republican Party being older, white, and based in the South. The racists are gaining so much attention because they have become a part of the grassroots of a shrunken GOP. Limbaugh’s allegations are insane even for him.
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
