Psyche, Science, and Society

Ackerman on “The Race Card”

August 2nd, 2008

In a few qwords Spencer Ackerman explains the true horrors of John McCain’s latest campaign antics. We as a country will pay for years:

My ex-boss explains the dark and awful road ahead:

Let’s see how this works. McCain runs his Britney/Paris ad on the alleged but improbable basis that they’re the #2 and #3 celebs in the world, according to Rick Davis. McCain camp seizes on Obama statement that Obama has made multiple times before, accuses him of playing “race card”. Now McCain repeats Race Card, Race Card, Race Card a hundred times.

McCain has made the strategic decision that he can only win the election on the basis of Obama as friend of terrorists, unpatriotic suspicious outsider and radical, black guy who’s really more a flashy showbiz star (call it playing the Diddy card) than someone with the heft to be president. He’s probably right. That’s his only chance. And it may work.

It’s important to remember that Race Card is a euphemism. It’s a device to scare white people into believing the Dark One is out past the fence, sending signals to his Dark allies that stoke their resentment. It’s meant to cause the political equivalent of the mental shudder that makes white women grip their purses tighter on the subway. To stoke an impulse that ugly is evil.   I don’t believe John McCain can win the election. The hurdles — financial, electoral — are too great, the GOP base trusts him too little, and the narrative of his campaign is too solipsistic. But what he can do is prepare the country for four years of vile, small ugliness, in which new euphemisms are invented to allow white people to say This country’s gone to shit ever since they let Those People in charge… Is there something worse than Nixonland?

Entry Filed under: Electoral Politics, Politics, Racism