Charlie Rangel and the Democrats' race obsession

Charlie Rangel has been in Congress way too long, but you know that. He’s a race-baiter, but you know that too.

So I think that sometimes when Charlie says the things he says, we just brush it off as Charlie being Charlie and we don’t figure it’s worth paying much attention to. But we should pay attention because Charlie Rangel is part of the larger stance of the Democrat Party that is totally hung up on race. And it’s not so much because they really believe the things they say. It’s because it’s a crucial part of their rhetorical strategy, which I’ve told you is best remembered by the acronym S.I.N.

• Shift the subject.
• Ignore the facts.
• Name call.

Here’s Charlie this week, telling us once again how racist and evil the Republican Party is:

They are mean, racist people. Now why do I say that? Because in those red states, they’re the same slaveholding states. They had the Confederate flag. They became decievecrats. They became the tea party. They’ve still got the Confederate flag. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. And they just can’t get over . . . there is nothing the president can do. Not love of party, not love of country, that they’re not prepared to kill themselves to get to him.”

If you’re shaking your head and asking, “What is that even supposed to mean?” save yourself the fruitless intellectual exercise. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just Rangel’s latest offering of racially charged buzzwords designed to put certain people on the defensive. And that especially refers to people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, who are going to be in the Senate for at least another four years whether the Washington establishment likes it or not (unless one of them becomes president). Rangel wants Republicans who are really willing to fight for limited government to have to constantly answer charges that they are racist. And in this case, Rangel is willing to tar their entire states in the bargain. Slaveholding states! The Confederate flag! (Do you think Rangel knows that Rand Paul's state of Kentucky never seceded? Do you suppose it would matter if he did? Nah!)

Intentional race baiting rhetoric

Democrats like Rangel do this because anyone who opposes big government is a threat to their very way of life, and the last thing they want is for the message of the Tea Party to resonate with the American people. Democrats believe the best way to strangle that message in the crib is to tar Tea Partiers as racist. They figure it’s a simple proposition because the Tea Party doesn’t like Barack Obama, Barack Obama is black, therefore the Tea Party is racist. But there’s a problem. The Tea Party likes Ben Carson. It likes Niger Innis. It likes Allen West. It likes Mia Love. It likes me. Did they not notice we’re all black? Or is the truth really that the Tea Party doesn’t like liberals? This doesn’t matter, of course, because people like Charlie Rangel always find a way to make their position unfalsifiable. If the racist Tea Party embraces a black person, it only proves that the black person is a sellout to their racist agenda. People who can’t afford to be proven wrong always find a way to never be wrong. But they’re wrong. Democrats are hung up on race because they can’t defend their big government agenda – especially given the sterling performance of ObamaCare thus far – so they tar their opponents any way they can. It doesn’t matter if it’s false. It doesn’t even matter if it’s obviously absurd. As long as they get away with it. Some of us are not going to let Charlie or any other liberal get away with their intentional race baiting rhetoric.

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