Category: Beating Back the St00pid

From marmel.com:

Joe Wurzelbacher, more commonly known as Joe the Plumber, wants Americans to “admit” they “want a white Republican president again.”

“Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American,” Wurzelbacher wrote on his website Oct. 10.

First, let’s get this out of the way: If you’re criteria for the next president be that he be white, it makes you a bigot. That’s the definition of bigot. There’s no wiggle room there. Own that.

But on to the rest…what public figure—and I use this term loosely referring to this clown—would say this?

I get that the skinheaded bigoted “sorta-plumber” who got famous for being sassy to the black guy has dialed his “black-smack” to eleven. It’s loud out in the media, with a lot of bigots saying a lot of horrible things about the President from subtle dog whistles about “takers” to George Will comparing Obamacare to “The Fugitive Slave Act.”

It’s a tough time to be a minor player hate-monger when the league is filled with established home run hitters. And for all of his “fame”—again, loosely put—Joe is really just a freak-show anomaly now. He’s a car crash you can’t take your eyes off of, like Michele Bachmann or Louie Gohmert. He’s Snooki, really.

But here’s the thing. We should be grateful for morons like Joe.

Unsubtle, blunt, dimwitted throwbacks that aren’t savvy enough to mask their hate, he’s like people at town halls that scream about Obama being a secret Muslim. Or part of Al Qaeda. Or that he’s actually Osama Bin Laden (see “Truckers Ride For The Constitution”).

You know bigotry still exists because he’s not smart enough to hide it in code-words.

And in being that, he reveals that he is a big chunk of that unmoving GOP’s 30%. You know that number that never changes? That always disapproves of everything the President and his wife does, even if it’s as simple as “drink water?” or “eat healthy?”  Or cheered Zimmerman?

He’s those guys in a ball cap. The only thing he’s missing is the white robe.  And if he had that white robe, he’d be dumb enough to wear it to work.

The election in 2008 made it so the days of smiling racism over. The black President drove that 30% nuts.

After all… Fox News promised Obama would lose. Twice. The right wing media promised they could hurt him by repealing Obamacare with lie after lie after lie. They were told this man would be put in his place. And now, that 30% is so mad, it’s like turrets syndrome or Mel Gibson getting pulled over drunk—the bigotry just explodes out in ways they can’t control.

And it’s part of what’s destroying the GOP.  See, the shutdown sucks and is hurting a lot of people, and the polls are showing most people blame the Republicans in general and the Tea Party specifically.

The more people like “Joe the Plumber,” or Mark Kessler, or Glenn Beck or the next loon pops up, the more people realize exactly what is fueling this five year “let’s not work with Obama” that’s been going on that has brought us to this shut down.

Not wanting to work with the black guy. Hanging an imaginary “Whites Only” sign on the office of the President or any seat of power in Washington, D.C.

So in a way, I’m grateful for this moron. He’s defining the problem in a way that would make anybody with a brain, or a heart, or a single friend of diversity go “this is not what I want out of a mainstream political party.”

It’s hurtful, I’m sure, for many people of color to hear.

But It’s also hurtful to people who wish they could pretend they weren’t bigots, but by toleration of people like Joe show that they are.  With their facebook feeds, and N-word tweets, and racist memes.

And as ugly as it is to look at, it’s good that we can see it.

Maybe some of those people can be shamed into the 21st century.  But at the very least, we know who they are and they can now be discounted as the cavemen (and women) they’ve always been.

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