Brave New Films and Color of Change have compiled the “best of the worst” video footage of lynch mob-like crowds attending McCain/Palin rallies over the past several weeks, documenting the racism and violent threats.
Color of Change is sending a public letter to their campaign asking them to take responsibility for changing the tone of the rallies they’re putting together, and asking people to rethink their behavior.
Anyone who’s resisted the idea that there are racist McCain supporters out there won’t be able to get past this video. As Ta-nehisi Coates at the Atlantic points out — It’s not just disturbing that this guy is so obviously evil, but it’s further upsetting that the no one in the crowd around him admonishes him for his open racism. The banality of evil, indeed.
I also find it really sad and upsetting that they’re employing one of my favorite childhood book characters to make racist attacks. Poor Curious George.
Over the weekend, we got caught up on watching our saved Rachel Maddow shows — one thing that struck me was than when she interviewed Pat Buchanan, he keep going to the same talking point — “McCain is suffering in the polls over the last three weeks because of the economy taking a nose dive!”
And McCain is on that meme now, as noted in the Huffington Post: “the economy has hurt us a little bit in the last week or two.”
The trouble is, this economic crisis DIDN’T JUST START a couple of weeks ago. It’s been going on for the middle class for a long time.
Way back on July 2nd I noted that my friends and family were having difficulties caused by our crappy economy, and I started tallying up how many people I was worried about.
On July 23rd, I posted about Matt Taibbi’s article in Rolling Stone “It’s a Class War, Stupid” about the economic crisis that was looming over us — and I actually called it a depression then.
This economic crisis didn’t start with the stock market. It started with employment problems and financial issues quite some time ago. The poor and the middle class have been struggling for a long time, and it’s only just now trickled up to the financial sector.
The difference is that the candidate Obama knows that — and has known for a long time; he’s been talking about domestic and economic issues throughout his campaign. McCain thinks it’s just now happening because it’s just now that his rich friends are affected.
I updated my post from earlier this morning with even more news of death threats issued to Obama during McCain rallies this week. (Threats of “off with his head” came out this morning reported by the Wall Street Journal.)
Here are even more sidewalk interviews with angry McCain supporters who are waiting to get into a McCain/Palin rally:
It’s one thing for Malkin to throw out the meme of “Obama’s a terrorist” but when McCain is actively stoking that rhetoric at his rallies, he’s on completely immoral and unethical grounds — and it’s a really unprecedented turn in American politics and for a candidate for President. The country may be in real turmoil, but that doesn’t warrant this kind of sea change in the language of civil discourse. This may be one of the clearest signals of the end of The Great Experiment that we’ve seen.
A few days ago, Heather Armstrong posed a question on her blog:
Indulge me for a second and consider this scenario: let’s say you’re given the opportunity to donate some money to a desperate family who would use it to feed their children, but were only able to do so if you donated the same amount of money to someone you knew would use it to buy crack. Would you do it?
The responses were interesting: lots of yes answers, peppered with people who had some angry ideas that the question was really about taxes and how they shouldn’t have to support people on welfare.
I was really struck by the responses of people to her second blog post about the question; the one where she explained WHY she asked it:
But something happened during that Christmas vacation that changed a fundamental part of me, and I bet you he doesn’t even remember this. I’d forgotten about it until last week when my brother and I met for lunch, and sitting there across from him at that sushi restaurant and listening to his stories I remembered what a profound effect his influence has had on me.
It was Christmas 1990, and he and I went shopping at a local mall to find gifts for the family. It was bitterly cold outside made worse by a cutting wet breeze, winters in Memphis are like that, and as we pulled out of the parking lot at the mall we passed a man standing on the median of the road selling single stem roses for $2. He was wearily disheveled, not dressed at all for the weather, and looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. He could have been starving, but he also could have been a drug addict. I’ll never know.
We’d always been taught that you ignore these people, they’ll take your money and use it to buy booze, or they’re somehow scamming you. Better to keep your money and do something more productive with it. Except Ranger pulled right up to the man, handed him a twenty dollar bill and said, “I’d like a rose for my sister,” and he pointed toward the passenger seat. “I haven’t seen her in months.”
The man looked down at the bill as if he were holding a fragile newborn animal, and his hands started to shake.
“Aw man,” he said. “I ain’t got no change for this. You got something smaller?”“No,” said Ranger, and then as he shifted the car into drive he continued, “Please keep it.”
The window was still down as the car pulled away, and I’ll never forget how he called after us, “YOU’LL NEVER KNOW, MAN! YOU’LL NEVER KNOW!”
As we pulled up to a stop light in silence Ranger finally spoke up. “I saw him when we first drove into the parking lot hours ago. No telling how long he’s been out there, and he doesn’t have change for a twenty? LET HIM HAVE MY TWENTY.”
The answers to THIS post are striking: — lots of people saying that they’d rather give money to the homeless than to Lehman Brothers executives.
In the past, politicians with honor would correct and shape the crowds who attended their rallies when they shouted things that were incorrect or unfair to their opponents. But in the past two weeks, McCain and Palin have been egging their crowds on in ways that are loathsome and potentially dangerous to Obama and his Democratic supporters.
Politico is reporting this morning about the frenzied mob that attended McCain’s recent rally:
My colleague Amie Parnes, with the GOP ticket today in Wisconsin, sends along an exchange at a town hall meeting:
A man stood up and said, “I’m mad. I’m really mad, and what’s going to surprise you, it’s not about the economy. It’s about the socialists taking over our country.”
“When you have Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country. We gotta have our head examined. It’s time that you two are representing us and we are mad. So go get ’em!”
The crowd erupted in “USA! USA! USA!” chants.
Then McCain replied: “Well, I — I think I got the message. Could I just say, the gentleman is right.” McCain then went on about how it was true that Americans are angry.
The crowds entering McCain rallies are no better than those inside:
At several Palin rallies over the past week, crowds also went crazy without being corrected by the politician:
Worse, Palin’s routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”
And another account at that same rally:
The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of “Palin Power” and “Sarahcuda” T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. “One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” she said. (“Boooo!” said the crowd.) “And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’ ” she continued. (“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.)
“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.
Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn’t like American soldiers. “He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, ‘air-raiding villages and killing civilians,’ ” she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.
This behavior on the part of the crowds, and the lack of chastising by the candidates at the podium is really unprecedented. It’s an ugly change in tone for politics, and sets the table for something serious or violent to occur. McCain and Palin have a moral responsibility to object to violent, racist or misguided statements or behavior of the crowds at their rallies.
Obama has a great response to McCain’s crazy name-calling on the road: Say it to my face at a debate, Buster.
UPDATE: After I posted this, I found yet another article — Wednesday, McCain spoke to a crowd in Pennsylvania, where a crowd member shouted in reference to Obama — “Off with his head!” according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s some scary stuff, yo.
Let me point out, since it briefly surfaced in the mainstream but no one has made a big deal about it — there have been TWO assassination attempts on Obama already. Twice the Secret Service has foiled an angry nut with a guy attempting to get near the candidate.
This sort of rhetoric on the part of the McCain/Palin campaign is dangerous and needs to end before it gets out of hand.