GOP: Vote for Us, We Hate Brown People

Congratulations to the GOP. You have successfully eliminated all hope of gaining any electoral ground when it comes to racial and ethnic minority voters.

It looks increasingly like the GOP is trying to one up each other on who can deliver the most racist ad this election cycle. The mantra is clearly that “we hate immigrants and especially anyone who is a brown immigrant.” The Grand Old Party has turned a new leaf since the days of abolition and voting to enact various civil rights measure in the 1960s.

This year, we saw Rep. Dan Fanelli comparing a “ripped” brown person to a terrorist, as opposed to an older white man. GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim James launched a campaign ad earlier in the year to say that giving driver’s licenses exams in Alabama in 12 different languages just didn’t make sense to him as a businessman, even though eliminating the foreign language exams meant millions lost in federal highway funds. Sharron Angle recently delivered two rather racist and vile ads in the Willie Horton frame focused on how Harry Reid loves “illegal aliens” that features brown people sneaking across the border and standing around looking threatening.

And now David Vitter has joined Angle in the running for most racist campaign message of this election cycle with another ad targeted at his opponent’s mainstream immigration record showing undocumented immigrants jumping through a hole in the fence. Heck, even China is now a looming threat. In all the campaign messages, the enemy or threat is a person of color, while the white people are the innocent and threatened ones. Obviously, the GOP is counting on disillusioned minority voters failing to turn out to vote, so they can rest their hopes on the fearing and loathing teabaggers turning up to take their country back from the brown and black people running it.

There are some politicians like Newt Gingrich, however, who are desperately hanging onto some hope that the GOP has not completely lost minority voters. Apparently, he believes that the GOP would have supported the DREAM Act had it not been the gays and Harry Reid trying to play politics with the vote. Of course, not a single Republican voted for cloture, which raises the question, where are the moderate Republicans who can be courted for moderate measures like the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform?

Right now, the “moderates” are abandoning their principles and cowering behind the Tea Party. The post-election cycle will be a completely different ballgame. But don’t expect voters to forget the shameless bigotry displayed during this one.

Photo and Video Credit: sylvar / StandwithAZ