Lean Left

[NOTE: While intending to create a new post, Kevin apparently edited and overwrote my throwaway "Game On" post. So I'm doing my best to fix this, but there will be some comment confusion. -- tgirsch]

The GOP used to depend upon a bigoted Southern Strategy. Apparently, they now have a Muslim Strategy — fanning the flames of bigotry against Muslims in order to win votes. It is happening right here in Tennessee:

And then there’s this video that has surfaced of Ramsey at a July 14th event, questioning whether Islam is, perhaps, a “cult.”
“You could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion or is it a nationality, way of life or cult, whatever you want to call it,” he said, responding to a question about Muslims that are “invading our country.”

And just so that everyone is clear on this, the Muslim Strategy is not the work of a few cranks in Tennessee. Critical and powerful figures in the GOP like Newt Gingrich embrace it whole-heartedly:

“You know, there are over a hundred mosques in New York City. I favor religious freedom,” said Gingrich. “I’m quite happy if they’d come in and said, ‘We want to build a community center near Central Park, we’d like to build a community center near Columbia University.’ But they didn’t. They said right at the edge of a place where, let’s be clear, thousands of Americans were killed in an attack by radical Islamists.”

This is plain old-fashioned, undisguised bigotry. Gingrich is saying that because some Muslim committed and atrocity, no Muslims should be allowed to build near the site of that tragedy, as if all Muslims are the same. This is the functional equivalent of arguing that because one black man committed a robbery, all black men must not be allowed in stores. Or that no churches should be allowed to be built in Oklahoma City because a christian blew up the Federal Building. And this is from a leading intellectual light of the GOP.

The fact that Gingrich and Palin have not been drummed out of the GOP, the fact that they thought it a good idea politically to take the side of bigots shows that the GOP is fine with bigotry as a political tool. Apparently, since their ideas scare the electorate, they are going to fall back on the tried and true tactic of using hatred and persecution as an electoral strategy.