Dems Using Race Card to Push Obamacare

Faced with selling Obamacare to a skeptical public, Democrats have resorted to playing the race card to defame Tea Party and Republican opposition.

Faced with selling Obamacare to a skeptical public, Democrats have resorted to playing the race card with the help of pliant journalists. Republicans should not let them get away with it.

Step 1 is portraying the Tea Party as racist. The evidence: demonstrators at the March 20 Tea Party rally at the Capitol shouted racial slurs and spat at black congressmen, and other Tea Party events have included protestors carrying racist signs.

Democrats should be ashamed for indicting crowds of tens of thousands of people as racists based on the actions of scattered individuals. Coverage of the March 20 rally shows a few demonstrators yelling at the congressmen, but their words are inaudible against the noise of much of the crowd chanting “kill the bill,” which has nothing to do with race. Similarly, racist signs at Tea Party events, carried by individuals who may not even be Tea Partiers, are far outnumbered by signs opposing President Obama based on his policies, not his race. Depictions of President Obama as a socialist, a Marxist or as Hitler may be distasteful and unlikely to win mainstream converts, but they are no more racist than similar portrayals of President Bush at antiwar rallies.

Step 2 is charging Republicans with responsibility for racism, vandalism and threats allegedly in response to Obamacare.

Republicans were expected to flagellate themselves for the shouters and spitters at the March 20 rally, as if their sympathy with the Tea Party’s anti-Obamacare sentiment translates into culpability for every action perpetrated by any of the demonstrators. Even after Republicans denounced vandalism and threats against Democrats following Obamacare’s enactment, Democrats are still peddling the narrative that Republicans are somehow responsible for encouraging the mob.

Judging by Democrats’ own words, these accusations are mock outrage and political theater. It is not Republicans, but Bill Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, Joe Biden and Harry Reid, who made references to President Obama’s race in a way that would have ended a Republican’s political career. It is also difficult to take seriously Democrats’ indignation over claims that demonstrators at the March 20 rally shouted anti-gay language at Barney Frank, given that some Democratic lawmakers have called Tea Partiers “tea-baggers.” Historically, such graphically homophobic language from members of Congress would be grounds for censure.

And it is Democrats who, in opposition to President Bush, courted an antiwar movement infiltrated by anti-Semitic rhetoric. Just because some antiwar protestors carried on about sinister “neo-cons” and carried anti-Semitic signs does not mean the whole antiwar movement and their Democratic sympathizers are all anti-Semites. The same understanding should apply to the Tea Party and Republicans.

Step 3 is characterizing Obamacare as a civil rights issue and casting opposition to Obamacare as racism.

This goes further than defaming merely the Tea Party and Republicans. Obamacare threatens to make millions of Americans worse off, from small business owners to middle-class families and from senior citizens to the self-employed. Many of them are more moderate than the Tea Party demonstrators and find comparing President Obama to Hitler repellent. They also include political independents some of whose votes elected President Obama to the White House and Democrats to large congressional majorities. Yet characterizing opposition to Obamacare as racism is calling these Americans racist.

Having used their control of the presidency and Congress to push through unpopular legislation, Democrats have chosen racists as the scapegoat for that unpopularity. Republicans need to make clear that an attack on opposition to Obamacare as racism is an insult to many Americans who are not particularly political but who do not want to pay higher insurance premiums and higher taxes for less available and lower quality healthcare. Other keys to an effective rebuttal will be for Republicans to avoid name-calling, enumerate clear policy differences between themselves and Democrats and not succumb to overconfidence heading into the November elections.

Most importantly, Republicans should emphasize that while Democrats ramble on about racists, it is Democrats, and not Republicans, who have a vested interest in keeping racism burning in American politics.