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The GOP Is Monkeyed Up
There comes a point when even the most indulgent listener must doubt whether political figures deserve the benefit of the doubt. Ron DeSantis, that means you.
In what should have been a celebratory interview after his victory in the Republican primary for governor of Florida, DeSantis seemed spooked by the upset win of Democrat Andrew Gillum, the black mayor of Tallahassee. DeSantis called Gillum “charismatic,” and an “articulate spokesman” while also warning that he was too left for Florida. “I watched those Democrats debate,” he said “and none of that is just my cup of tea, but he performed better than the other people there, so we gotta work hard to make sure that we continue Florida going in a good direction.” So far, so good. But then DeSantis added “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases bankrupting the state.”
He could have said “mess this up.” In our rude era, he could even have said “screw this up.” But he chose the word “monkey.” His spokesman says those taking offense are crazy to imagine that he intended a dog whistle. Maybe that’s true. I hope it is. A couple of years ago, I suspect I would have vehemently insisted that it was so. But I’m no longer so sure. I live in Virginia, where Republicans have actually nominated alt-right friendly Corey Stewart for the U.S. Senate. I’ve seen the Republican Party look down and kick the dirt as President Trump has poked his stick into one sensitive racial issue after another. Picking fights with black NFL players over the national anthem is a dog whistle that all of us can hear. Tarring all immigrants with MS-13, ditto.
Well, Republicans counter, there’s no purchase in criticizing Trump. See what became of Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, and Mark Sanford? We don’t approve of Trump’s cruel and dehumanizing language, but what good does it do to criticize him? If we speak up, we’ll just be replaced by a Trumpier Republican. Thus does cowardice masquerade as pragmatism.
What if an opportunity arises to make a point about racial harmony that doesn’t even involve Trump? Consider the proposal floated earlier this week by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after the late John McCain. You would have thought this was a no brainer. Senator Richard Russell was a segregationist Democrat who helped filibuster civil rights legislation and signed the Southern Manifesto. Here was an opportunity for Republicans to withdraw the honor from a Democrat who didn’t merit it in favor of one of their own, who did.
How did Republican members of the Senate respond? Senator Richard Shelby (R. AL), himself a Democrat until the convenient year of 1994 when Republicans took control of Congress, was sentimental about Russell. “Senator Russell was a well-respected man from the South and up here too,” said Shelby said, adding that he was “a man of his time. If you want to get into that you have to get into George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and all of our — most of our Founding Fathers, maybe with the exception of Hamilton,” he said. “It’s easy to prejudge what they should have done.”
Georgia Senator David Perdue, a Republican mind you, sprang to Russell’s defense in an even more surprising way. “This was an icon in the United States Senate. He was Lyndon Johnson’s close adviser. They did the Great Society together. So, people would criticize Richard Russell for maybe being on the wrong side of the integration movement, but my goodness he turned around and got the school lunch program done. He did that himself.”
Actually, the school lunch program was passed in 1946, long before Russell’s filibuster of the civil rights act. And it wasn’t an act of beneficence by Uncle Sam. It was a way to dispose of the surplus food that other government programs, namely farm subsidies, had created. But never mind the historical error, focus on the fact that a supposedly conservative Republican is praising Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society! Is it any wonder that their budget has exceeded the fondest wishes of Barack Obama?
Great swaths of Republicans are not just biting their tongues about Trump, they are convinced that his white nationalist path is the right one.
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana didn’t want to insult McCain’s memory, but suggested that they find another way to honor him.
Maybe they will, but do they recognize how they have dishonored themselves?
Published in Politics
I think that’s a good thing.
This slander that white nationalists are everywhere! is especially dumb when actual white nationalists try to hold a rally and can’t seem to find enough like-minded people to fill a cross-town bus.
Because . . . ??
I’ve never heard the phrase “monkey it up”. Is it a southern thing? I don’t think DeSantis was being racist but couldn’t he have used a different phrase? Aren’t politicians supposed to use the best words? Oh yeah, I forgot, we’re in the age of Trump.
The reason the Left is not to be taken seriously on issues of race is that they have exactly zero interest in solving, working toward consensus, finding common ground when it comes to race relations in the United States.
The Left/(D)’s desperately need for their political opponent conservative/(R)’s to be thought of as racist. The (D)’s have calculated that without 90% of the black vote and higher percentages of other minority votes the (D)’s chances of winning national and many statewide elections becomes dicey.
So expect the race baiting to continue ad nauseam because without the overwhelming minority turnout and (D) votes the (D)’s know they’re screwed.
My favorite part of the (D)’s race baiting game is to take anything an (R) says and to deliberately infer racism to words like “monkey around” for instance which may or may not have some racist connotation in certain contexts ….kinda sorta … maybe … if you were to play it loud at 45 rpm and listen really closely …. and automatically pronounce this statement is absolutely, positively meant as a racist slur, when if the exact same statement were made in anything other than a political election setting with the (D)’s race baiting radar on high alert just waiting to bash the (R) for political advantage, would have been just an innocuous statement by a guy.
Oh , for Gawgs sake, the people who hear ‘monkey’ and think of black people are the racists. As W said about the Muslims extremists ‘if it’s not the cartoons, it’s the crusades’ , once the black man won the primary the entire press corps was waiting for this or something like it, a preference for chocolate ice cream or disliking it, either works, brownies liking or disliking whichever , both make you a racist, light coffee or black coffee same thing. The press corps, like Barzini, knows what to do without being told.
Mona used to be a normal conservative republican; hate has warped her. This is as bad as firing someone, I don’t remember who it was, for saying niggardly about a budget deal, or guerrilla tactics about Williams tennis game. Must our people also lose their minds? People who see racism in such things are obviously racist because they think gorilla, n.. and monkeys. Shame on them for having such unspoken thoughts hankering back to their parties past, but our people don’t need to feel such guilt.
Howard Cosell was strongly criticized for saying “look at that little monkey run.”
Ever since the “missing link” meme, it has been considered to be impolite to use the noun or verb “monkey” when discussing African Americans.
Mona, I’m the only person on Ricochet that is more passionately anti-Trump than you are, but I think this is TDS. The man did not calculate this as an insult or a dog whistle, he was sincerely caught off guard by this fellow’s upset win.
Oh, for Heaven’s sake!…Can we say colloquialism/regionalism? What flavor of Kool-Aid brings on this sort of hand-wringing? And why are *we* (“anyone with an once of common sense, or a memory longer than five minutes ago”) sipping it? [Amended for clarity.]
I hasten to say *we* aren’t.
NR caters to a Center-Right audience and thinks it would be bad business to call most of their target audience racist?
It is quite possible that Ron DeSantis thought he was discussing his opponent’s policies and their effect on the state rather than his opponent’s racial background. Mona’s comments are worthless.
I disagree. I come here looking for intelligent or interesting conversation, not baseless name calling.
He wasn’t discussing African Americans. He was discussing leftist economic insanity.
I suppose you and Mona think Professor Coleman Silk was a racist as well.
But Mona is getting better. She didn’t start with her usual Trump-bashing until halfway through her third paragraph. Progress.
Cause Bush was down right eloquent?
It’s actually possible to hate Trump and be cogent at that same time. The ones from the Niskanen Center just flip out every day, instead.
Do you currently associate African Americans with monkeys?
I did not accuse DeSantis of being a racist.
I am suggesting that he should have realized that the use of the word “monkey” is not a good idea when an African American is involved.
“Control the language and you control the people.”
The Underpants Gnomes-style logic is on full display as well.
1. DeSantis said this word.
2. This word is a racist dog-whistle!
3. ????
4. Donald Trump’s White Nationalists are taking over the country!
Okay, but Mona does, or plays reckless insulting “maybe” word games about DeSantis. She’s clear that Trump supporters — about 90% of Republican voters — are white nationalists.
Care to address that rather than Howard Cosell?
The band the Monkeys had a hit song with the words “Hey hey were the Monkeys and people say we monkey around”
I never knew how racist my childhood was.
It’s my preference to let people speak for themselves and let others decide. That appears to be happening here to a beneficial purpose. As indicated above, the “monkey” thing–as annoying as it is–isn’t the real story here. That story is about the author’s view about a “great swath” of Republicans and white nationalists. Let her future credibility be judged by that.
No, no, no, no, no!
I wholly do not believe that Mona has ever said that 90% of Trump supporters are white nationalists. I think that only a small percentage of Trump supporters are white nationalists.
It could be argued that most white nationalists voted for Trump. For example, while I would suggest that 90% of Vegans vote for Democrats, that does not mean that 90% of Democrats are Vegans.
Please provide a citation for your assertion or withdraw it.
Lowry lowers hammer?
I was given a stuffed chimpanzee at the age of seven for Christmas and have loved primates ever since. In fact, it prompted an interest in the lifelong work of famed primatologist Jane Goodall’s work among them in Africa. When my children were small, I often referred to them as little monkeys and meant it in the kindest of ways. What a strange world we live in today as the PC folks slowly but surely erode our beautiful language to conjure up rancor where none was intended.
What percentage would account for the “Great swaths”?
As in “Great swaths of Republicans are not just biting their tongues about Trump, they are convinced that his white nationalist path is the right one.”
Are you part of the swath?
Either way, you say “small percentage,” and Mona says “great swaths.”
You can’t both be right, can you?
Although, to use the full phrasing, I suppose it could be that “great swaths of Republicans” are white nationalists while only a “small percentage of Trump supporters” are.
Yay, Trump supporters!