Race to the Bottom

Let the pandering begin! The race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has certainly begun, and a number of potential candidates are already in full campaign mode, playing to likely Iowa caucus goers and anyone else from the far right. Unfortunately, this race to the bottom requires the contenders to outdo one another in an effort to sink to a new low. This forces some candidates to give up either their presidential aspiration or their honor.

Take the example of Donald Trump. He's toying with the idea of a 2012 presidential run so he's trying to gin up support among Republicans. To that end he has now become a "birther," which is to say someone who at least purports to question whether or not Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. I say purports to question because even Bill O'Reilly doesn't believe Trump is sincere about this, which buttresses my point. Trump isn't that stupid, ignorant or blinded by hatred, but he knows that people who are now make up a sufficiently large percentage of the Republican base that he has to pander to them. His attempts at playing this ridiculous game have been embarrassing and his claims can be reduced to ashes with the greatest of ease, but that doesn't matter because his target audience is impervious to facts or reason. To make matters worse, Trump is also playing to these people by spewing anti-Islamic bigotry.

Speaking of anti-Islamic bigotry, Donald Trump has his work cut out for him if he wants to catch Herman Cain. Mr. Cain, who's one of only three Republicans to have formed an exploratory committee (there are no formally declared candidates yet), has publicly proclaimed that as president he would appoint no Muslims to his cabinet nor to the federal bench. His rationale for this discrimination is his fear that they will impose Sharia law on this country. Perversely, he justifies his position of treating one religion differently from others with the First Amendment, because it prevents favoring one religion over another. He also states that Muslims should act like Christians and not try to impose their religious values on others, even though his core supporters want us to impose their version of Christian values on this country. Most importantly, this fear of Sharia law is a bogeyman constructed exclusively by bigots for bigots. Proposed laws to bar Sharia are unconstitutional, unnecessary and embarrassing, but defending them will get you a standing ovation at a Tea Party gathering where Herman Cain won the presidential straw poll.

Yes, I'm saying that far too many conservative Republicans have a fear of Islam that extends well beyond legitimate concern regarding terrorism and into the lunatic fringe. Newt Gingrich was counting on that when he warned an audience that we could become a "secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists." That's right; he tried to doubly terrify the stupid by simultaneously advancing the mutually exclusive specters of atheism and religious extremism. Newt's spokesman tried to rescue him by saying that he meant either atheist or radical Islamist, not both. That would make Gingrich's remark slightly less moronic but still utterly worthless since he can't decide which of two polar opposite directions the trend line is moving.

Finally, Mike Huckabee's entry into the race to the bottom makes me the saddest, because I honestly thought he was better than that. Yes, Newt Gingrich made headlines last year by suggesting that President Obama is incomprehensible to us unless we understand the mindset of a Kenyan anti-colonialist, but such words from Gingrich are predictable. Governor Huckabee, on the other hand, was a big disappointment when he essentially took a page from Gingrich's book and tried to paint President Obama as an anti-American, anti-Western, anti-colonialist who grew up in Kenya, sympathetic to the Mau Mau revolution and hostile to the British. Mike Huckabee may not know a Mau Mau from a muumuu, but like the others, he knows how to fertilize the field where fear and hatred grow, a particularly apt metaphor considering what they're spreading. Republicans who now seek the presidency apparently subscribe to the belief that, "The only thing we have to exploit is fear itself." If they insist upon playing to the dregs of their party, they should expect the scorn and contempt of decent people.

The Danger Facing the United States of Oz

I feel as though I'm living in the Land of Oz. I see hate merchants without hearts using their "fear and smear" campaign to manipulate people who lack the brains to understand they're being duped, and an opposition refusing to openly condemn these wicked charlatans and exalt our better angels because they don't have the courage. Haters and cowards and dopes, oh my! Haters and cowards and dopes, oh my! We all bear some responsibility for this state of affairs. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me every time you open your mouth, and there's something pathologically wrong with both of us. This trend doesn't require anywhere near 100% participation to do tremendous damage, so the fact that some rise above this doesn't relieve the problem.

The general public bears the most blame, but that doesn't absolve anyone else. The least blameworthy are the "leaders" who should take principled stands but choose to be cautious instead. Yes, they should have integrity and the courage of their convictions, but if we enlist them to fight the good fight, only to crucify them for telling us the unpopular truth, we can hardly fault them for saluting us with one finger. As far as the purveyors of fear and hatred go, yes, they're despicable but we're supporting them. Rush Limbaugh is a wretched persona whose every broadcast is like an upper decker in America's toilet, but we've made him the biggest thing on radio since Fr. Coughlin broadcast his anti-Semitic screeds in the 1930's. We've always had an abundant supply of people who spew ignorance and hatred. Our demand for these shrill voices is what fluctuates, and at the moment we can't get enough. In the infancy of Obama's presidency, RNC chairman Michael Steele learned the peril of speaking the truth about Rush Limbaugh. He conceded that what Rush did was incendiary and ugly. The ensuing firestorm forced Steele to crawl on his hands and knees to kiss Rush's ring. Again, we want people to martyr themselves by speaking the truth, but we should recognize that self-preservation is a hard-wired instinct.

There are real costs to what's happening. We're unable to forge the cooperation we need to address the crises ravaging our lives. I understand that Democrats are in power and Republicans as an opposition party have different ideas. Opposition is healthy, but they're not acting as opponents; they're acting as enemies. Political opponents see things differently and offer different prescriptions to cure our ills. Political enemies are solely interested in their rivals' demise. Right now Republicans seek to destroy this administration. If President Obama says A, Republicans swear that B is the only answer. Had he said B, they would swear that A is the only answer. Lawmakers have a duty to put aside their differences and work for the public good. Deliberately prolonging the suffering of the American people is unconscionable and unforgivable.

The rampant spread of anti-Islamic bigotry is also a potentially catastrophic problem. While difficult to quantify and measure, there's a cost to poisoning our national soul. A recent Pew Research poll showed that 25% of Americans (42% of Republicans) believe local communities should be able to forbid the construction of mosques. Only 47% of Republicans believe that Muslims should have the same right to worship as other faiths! Among the majority of Republicans who would deny 1st Amendment rights to Muslims, I bet most of them scream about Obama not honoring a narrow interpretation of the Constitution. I also bet they don't see their hypocrisy. I'm troubled that as President Obama is increasingly portrayed as the bogeyman, he's also increasingly believed to be Muslim. Among Republicans, 31% say he's a Muslim and only 27% correctly identify him as a Christian.

More importantly, we have military personnel risking their lives in Islamic lands trying to stop terrorism. This is not conventional warfare where we exert force until they say Uncle. Hearts and minds are the central front in this campaign. If we continue to convey the message that Islam itself is our enemy, then we will have done to ourselves what our enemy is incapable of doing -- we will have made our failure an iron-clad guarantee. We're not there yet, but we're taking dangerously idiotic steps in that direction. Effectively telling the Islamic world that the sleazy strip club near "Ground zero" doesn't defile this sacred ground but their house of worship does is a slap in the face that should deeply offend them.

It's not too late for cooler heads to prevail and pull us back from the brink. Let's return to a United States that isn't dominated by hatred and division. That country is my home and, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home..."