“Barack The Magic Negro”: Can The Republican Party Move Beyond Limbaughization?
Dec 29th, 2008 | 17 responses
The mini-firestorm that continues to rage over a candidate for the RNC chairmanship mailing Republican leaders a CD with a song satire parody titled “Barack The Magic Negro” that was originally played and defended by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh raises a fundamental question:
As it recovers from its Election 2008 drubbing and the Republican Party moves further into the 21st century, can the GOP move beyond the baby-boom-Nixon-era derived talk radio culture of political polarization — and put the Rush Limbaughization of its tone and some of its political discourse content behind it?
Actually, there are several issues at play in this controversy.
One: didn’t the election signal that it was time for thoughtful Republicans to insist upon a different approach to politics, one that at least inched back towards the idea that political parties need to build diverse coalitions to grow and consolidate if they want even incremental growth? Two: if you strip away people defending Paul Shanklin’s song parody (with the argument Limbaugh and his defenders use that oh, that song was only reacting to a column written by a black man that used the phrase — the Republican equivalent of “it all depends on what is is”) it’s clear that the intent was to point to and poke fun at aspects of Barack Obama’s race, raising it as a lighthearted issue. Just as another CD song poked fun at Hispanics. The intent wasn’t to welcome them into the GOP umbrella, but to say “see how different these people are from us and aren’t they FUNNY?”
Divide and rule hasn’t been unknown during since the baby boomers proved themselves to be The Un-Greatest Generation by perpetuating the Vietnam-era-derived polarization resentments that still fester nearly a half-century later (footnote: I myself AM a baby boomer).
The fact that an RNC election has now been marked by people defending and debating how unPC humor not laughed at by those who find it offensive means, why, it’s all a plot by that awful mainstream media and those (always) evil Democrats who just love to beat up on innocent Republicans is astounding given the fact the GOP has now shown it has some work to do on demographics — if it wishes to remain a party not cemented to 20th century-derived battles and attitudes.
Just look at these demographics of Obama’s win and it’s clear: the GOP needs to win friends, not continue to marginalize those who some GOPers insinuate aren’t “like us” and continue to alienate them. Along the way it’ll be alienating many younger voters and independent voters who aren’t amused by people who seemingly have contempt for people who either don’t have the same political letter as they do in front of their party affiliation, or don’t look or talk exactly the same way as they do.
But wasn’t this just satire? The problem with talk radio satire is that it’s all aimed at one side. It can’t be confused with Saturday Night Live. Still, talk radio satire has its place. It may spark controversy on talk radio, but that is where it belongs.
And can’t the talk radio show formula be a good way for a party to rally the faithful? Conceptually, yes — if this is segmented from how the party operates and articulates its message. In this case, RNC chairman candidate Chip Saltsman felt it would be well received if he sent these Limbaugh-played parodies. The problem for Saltsman: if he is the RNC chair (which now seems as likely as Rod Blagojevich being appointed to Obama’s cabinet as Attorney General) he will become the FACE of the party — and his face will look to many who might be skeptical of the Republicans as the face of Limbaugh. NOTE TO SALTSMAN: Those who love Limbaugh love and adore him. Those who dislike him REALLY dislike and abhor him.
Is Limbaugh a bad man?
Actually, he is an enormous broadcast talent who knows how to pace a show, how to seek and attract an audience, how to get them to come back for more, and how to make them act on political issues once his show is over. You can tell Liimbaugh so good by the fact that there are so many poor conservative talk show host Limbaugh impersonators who try to have the snark and snarl (“libbberals…”) but just come across as partisan hacks who could not make it in another radio format where they didn’t have to whip up listeners. Limbaugh knows broadcasting.
(A personal note. Polarizing talk show hosts who seek to create controversy where they can are on the left as well. Several years ago I was invited on an Air America station local talk show whose host and his associate got me on the air ostensibly to talk issues and about TMV, but turned the few minutes into suggesting that I was a secret, closet conservative Republican. They asked me about being moderate then talked over me mockingly and loudly each time I began to answer by saying “A moderate cup of coffee…a moderate case of cancer” — and finally cut me off. )
But a talk show and a political party is not the same thing and broadcasters and a political party couldn’t reach their larger goals if they used the same tactics.
Limbaugh has to be outrageous, blunt, and controversial to get and maintain an audience. He needs to get an audience by targeting a key demographic — or several — and then doing what he can to get them to listen in, visit repeatedly, then show those numbers to advertisers and station managers.
A political party — even one that seems to mobilize its base — can’t count on winning elections if it only attracts the we-agree-with-you-ditto crowd but and gives the back of its hand to others who might be open to its arguments if they weren’t insulted or ignored.
Talk show hosts don’t do as well if they’re not sharply defined in their rhetoric (note the talk show hosts who went up against Limbaugh in other markets over the years who flopped…)
At a time when a poll shows Obama (for now at least) the most admired man in the world among Americans, Saltsman thought it was a great idea to send GOPers a CD with the controversial song parodies.
What did that mean? He assumed there were shared assumptions among Republicans. All Republicans would roll in the aisles if they got a CD with the Magic Negro song and others songs about liberals, Hispanics, etc. The song topics focused on those assumed to be the political enemy or worthy of light or more heavy handed derision.
But, as it turned out, not all Republicans agreed. In fact, the song shows that there’s a split among RNC candidates on whether the song was an appalling thing to distribute or just humor that offended people who can’t take a joke.
In reality, though, this split underscored a bigger division:
The division between those who want to continue to keep the Republican party enmeshed in the country’s baby-boomer rooted confrontational talk radio culture, or move it beyond the days when those who backed the anti-war movement and the hippies confronted those who believed in the Vietnam War and abhorred the era of sex, drugs and rock and roll that caused Frank Sinatra’s and Rosemary Clooney’s record sales to decline. (See Andrew Sullivan here and the book Nixonland.
So perhaps a new lyric should be added to the offending song in a new song parody:
Oh, Chris the foot and mouth guy
Just couldn’t see
He got his stance from Rush Limbaugh and from Sean Hannity
Ran for RNC chair, he tried to set the pace
He sent Repubs an email song that mocked Obama’s race…
UPDATES:
From the LA Times’ Opinion L.A. blog:
But Saltsman still deserves to be raked over the coals. Not for anything to do with Obama, per se, but for campaigning with cultural references that are decades out of date.
“Puff the Magic Dragon?” You’ve got to be kidding. Was he on another planet Nov. 4? Did he miss how Republicans lost 66% of the vote of people age 30 and under? Thirty-year-olds weren’t even born when Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit came out in 1963. Sure Limbaugh used the parody and his crowd loved it, but the average Limbaugh listener is 51. Then there’s the parody itself and the faux Sharpton. Sure the Rev. deserves the disdain and disapprobation he earned for his outrageous behavior during the Tawana Brawley hoax case, but that happened in 1987. The World Wide Web wasn’t even invented then, which means young people have never heard of it. To them, Sharpton is just that black guy from New York with the funny hair.
It’s a given that Republicans are done trying to appeal to black voters, but are they really ready to give up everyone else who isn’t white? Because if not, here’s the thing: it’s not much of a stretch for Latinos and Asians — who also voted overwhelmingly for Obama — to imagine how a president-elect of their ethnicity also could be the target of such lighthearted Republican fun. “Mike the Magic Jap” and “Maria the Magic Mexican” probably wouldn’t go over that well either.
And Democratic blogger Hart Williams has his own assertive take which also includes links to some who don’t agree with him….
17 Responses to ““Barack The Magic Negro”: Can The Republican Party Move Beyond Limbaughization?”
The essay misses the problem that the Repubicans face. The Republicans do not have black, Hispanic, public sector employees, unions members who will vote for them no matter how they are treated.
The cost of appealing to black voters (the most liberal group in the U.S.) is the lost of many middle class white voters. Blacks insist that is you are opposed to affirmative action, minority set asides, race norming, and quotas, then you must be a racist. Yet, if the Repulbicans come out and support Affirmative Action, they will lose more white voters than it will ever gain from blacks.
Part of the parody is the frustration of Republicans to be able to actually discuss issues. Look at how McCain had to avoid Rev. Wright during the election because there is no way to discusses black racism and bigotry without drawing more criticism. Look at how Repulbicans have to avoid black sponsored political forums because the down side is so much bigger than any possible upside.
In the long run, the Repubican are not sustainable because the more conservative party has zero chance of long term survival. So, the real question is how will blacks fnciton in the coming one party state when all of the former Republicans start voting in the Democratic primary.
[...] “Barack The Magic Negro”: Can The Republican Party Move Beyond Limbaughization? [...]
SD, your stereotypes suffer from the same kind of thinking that inspired that dumb song in the first place. The GOP isn't in trouble because more of the of the country is turning brown, it's in trouble because it has such a terrible time getting a clue.
Jspencer,
Your thinking is why people do not understand how changing demographics so change. poltics.
What could the Republicans do to appeal to blacks and Hispanics without losing more white voters in the process. Do you really think that conservative whites will sit still while the Republicans support affirmative action, quotas, and open borders?
Rush Limbaugh will be more popular than ever, now that he'll have a Dem President that he can mock on a daily basis, much like he did with President Clinton. Of course, I'll be listening to Limbaugh now as much as then…never. To be forced to listen to three hours of his show is a strange kind of torture.
The key question is ” Can The Republican Party Move Beyond Limbaughization?”
The answer is no. It is answered in the article itself:
“Limbaugh has to be outrageous, blunt, and controversial to get and maintain an audience. He needs to get an audience by targeting a key demographic — or several — and then doing what he can to get them to listen in, visit repeatedly, then show those numbers to advertisers and station managers.”
The type of “dialogue” espoused by Limbaugh and his ilk is targetted at the lowest-common-denominator supporters of the GOP: those who enjoy conflict and rancor and, frankly, are incapable of digesting the facts of an issue and deciding what to do based on those facts. They are dogmatic and foolish and easily swayed by rhetoric and jingoism and fear.
My own abandonment of the GOP coincided with the rise of this type of dialog and the conversion from a party of intellect and ability (the 41st President had one of the sharpest Cabinets in modern history) to a party of self-serving, dogmatic idiocy.
SD – Again, your comment shows the exact symptom we're talking about – the American right needs to get a clue, and as long as they're getting collectively gleeful over a tasteless joke (laughing a little too long), they're wandering further and further away from a path back to power.
97% of blacks voted for Obama, along with 78% of Hispanics. Yet you continue to assume that they are all motivated by the social programs offered by Democrats (affirmative action, welfare, the usual bugaboos of the right), with the tacit implication that conservative policies of low taxation and self-reliance only appeal to white people. This is racist on the face of it. As long as minority groups are shown such outright contempt by the Republicans in stunts like the “Magic Negro” episode, and until the party makes some good-faith efforts to reach out to them, minorities will continue to shun the party. It's as simple as that.
Great post today on Big Bag of WInd (http://www.bigbagofwind.com) on the role of bloggers in the political polarization of America. It's not just talk radio. Blog comments, comments on online journal sites, comments on broadcast journal sites contribute very much, due to what the post calls “rapid discourse at two-arms lengths away.” Plus bloggers all want to outdo each other to get their posts read. This blog, of course, being an exception.
davigoli,
the Congressional Black Caucus is the most liberal group in Congress. They support all forms of government spending other than defense and law enforcement. They have pushed for reparations for years. Polls show that most blacks want reparpations. How can the conservative party ever appeal to a group that thinks race based government programs are a good idea and good policy?
why shouldn't Republicans show a littel comtempt for a group that relects people like William Jefferson, Kwame Kilpatrick, and Marion Barry. Progressive whites love to point out Strom thurman was a racist but if anyone points out that Cynthia McKinney is a whacked out racist and bigot, they are called a racist in return. See how the uneven playing field creates resentment.
I thought this bit from Joe summed everything up quite nicely:
“it’s clear that the intent was to point to and poke fun at aspects of Barack Obama’s race, raising it as a lighthearted issue. Just as another CD song poked fun at Hispanics. The intent wasn’t to welcome them into the GOP umbrella, but to say “see how different these people are from us and aren’t they FUNNY?”
And yet, the Congressional Black Caucus is NOT the same as the black diaspora. You have selected the subgroup(s) most personally repugnant to you and projected their perceived faults on the entire race. That's called racism, my friend.
PS William Jefferson lost his latest re-election bid, in case you hadn't noticed.
davigoli,
Most African-Americans do support reparations According to http://californiawestern.edu/content/journals/Y… it is around 70% Whereas according to another poll, 90% of whites do not support reparations. Is it safe to say that when almost 70% of a group support a very liberal, extreme position.
Also, William Jefferson lost his relection bid due to the odd laws in Louisiana that allowed better turnout of white voters to vote Jefferson out of office. If Louisiana has the same election laws as the most states, Jefferson would be going back to LA .
SD,
Again, if you're looking at a group that's hostile to your point of view, why are you wasting your time disparaging them? If conservatism is truly a superior philosophy, I'd think you'd want to be making your case to them. If I were you, I'd be looking at the gap between the 70% of blacks (according to your cite) that support reparations, and the 97% that voted for Obama, and try to make inroads amongst that 27%. Surely the Republicans can do better than 3% in the black community, no? You may never have a majority, but you can surely break into the double digits. But the reason why you don't is because of this overt racism amongst many on the right wing. I believe there are large numbers of blacks who actually want to be conservative but see waves of hostility coming from the GOP. Some sensible Republicans see that this is destructive and feel badly about it. Others gleefully pratter on about reverse racism, thinking that somehow it's equivalent when an oppressed minority goes overboard than when a centuries-long majority goes overboard. Time will tell which faction will control the fate of the party.
Davigoli,
If 70% of blacks are crazy enough to support race based reparations. Then there are more how are still very liberal but just not liberal enough to be that crazy. If Bush had been perfect, if McCain had been ten times more capable, the Republicans would still have lost 97% of the black vote to Obama. It is more than overt racism. If you do not support affirmative aciton, over 90% of blacks will consider you a racist. If you believe that criminals should be punsihed, most blacks will consider you a racist.
If you want to talk about overt racism, you should look at the Democrats who stood in front of the Supreme Court and argued that separate and unequal is not only legal but good government policy. Since most blacks actually support separate and unequal, there is not room in any conservative political party for them.
Wow. Let me know how that works out for you in 10 years when nobody will talk to you anymore.
SD, you've spent a fair amount of time at TMV harping about how the GOP is becoming increasingly irrelevant. To the extent that this is true, it is the result of their poor ability to govern, and not because the country is becoming more brown. That accountability aspect of their decreasing popularity is something that still seems to be eluding you.
Jspencer,
It is both aspects. Due to changing demographics, the Repubicans needed to be much better than the Democrats. The Republicans needed to increase their share of the white vote with every election cycle. However, the Republicans face the prospect that no matter what they did, less than half of the voters would be willing to vote for them. However, the incompetence f the Bush Administration just sped up the process. The changing demographics have create a situation where every eleciton cycle is easier for the Democrats and harder for the Republicans. Of course, the MSM has made it much harder for the Repubicans because every Republican has to answer for what a school board in Kansas for a non-elected official said. However, the blue dog Democrats are never forced into defending what liberals in California or the Congressional Black Caucus says or does.