Republicans Used to Drum Up Hate Against Democratic Presidents, Now They Do It Against Their Own Schools and Neighbors
The Clinton administration saw a new pattern in Republican politics, building on Newt Gingrich’s successful attack on Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright in 1989. They decided to treat any Democrat in the White House as illegitimate, and to concentrate on undermining his power in any way possible. In 1995, the same year Gingrich took the speakership, he shut down the government. Republicans have tried that slash and burn tactic multiple times since.
Even before then Rush Limbaugh had referred to the United States under Clinton as “American held hostage.” He and Hilary were portrayed as Godless, amoral liberal hippies sullying the White House by their very presence. The unwillingness to acknowledge Clinton’s legitimacy culminated in the Starr Report and accompanying impeachment.
The denial of presidential legitimacy got even more intense under Obama. His race and cosmopolitan upbringing made the resentments against Clinton look small by comparison. Right after taking office and in the wake of an overwhelming Republican defeat Limbaugh rallied supporters at CPAC to oppose Obama at every turn. His very status as a US citizen was called into question. A House member heckled him during a speech in Congress, a once unthinkable breach of decorum. Mitch McConnell simply refused to allow Obama’s Supreme Court nominee to go forward.
Republicans are having a harder time pulling this act with Joe Biden. He’a an old white guy who wears a rosary around his wrist. He’s been involved in politics for fifty years with a centrist reputation. He cannot be turned into a bogeyman like Clinton and Obama. Instead of this leading to more comity in our politics, it has led to something far worse.
Since the president can’t be pilloried as the avatar of all that’s wrong, those supposedly responsible are in the line of fire. The conservative mind requires an enemy within, and thus we see attacks on educators, librarians, and transgender people. Conservative politics was heading in this direction anyway, but the inability to otherize Biden has given the paranoid conservative mind a steroid injection.
Across America, state governments are trying to ban gender-affirming care and are regulating what gets taught in schools and universities. Because these things are happening on the state level, I feel they are not getting the warranted attention. For years conservatives had been running against the idea of a dangerous outsider in the White House and treating Democratic presidents as illegitimate. Now they want to attack perceived outsiders in their own schools, neighborhoods, and even homes.
While conservatives used to attack Clinton and Obama, they saw limits to turning the hate hose on people in the general population. The civil rights movement ended the rule of undemocratic Jim Crow state governments in the South. For years reinstalling such regimes seemed impossible. Ever since Shelby, however, conservatives have done what they could to limit the vote and gerrymander their opposition into a permanent minority. Targeting a president in faraway Washington is child’s play compared to purging your own state. What was once impossible is now in reach in the SAME EXACT STATES that had Jim Crow regimes less than sixty years ago. The vast majority of their history has been as places of minority rule. Things are returning to the mean.
Or at least they will, if we don’t put up a fight. One state Senator in Nebraska is filibustering all legislation until a bill attempting to ban gender-affirming care for youth is withdrawn. That’s the kind of fight we need, because this is going to be a very different kind of struggle.