Racismist

Racismist: One who finds anyone with whom he disagrees to be racist.

In July, this blog lightly accused V.P. Biden of being a racist for gushing over Pres. Obama’s cleanliness and articulateness. While that was a joke, many jokes have kernel of truth, and this kernel has been exposed by the recent flood of racist accusations from the fringe Left. Are these accusers in fact the racists? Subtlety so, but this blog offers a new term for such foolish beliefs: racismists.

Pres. Carter said that most of the anti-Obama sentiment is due to his race. Paul Krugman said that white Southerners who voted Republican in 2008 are racists. Keith Olberman plays the race card like he owns a trick deck, and Bill Maher’s inscrutable rants rarely fail to paint his opponents as racist.

Of course this is hardly news. In 1980, the Carter campaign tried to paint Pres. Reagan as a racist for endorsing the broad concept of state’s rights. Coretta Scott King said that Republicans would bring back the KKK and Nazis. UN Ambassador Andrew Young said that Reagan was hinting it was OK to kill black people (he actually used the n-word). The Congressional Black Caucus called Reagan a physical danger to black people’s safety.

The black vote is the most homogeneous in all of US politics, so the Democrats take it for granted. Indeed, because 90+ percent of the black vote is reliably Democratic, there was no strategic advantage to nominating Obama because of his race. Obama knows this and has largely avoided siding with Carter and the other racismists. Still, the Democrats have loosed their radical fringe, and they see racism behind every windmill.

Overt cries of racism by the left usually signal desperation. As in 1980, the Democrats are now losing the public debate on their core values; socialized medicine, card check, cap and trade, and prosecuting CIA operative are all under fire. Did this wave of disfavor cause a tactical shift toward crying racism? Probably not. The Democrats in charge simply can’t contain their more reactionary wings when they are on the ropes elsewhere. When Obama lost control of the press, the press became free to gravitate toward the more colorful voices of the left. Rather than lament the unfounded racial attacks, Republicans should celebrate because the attacks prove they are winning.

Why does the left fringe, the Olbermans, Carters, Mahers, Krugmans, and others, find people with whom they disagree racist? They are themselves a variant of racists – racismists. A racismist knows that he, like most people, feels uncomfortable around unfamiliar cultures and beliefs. Far leftists have been taught to associate this normal human feeling with racism, for racism has been defined down from overt discrimination and irrational reaction to simply feeling uncomfortable around the unfamiliar. The mainstream press made this point by reporting on a nonsensical study showing slower reaction times and greater stress when white college students interacted with minorities, thus proving subconscious racism.

Extreme lefties are well insulated from the views of regular people, so they naturally feel uncomfortable when non-progressive ideas make the news. Since they have been trained to believe that these feelings are racist, they put themselves in a bind. As lefties, they can’t be racist, but they also know they are experiencing what they believe to be racist feelings. Therefore, the people who backed them into this corner must be the real racists; Freud called this defense mechanism ‘projection.’ Shout Bits proposes that someone who neurotically defends his views with cries of racism should be classified a ‘racismist.’

This is all good news for the likes of Carter. He can now cease to be an anti-Semite racist and merely be a racismist. Olberman is no longer a raving hot-head lunatic, he has a clinical condition that makes him a racismist. Maher is not just a jerk. He can’t help himself because he is a racismist. Paul Krugman is not simply on a mission to return the US to a level of prosperity the US outgrew 60 years ago, he is a racismist. So, the next time someone calls you a racist for suggesting that Obama is trying to bankrupt the US, put your hand on his shoulder. Let him know you care about his condition and that there is help. He is a racismist.