The GOP Plays to the Base

Earlier today, an 88-year-old white supremacist shot a guard dead at the Holocaust museum a few miles from my house.

It was only a few weeks ago that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said that he was outraged that in April the Department of Homeland Security had written that:

"Anti-Semitic extremists attribute [political] losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish 'financial elites.'

These 'accusatory' tactics are employed to draw new recruits into right-wing extremist groups and further radicalize those already subscribing to extremist beliefs."

Steele said he was outraged that the Department of Homeland Security associated right-wing extremism with fomenting hate, paranoia, and conspiracy theories.

Well sure the GOP had spent the last 20 years playing footsie with survivalists, anti-Semites, Klansmen, paranoid gun nuts, lunatic libertarians, tax-cheats, secessionists, and conspiracy mongers.

In fact, for years, Karl Rove has referred to them as "the base."

Nothing new there!

And sure the Republican Party has coddled anti-Semites, and said the Government is stealing your money.

Sure the Republican extremists said the President is an illegal foreigner and a closet Muslim.

Sure they have called doctors murderers night-after-night on the evening news.

And yes, they have said Congress and the White House are trying to make America a socialist country (and do we need to tell you that Socialist means Communist which means prison camps for God-fearing Americans like you and me?)

But the GOP is not to blame for the violence.

After all, they were just playing to The Base.

You know -- for ratings.

For fun.

They were just trying to keep it a Big Tent Party. Free speech.

And just because a few million Republicans passed on those hate-filled emails didn't mean they believed them or sanctioned anyone actually doing any shooting.

It was just for fun. Who knew? It was just "playing to The Base."

Right. The Base.

How ironic.

You see, the Arabic word for "The Base" is Al Queda.

And when the right-wing clerics of the Middle East were told that playing to their political and religious "base" was fomenting terrorist cells, guess what they said?

They too expressed outrage that anyone would make the connection.

Terrorism? That action can have nothing to do with what is said. That has nothing to do with the hate-filled emails and web sites, the paranoid conspiracy theories, or the agitated spew coming out of the Mosques or from the television set.

It is outrageous to suggest so!
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