Rand Paul and the Sweet Smell of Your Own Crap

[unhappycamper]

http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/04/rand_paul_and_the_sweet_smell_of_your_own_crap.php?ref=fpblg



Rand Paul and the Sweet Smell of Your Own Crap
Josh Marshall April 11, 2013, 12:02 PM

Yesterday morning Sen. Rand Paul went over to Howard University. And it didn’t go terribly well. One might say that’s only to be expected in a case like this - perhaps even the whole point - since the aim is to break the ice between communities either antagonistic to each other or thoroughly out of communication. But it’s more an example of what happens when a staunch conservative steps out of the GOP’s tightly-drawn racial nonsense bubble and hits an audience not dying to be convinced that the GOP’s problems with non-whites are the results of boffo misunderstandings about a Republican party that is actually the best thing that ever happened to black people.

Every organization or group finds way to dish nonsense to the foot soldiers. But real life isn’t always so schematic and unidirectional. Good faith and bad faith and bamboozlement aren’t always neatly separated. When you look at who’s the bamboozled and who’s the bamboozler in this part of the GOP subculture you see that it’s not so clear cut. Often they’re all rolled together in a person.

~snip~

The gist of what happened yesterday was that Paul took this clown show to an audience at an historically black college where, yeah, they actually do know that Lincoln freed the slaves and that Frederick Douglass was a Republican. And they’ve even heard about the Dixiecrats. After I reading Benjy Sarlin’s account I was surprised Paul didn’t introduce himself by thanking the crowd for welcoming him to the ‘Democrat Party Plantation.’

Rand’s surprise was akin to one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons when Bugs’ nemesis walks over a loose floorboard and the board flies up and whaps the guy right in the face. You can become so lost in your own story that you confuse your conciliation with your aggression. The GOP is so deep into its own self-justifying racial alternative reality that there’s some genuine surprise when the claptrap doesn’t survive first contact with actual black people.

[FSogol]

1. LOL. First Contact between the GOP and actual black people.

[el_bryanto]

2. That's the danger of arguing with a caricature

Your caricature inevitably takes on more and more negative qualities while erasing why someone thinks that way in the first place. That's how a guy like Rand Paul, living in an ideological bubble, genuinely believes that Black people - Black college students even - aren't aware of history, and aren't aware that Republicans used to be far more liberal, particularly on racial issues.

They probably know things that Paul wouldn't acknowledge - like the fact that the racist dixiecrats all joined the Republican party in the wake of Civil Rights.

But it's a cautionary tale for us as well - a bubble is a bubble; whether it's a DU bubble or a GOP bubble. One has to be sure one is arguing with a real person and not just what you think conservatoids are like.

Bryant

[monmouth3]

3. It amazes me how little they know about American History. They should be tested, really..n/t

[Blue Owl]

4. Bet he just farted in that elevator

n/t

[Whiskeytide]

5. The reliable Jon Stewart...

... hit this last night better than anyone else could have...

Guess Who's Coming to Howard

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

[reflection]

6. Was listening to Mike Huckabee yesterday at lunch

like I normally do. I listen to RW talk radio all day to hone my ninja skills against my RW co-workers.

Anyway, Huckabee painted this very compelling story about how Paul went to Howard and disarmed the students with his airtight logic and gregarious manner. Apparently when he left, all those misguided black people had seen the error of their ways and were eating his imparted wisdom out of the palm of his hand. Amazing!

[trotsky]

7. Or as Colbert referred to him...

"Senator and home perm cautionary tale, Rand Paul."