War On Whites? What This Has In Common With All The Other Fox News “Wars”

Yesterday Mo Brooks, an Alabama Tea Party Republican congressman, caused a stir with his remarks to conservative radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham. Brooks was in a frenzy over a statement made by the National Journal’s Ron Fournier on Fox News Sunday. Fournier made this utterly uncontroversial observation about political demographics:

“The fastest growing bloc in this country thinks the Republican Party hates them. This party, your party, cannot be the party of the future beyond November, if you’re seen as the party of white people.”

That opinion was such an accepted part of reality that it was even validated last year by Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, in his infamous “autopsy” of the GOP’s humiliating defeat in the 2012 elections. Priebus wrote…

“The Republican Party must focus its efforts to earn new supporters and voters in the following demographic communities: Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Indian Americans, Native Americans, women, and youth. This priority needs to be a continual effort that affects every facet of our Party’s activities, including our messaging, strategy, outreach, and budget. Unless the RNC gets serious about tackling this problem, we will lose future elections; the data demonstrates this.”

Nevertheless, Brooks took umbrage in a way that further illustrates how out-of-touch the Republican regulars are on matters of race. His commentary on the Ingraham broadcast was both ignorant and offensive:

“This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.”

That’s right. Brooks believes that Democrats are waging a war on whites. There is so much wrong with that statement that it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with the fact that it is a common refrain of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations. Brooks should be aware that aligning himself with that sort of philosophy has consequences.

Mo Brooks

On a more substantive level, Brooks is demonstrating that he doesn’t understand the issue in the slightest. Democrats have never claimed that “whites hate everybody else.” What some have claimed is that white Republicans pursue an agenda that is overtly hostile to the interests of minorities, women, youth, the poor, and other disenfranchised citizens. And his statement of solidarity with the imaginary oppressed white folk is further evidence of that. But that didn’t stop him from holding steadfastly to his insulting and idiotic remarks the next day:

“Certainly if you were to flip the coin and a white person were to say vote for me because I’m white, it would be an uproar and deservedly so. So why do we allow blacks to say vote for me because I’m black or Hispanics vote for me because I’m Hispanic?”

One question for Mr. Brooks: Can you cite any black or Hispanic candidate who ever said “vote for me because” I’m black or Hispanic? If not, your argument is a blatant misrepresentation of the minority electorate, which is just another kind of racism. It was your intent to pejoratively characterize minorities as being mindless sheep who are incapable of analytical thought and will, thus, base their decisions solely on skin color.

It is notable that all of the trumped up “wars” that Fox News features so often, have something very similar that connects them. Fox has hyped the “War on Christmas,” the “War on Oil/Coal,” the “War on Business,” the “War on Marriage,” the “War on Men,” and the ever-present “Class War.” [Jon Stewart cataloged another dozen or so Fox News wars] In every case the beleaguered victims of the battle are those who are distinctly at the top of the social order. They are either the majority, or the wealthy, or the powerful, or some combination of two or more of these privileged classes.

Fox News is predictably hostile to society’s underdogs, and just as predictably roots for the “over” dogs who don’t need any help. But that has been the mission of Fox News since its inception. And it is intertwined inseparably with the mission of the Republican Party. Which is why Brooks gets away with undisguised bigotry without either his party or Fox News taking him to task.

Shameless self-promotion…
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